Help. I am building an N scale version of the Virginian that MR built. Using all Atlas code 55 track and turnouts except for one curved Peco. I have two Tam Valley hex frog juicers hooked up for now that take care of 8 switches, all on the same bus/district. When I run an engine through them the engine still stalls intermittently on the frog. Except if I an running the engine through at moderately high and unrealistic speed (above 47 on DT500 control). I can see the trip light on the juicer blink and when I check the rail and frog with a volt meter it reads 12.3 volts between the frog and the active rail. I am using a Digitrax DCS210 starter set which says 12.3v is correct. The engine is an older Bachmann Spectrum Conrail SD45 that I put a decoder in. I cleaned the wheel sets and track and checked wheel set continuity to make sure all wheels picking up power. I am just getting back into the hobby and dad gave me the Spectrum. Trying to sort this out before installing circuit breakers. Feels like the engine may be the source of issues.
WPAa volt meter it reads 12.3 volts between the frog and the active rail.
Just to clarify what you mean by the active rail. That should be the stock rail on the path that the engine should or has taken.
The wire run from frog to juicer shoud be 22-26 ga and no longer than 3'
I assume you only have one engine. Did it run OK as a DC engine?
If you are telling us the frog changes polarity at the right time and the right voltage, it has to be a wheel gauge issue, or track gauge. In HO the base of the frog can be too shallow, allowing the wheel flange to ride on the base and not the rail.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Thanks for reply. I guess a newbie mistake. I cleaned the wheel set before finalizing things and thought they were clean enough. Ran them across some rubbing alcohol and just a little gray tinge but it was the problem. Smooth running now at 16 on the throttle. I had to tweak one minor low part of rail where it dipped into the yard and I guess enough to break wheel contact. I am running the wire gauge and lenghts as noted.
Was overly optimistic since it is still happening. May pick up a track gauge. Finished wiring up a PM42 circuit breaker and was checking it out and was stalling again on most frogs. The PM42 has me puzzled as well since it seems when I short it in one district the engine stops in another. One hurdle at a time.
I have my live frogs wired to the Tortoises and never have problems.
Can you set the trip current on a juicer? If it's too low, you may see stalling or cutouts by the base station.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I have four Tortoise motors but not wired up yet. Rest are going to be Caboose thrown and are on the Tam Valley juicers, ones I am having trouble with. I will double check on the voltage. Don’t think you can change voltage on the juicers. I have short bus runs and am using 16 gauge so not thinking I am loosing any voltage. Thanks.
Thanks for the views and bearing with me. I noticed the engine seemed a little unbalanced and able to be rocked a little so I flipped the one set of trucks 180 degrees and now seems fine. Must be after I cleaned them I flipped them and it must have been enough to rock off the outer rail at the frog. I checked other items with an NMRA gauge and seems fine. Not out of the woods yet since have not had time to really run it. My last go around was decades ago so a bit of a learning curve on all the little DCC hurdles.