Hi guys,
I'm checking that i have connected the cables correctly to the Tortoise motor and Peco turnouts, but i do not get the frog to change polarity. I have built this tester: : https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/17215 .When i use the polarity tester the green LED always lights up when i check the frog, regardless of the turnout direction.
I have wired the Peco this way: https://dccwiki.com/File:TurnoutModifiedElectrofrog.gif
I have shifted cables 2-3 on the motor, no change.
And i have moved cabled to the internal switch no.2 on the motor, no change.
I use an NCE Power Cab.
I starting to feel a little fried... but maybe it's the motor-switches that are fried?
Hope for some input,Thanks,
Pete
First of all, does the tester work correctly, just on a plain piece of track? Hook the red to one rail, green to the other, and then you should get the red LED when the probe touches one rail and the green LED when the probe touches the other rail. Once you are sure that is all wired correctly, then you can proceed to use it to test the frog.
Next, try disconnecting the wire from the frog. Keep the rails connected to 2 and 3, and also connect the tester red and green to the same rails that feed pins 2 and 3 (given the numbers, I assume you are using Tortoise switch motors). Connect the probe to pin 4. The red and green LED should change with the position of the switch motor. I'm not even sure how it couldn't. You're not simply using the contacts in the Tortoise to do what you did manually to validate the tester is working correctly.
If that works - are you certain the turnout is wired exactly like the diagram, that the factory jumpers are cut? Because if the common terminal (4) from the Tortoise is flipping between rail a and rail b, the connecting that wire to the frog has to do the same.
Do you have isulated joiners on the two rails that diverge from the frog? As shown on the turnout wiring diagram - these are critical and you'll have s short if not.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy,
-The polarity tester checks out perfectly.
-Disconnected green wire on terminal 4 and connected the probe, the LED's on the tester shift from red to green and back again when throwing the panel switch, check.
-My turnouts is wired exactly after the drawing, and i know i cut a lot of jumper on switches, but, it could have been a poorly made cut on this one... make sense.I dont want to rip apart everything, so i think i drill a small hole from under and have a look. What rail would be the problem, the one that have a green LED connected all the time?
-Yes, i have isulated joiners at both rails from the frog, check.
Unfortunately i'm not a good electric... guy, it's hard for me to come up with those question you had, and i'm very thankfull for that!
Regards,Pete
Do you have any other turnouts you could test the tester on? How about just hand-sliding an engine over the turnout, DCC power on but the engine itself stopped? You should get a short if the frog polarity is wrong. On DC you can just run the engine slowly, or use a track-powered illuminated passenger car.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
As I understand it 1 & 8 come from the switch to the tortoise.
2 & 3 are from the track power and 4 powers the frog
If that (4) changes at the tortoise, (and you said it does) then when that is red, the tortoise should be receiving red power and the tester should be red. If it is green and receiving red power, that should be a short, which should trip the system.
Not a peco guy, but does the frog wire go somewhere other than #4?
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I'm not sure how it could be possible to get green all the time regardless of the Tortoise position, since it definitely is switching as ou said witht he tester hooked to pin 4. If one of the jumpers wasn;t cut to isolate the frog, There would be a short as soon as the Tortoise changed to connect the opposite rail to the frog (whichever one was MISSING the cut - when switched to the rail missing a gap, everything is fine, it's like to like, but when the Tortoise moves the other way, you are not directly connecting the opposite rails together and it would be a short). So it's not likely yo've missed cuttong one of the jumpers, or the insualted joiner/gap has closed up.
I'm with BigDaddy, does the wire go from the ortoise pin 4 to the frog, and ONLY the frog, no other connections to that wire?
Only other way it could always be green is if you are putting the probe on the wrong part of the turnout. Any place from the gaps in the closure rail (that have the jumpers underneath that you cut) up to the gaps you cut in the diverging rail should all be part of the 'frog' and should change with the Tortoise contacts. The red and green from the tester should go to the same place you have the Tortoise 2 and 3 wired up - wherever you connected them to validate that the LED changes with the Tortoise when the probe was connected right to pin 4.
I'm in the beginning of installing cables, power, and switches, so just one turnout is "ready". Frog wire only goes to 4. I was not sure what would happend if i got a short, thats why i wanted it correct from the beginning. I'll take an evening pause and will be at it tomorrow again.
which rails are pins 2&3 connected to? see diagram
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Greg,
I shifted internal switch earlier, right now i use pin 5,6,7.Pin 7 goes now to the left straight rail, and 6 to the right rail, 5 to frog.
But i shifted 6 an 7 earlier, no differense.
Scandinavian-Disconnected green wire on terminal 4 and connected the probe, the LED's on the tester shift from red to green and back again when throwing the panel switch, check.
does this mean that without connecting the tortoise to the frog it has the corect polarity depending how the points are switched?
That seems to be the issue. With the tester connected to the common on the Tortoise, it correctly flips between the red and green LED being let depending on which way the Tortoise is moved, at least that's what the OP reports. However, when he connects a wire from the Tortoise common to the frog, and then touched the tester probe to the frog itself, he gets a green LED regardless of which way the Tortoise is moved.
The points are flipping when the Tortoise moves, right? Even if not, if the red and green wires from the tester are connected to the two outside rails at or prior to the points, the points not moving wouldn't make any difference, especially if the jumpers to the frog under the closure rail have been cut.
The only possible way that simple tester coudl display a green both ways is if both the frog is changing polarity AND the inputs from track power are ALSO changing.
Hmm - you don't have an autoreverser, or your DCC booster configured to autoreverser, connected to the track feeding the point end of the turnout, do you? Because if the jumpers or gaps aren't configured correctly, it woudl otherwise be a dead shortif the ponts were lined so rail A powers the frog through the not-cut jumper, and the Tortoise contacts connect it to rail B. But if there is an autoreverser, rail A and B would swap, the short clears, but the same LED would stay lit on the tester.
can you use the tester and maybe a long wire to one of the rails (on the turnout) to verify the connections to the tortoise contacts.
Ok, i'm back...
I shall read and check your last posts soon, some daily bussiness first... : )
I removed the turnout - the jumpers where removed, and the turnout works as intended when i check with my test meter.
No reverser and no booster installed.
"Works as intended" meaning exactly what? The only thing you should see with a meter is there is no continuity between either stock rail and the frog, regardless of the point position. And no continuity between the frog and either closure rail (because the jumpers were cut).
Now that you removed the turnout, I presume you have the wire from the Tortoise sticking up near where the frog was - use the tester with the red and green on the two outer rails and the probe on the wire that was attached tot he frog. This should work exactly as it did when you tested at the Tortoise end - it is after all just a piece of wire. Connected to the same point on the Tortoise that you previously tested which worked.
What i meant was... the frog was isolated from the rest of the turnout, no jumper forgotten.
Okay, after checking all things you guys say'd, i started to think this may't end with some awkward ending, and it sure did This frog cable goes to another motor... eh...
I be back later with the results, but i had not find it so fast without your help, thats for sure!!
I was posting at the same time as the OP. Glad you found the problem. Testing methodically is the way to go. My money is on pilot error rather than tortoise or turnout failure. I could be wrong and my friends on the forum usually let me know about it.
Totaly agree with that, the problem starts when you don't have enough experience of something and don't know how they exactly work.For me... it's a lot of trial and error right now.
I just learned how to install and config Loksound, modify sound settings with a programmer. That was a long headache... i tell you.
No worries, happens to all of us at some point. My worst was the first time I participated in a club show, about 10-11 years ago. Not my first club, and even by then I had been in the hobby a LONG time (I have an 8mm home movie of 2 year old me running trains). So, you know, I pretty much know how to install Kadee couplers, or so you'd think. So here I am, in front of a new bunch of people who have no idea of my level of skill, having all just met me, and someone backs in to a cut of Athearn hoppers a bit too hard and of course the little clip pops off and the couple falls on the rails. So I'm standing right there and pick up to put it back together (its a club car, not someone's personal rolling stock). I've installed Kadees in dozens of Athearn cars, this is easy. Until the member standing next to me says something about which way it goes on - I was putting it in upside down!
No wonder it took much convincing that the reason there was a problem with trains makign it all the way around the layout (first time the entire thing was set up with DCC) was that there was no common wire strung between all the boosters. Eventually they believed me and how about that, it worked perfectly fine the rest of the week we were set up. ANd each module got an extra wire added to the harness for the common.
Well, "from every misstake you make, you become a little bit more professional". Is that an axiom or... ?
The turnout is back in place, so now its just moving some green-frog-cables.
They're green because they connect to frogs, and frogs are green, right?
See, you're learning, from no less than Tony Koester himself.
Frogs can be very green, and toxic! (at least for me)
Victory! what a relief...I only had to change 6 and 7 on motor to get the polarity correct, then it worked like a charm. Now i can continue and know that all other parts of the track will be fine.
Thanks for all fantastic help guys! Regards,Pete
WiringforDCC.com has a short tester you can make for a couple bucks. If you are wiring, looking up at the underside of the layout, it's not hard to get confused. I know of a case where a surgeon made the incision for an appendectomy on the left side. More amazing is everyone watched him drape out the incision and cut on the wrong side.
Thanks, i have seen this before but not fully grasp the technology, so i built the tester above instead.
Think of it this way, one side of the battery is supplying black power to the buzzer. To complete the circuit the buzzer needs a connection to the red power.
Red from the battery goes to the North rail, down the north feeders and into the north bus.
The red lead from the buzzer is connected to the South rail. There should never be red power there.
The only way the South rail gets red power is if a north feeder touches a south rail or a south feeder touches a north rail.
For this to test properly, you can't have the booster or frog juicers hooked up.
http://www.wiringfordcc.com/track.htm
Ok, but do you think its nessesary to use this setup on a 2'x9' switcher modul?
I use micro-switches mounted to the tortoise to control the frog (or center rails in my case with old style Walthers/Shinohara code 83 turnouts).
.
This set up creates a "Break Before Make" situation and prevents any problems with flying shorts.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Kevin,
I'm not sure... but do you refer to - coming in to the turnout from "the wrong side", frog side, and the "points" are not set correctly?
The issue is the pre-DCC friendly Shinohara turnouts are made so that both point rails are electrically tied together, and to the frog. If you use the Tortoise contacts, and the Tortoise isn't perfectly aligned, the Tortoise contacts could flip over before the point rails have come away from the old stock rail, or the points could touch the new stock rail before the contacts have switched over. Either way, you have the frog connected to one rail while the points are touching the other rail - that's a short. Not an issue with Peco when you cut those jumpers, it can't happen.
That's not the only issue with the way those turnouts are designed, although you seldom see the other problem when using DC due to the slow reaction time of DC overload protection.
Scandinavian Ok, but do you think its nessesary to use this setup on a 2'x9' switcher modul?
Probably not, if you use two different colors for feeder wires, and use matching colors for the bus wire. I built a fancy version, it had a toggle switch to flip between buzzer mode to detect shorts or a bicolor LED to check for track power. It promptly ended up in my junk drawer and has been there ever since. Probably destroyed because I don't remember if I opened it up and took out the 9V battery which by now will have leaked all over.
If this layout is built on shewlves along the wall, you could use something like red wire for feeders on the rail towards the wall - red, rear. and some other color for the rail to the front, and it's not likely you would mess that up. Keeping it all straight when the layout twists and turns all over the place, doubles back on itself, etc - that's when it gets a little harder to keep track of.
Ah... yes, remember those shinohara, had some of them before, and i can see the problem of the points. I prefere Peco now. The only problem with Peco is coming in the frog-way and points not correct, yep, could be an issue if you not had your daily dose of coffee... So i making my control panel with green and red LEDs for every turnout, then i can see if the way i like to drive is okay. Well, that's a learning by doing also.
And i have done the setup as you say here, main bus and feeders are all red and black, but my red wire are closest to me. Red and black to frog power-shift , green for frog, and yellow to switches in the panel for motors.
Yes, the layout is on the wall on consoles: