My DCC Sound President Washington B&O 5300 Broadway Limited keeps stalling and shorting out on an Atlas crossing at the apex of the crossover; I use the term apex to signify the place where the two track, four turnout (Which are atlas also) converge. Can the frog of the crossing by powered in DCC to allow a continuous flow of traffic across the crossover? Is it a bum or bad crossing perhaps? I will have to rebuild the crossover if that is the case. Will post a picture in a few hours.
to the Forum Your first few posts are moderated and delayed. If you have no Russian brides to sell, it goes away.
Mel is our Atlas crossover guru. His page is here.
If we can believe his drawing, and I am sure we can, the frog rails are hot, powered by internal jumpers, I think. That little bitty frog isn't going to stall out the President Washington
In a Peco turnout, the convergence of frog rails is a place where a short can occur. I don't recall seeing the complaint about Atlas.
An internal fault could lead to a dead frog rail. A cheap Harbor Freight voltmeter could test that.
I'm wondering if there is something else in this particular loco that is causing a short.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
And there's Mel !
I understand the OP to have constructed a crossover like yours. Don't know what Atlas turnouts and crossing he used.
I used an Atlas crossing, not on a crossover, just between a couple of spurs. It was defective, behaving as has been described. I replaced it with a Walthers crossing and that worked perfectly. I just tossed it. For a few dollars, it wasn't worth putting my LHS through the grief.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I gave up on double crossovers after spending several frustrating years trying to deal with three Walthers Shinohara Double Crossovers on my layout. Too many dead spots, too many derailments. One by one, I removed the failing DCO's and replaced each of them with a pair of single crossovers. If you have the space, you should do that too.
Rich
Alton Junction
Here are a pair of double crossovers fabricates from Atlass (or other) turnouts and an Atlass Crossing. I think that the crossing works fairly well, your problem may be in ore or more of the turn outs. (click on photo for more detail)
LION does not bother to wire the crossings of him as 48 wheel power pick-up solves all problems. (solder all rail joiners, or power every segment of ail separately. --- LION uses relays for power routing, and him controls each pair of turnouts with a separate lever. NOT all four straigt or reversed, but only one pair can be reversed. This is per ALL railroad operating proceedures. You can NEVER align a conflictiong rout.)
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
You are correct Atlas does NOT make double crossovers, I constructed the crossover with a crossing of 12.5 degrees and four #8 turnouts. Having trouble attaching a photo, but maybe if you have the track and crossing you can construct one to look at. Sorry I took so long to respond, it is just too hot here in Maryland and I am feeling drained. Aging is not for the faint hearted to be sure. It is a pain if you ask me.
[Note: Language edited by moderator. Using Yiddish does not get you around our prohibition on adult language. Thanks.]
Rommel John HO BandOHaving trouble attaching a photo, but maybe if you have the track and crossing you can construct one to look at.
Anyone who doesn't understand the track geometry can look at Lion's or Mel's (in my link above) crossover.
I'm not sure it would be helpful but you have to upload your picture to a photo hosting site like Imgur.com and then provide a link. Directions are here
Do you have other engines that can negotiate the crossover without stalling/shorting?
There are 4 ways it can enter the crossing. Does it short out in all those directions?
Shamelessly stealing Mels' photo, this shows the polarity of the crossing
Your degrees are different but the polarity should be the same. Green on the crossing ought to be in continuity with green on the mainlines and red with red. Red and green should never be in continuity. If there is a dead section of track, it would be easier to install a feeder than ripout the crossing and a couple turnouts for replacement. It could even be a poor connection at a rail joiner.
Unless you live on the Eastern Shore, there ought to be a Harbor Freight, within an hour from you.
Mazel tov for being censored for Yiddish.
Edit are there any insulated rail joiners in this story?
Okay, I sped my non dcc engine to 80 and ran across the double crossover, no problems, my DCC engines all stall out and try to reboot or just lie there dead, slow and fast. dcc engine also wants to derail on the crossover where the non decoded engine cruises effortlessly over the crossover even slower around 45 this leads me to beleive that i have a dcc issue and not a conductivity one, should I dedicate a booster (I ran Digitrax exclusively) to the crossover and other dcc dead places? I have a small 6 by 14 layout, I shouldn't need a Booster like that what is a resolution?
Rommel John HO BandOmy DCC engines all stall out and try to reboot or just lie there dead, slow and fast.
Just to be clear on what you mean by reboot, does the engine stop, sound stop and then restart or does your system reboot? You did mention shorting in your first post.
Rommel John HO BandOdcc engine also wants to derail on the crossover where the non decoded engine cruises effortlessly
I believe some of electricty is magic, but DCC causing an engine to derail is a stretch, even for me. That will bring things to a stop. Are the wheels and track in gauge?
Rommel John HO BandO i have a dcc issue and not a conductivity one, should I dedicate a booster (
If it's a DCC issue, I don't believe a booster would help. DCC is more demanding than DC in terms of the quality of the signal. It could be a bad rail joiner connection, because of ballasting track weathering or just corrosion. We haven't entirely ruled out a bad crossing.
If there's a question of not enough voltage or no voltage, you should measure it, rather than throw $100 or more at a booster, spend $5 on a voltmeter and find out for sure.
Rommel John HO BandO Okay, I sped my non dcc engine to 80 and ran across the double crossover, no problems, my DCC engines all stall out and try to reboot or just lie there dead, slow and fast. dcc engine also wants to derail on the crossover where the non decoded engine cruises effortlessly over the crossover even slower around 45 this leads me to beleive that i have a dcc issue and not a conductivity one, should I dedicate a booster (I ran Digitrax exclusively) to the crossover and other dcc dead places? I have a small 6 by 14 layout, I shouldn't need a Booster like that what is a resolution?
A single booster is more than enough for a 6' x 14' layout.
Conductivity can be tested with power off, using an ohmmeter.
Are you experiencing stalls or shorts with your DCC locomotives?
Do all DCC locomotives derail on the double crossover or just one locomotive?
It is that the DCC engines are indeed stalling over the insulated frog of the crossing and the adjacent turnouts. I can wire the Atlas frogs on turnouts, but do crossings have the same feature? Can't find one on any of my atlas crossings. Any suggestions on the proper way to juice a frog on an Atlas crossing?
Thank you Mel and everyone -- but does anyone know how to wire a frog on an atlas crossing?
RR_MelThere appears to be a terminal at the end of one of the ties in the Atlas picture.
That's what I am seeing on the MTS website too. And the frog on a #8 is really long compared to smaller turnouts. Maybe powering that will be enough. A 1-78 brass screw will work also, a 2-56 is too big. 2mm is in between the two.
If the crossing frogs are metal, Atlas metal frogs don't accept solder. You will need to drill and tap a hole for a 1-78 brass screw. Cosmetically it would look better if done from underneath, but there must be some jumpers somewhere to power the frog rails.
As a newbie, to us, we don't know what you don't know. The frog needs switchable power so it can change polarity.
A question yet unasked:
Would it be possible to change to two single crossovers, instead?
OldEngineman A question yet unasked: Would it be possible to change to two single crossovers, instead?
richhotrain I gave up on double crossovers after spending several frustrating years trying to deal with three Walthers Shinohara Double Crossovers on my layout. Too many dead spots, too many derailments. One by one, I removed the failing DCO's and replaced each of them with a pair of single crossovers. If you have the space, you should do that too. Rich
If the locomotives that are stalling have pickups on only one truck then the huge unpowered #8 frog is going to be a problem whether the #8 switch is part of a crossover or not, and all #8 switches on the layout anywhere will need to have their frogs powered, or keep alive will have to be added to every loco that has only one pickup.
I suspect it is more likely that the locos that stall have pickups from both trucks, but the length of the loco is precisely long enough so the front truck hits the dead spot in the crossing while the back truck is on the dead frog in the #8 turnout.
In that case you have 3 alternatives. You can add keep-alive to the locos that stall. You can power the frogs of the four #8 turnouts making up the crossover, or you can power the frogs of the crossing and leave the turnout frogs unpowered. (It may be that for the atlas crossover, powering the unpowered parts is impossible as they're plastic, that part I don't know - so maybe only two practical alternatives).
Adding keep-alive to your locos is a very good solution if you don't have many locos - it fixes the problem for your entire layout once and for all and will let you run with dirtier track.
If powering frogs, you need a frog juicer or some other way to appropriately flip the polarity of the power to the frogs. A single-board quad frog juicer would be ideal if powering the turnout frogs.
FWIW, I have recently powered the frogs on about 100 Atlas Code 83 #4 and #6 turnouts for the club. I used 2-56 brass screws and they seemed to fit fine. I don't think the walls of the hole were left too thin.
I do have one suggestion with regard to getting good contact between the screw and the frog hole. I didn't cut the threads all the way through the hole. I stopped so that the top thread was slightly undercut. This makes the screw fit tightly into the hole thereby ensuring good long term conductivity.
Also, I used my variable speed drill to hold the tap. I found it much easier to line up squarely on the frog hole, and using a very low speed made it easy to control the depth of the cut.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
John, any chance you could take a video your cell phone, post it on youtube? That way, we could see which engines stall and where the front and rear wheels are and exactly where they stop.
After the #8 frog, a loco could be on all 4 frogs of the crossing, all at the same time. The two entry and exit frogs and the center frogs. What is the distance between the entry and exit frogs Mel?