jfugate wrote:Make sense?
Sorta, I guess. I am running DCC, and I will be running short 4 wheel critters. My longest locos will be Shays and Climaxes. I've read extensively on Alan Gartner's web site and from the looks of it, all I need to do will be to insulate the frog rails......that and not approach the turnout the wrong way. LOL. I'll just have to be careful, I guess.
jfugate wrote:Gear:The big downside of an electrofrog turnout (or any live frog turnout) is you will get a short if you approach from the frog end when the points are thrown the wrong way.With an insulfrog turnout (once it's properly insulated as we've shown), you can run through one from the frog end with the points thrown the wrong way and you just go on the ground like on the prototype. Notice, no shorts! Make sense?
Joe
I'm sorry to disagree with you. I don't see a train derailing on a turnout thrown against it as more advantageous than a train stopping (without derailing!) due to a short as it spans the gap near the frog of a turnout thrown against it. Throwing the turnout to the correct position and having the current limiter or circuit breaker auto-reset is much easier on both me and the equipment than rerailing the rolling stock and throwing the turnout to the correct position while I'm doing the rerailing.
And if one is using your system of subdistricts with current limiters - the shutdown due to the short becomes more limited. I would certainly want other trains operating in the vicinity of or using the same turnout shut down while I was rerailing anyway, so having the current limiter or circuit breaker do it for me is another advantage.
Add in the additional "live" rail surface for power pickup (regardless of wheelbase or pickup system) - I can't see the downside for correctly wired live frogs. That last phrase is really the only benefit I know of to dead frogs - easier wiring and no frog polarity contacts required. But I'm willing to be corrected if I'm missing something in my analysis.
yours in preferring to keep my frogs alive :-)
Fred Wright
Joe Fugate Modeling the 1980s SP Siskiyou Line in southern Oregon
Appreciate your answers. I like to make reasoned choices. I would agree that for any size layout running diesels or large steam with plenty of power pickups that dead frogs make operation, installation, and maintenance simpler - and those issues have higher relative importance for larger layouts. My point was that the issue of shorts at the frog rail gaps of live frogs vs derailing at the points is somewhat of a red herring - neither is desirable! Yet I hear this reason cited as why one should not use live frogs all the time. I'm now satisfied that we both have good reasons for making the choices we are making. Thanks again for taking the time to educate me.
Fred W
modelmaker51 wrote: take a dremel with a cutoff disc and grind each rail head to thin it from the inside by about half .
take a dremel with a cutoff disc and grind each rail head to thin it from the inside by about half .
I did say "grind each rail" in my original post.
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
Other builds: https://imageshack.com/my/albums
Yup, you sure did.
-Crandell
Exactly, and Joe's very point. When I realized that I could get even my little Heritage 0-6-0 across every single DCC-friendly turnout on my layout, handbuilt or otherwise, I was only too happy to apply my time elsewhere.
As I said elsewhere, if you don't like the gap resulting from your best effort with a cut-off disk, get a jeweler's saw. You will have to look closely to see them gaps!
selector wrote: Exactly, and Joe's very point. When I realized that I could get even my little Heritage 0-6-0 across every single DCC-friendly turnout on my layout, handbuilt or otherwise, I was only too happy to apply my time elsewhere. As I said elsewhere, if you don't like the gap resulting from your best effort with a cut-off disk, get a jeweler's saw. You will have to look closely to see them gaps!
Where in the world would one purchase a jewelers saw. Evidently it's a very specialized too and Home Depot probably doesn't have them...
Thanks for the suggestion, Selector!
Jarrell
selector wrote:Modelmaker, I used a very thin diamond-studded wheel, and it still created a 1.5mm gap, despite my best efforts. I think that is too thick by about .7 mm; it looks terrible. The jeweller's file is amazing, although very delicate. It is what Tim Warris of Fast Tracks recommends for gapping his frogs. Just like his jigs, and spline roadbed, once you have done them, there is no going back.
Selector, how are you able to get the jewelers file down where you need it and it be 'level', if you know what I mean, with the tracks? I did the nail polish trick and while it fixed the problem it only lasted about 10 passes of a locomotive. The turnouts, there are two of them, are on a passenger train double ended siding and the siding is wired so I wouldn't have to add the jumpers mentioned earlier because it's already powered. They're large radius Pecos (I think they equal a number 6 in Atlas turnouts), and I just knew they'd be the last turnouts to give me a problem. I think what I'm getting is called experience..
JaRRell
JaRRel, unfortunatley, you must remove the turnouts, clamp them on their sides, and insert the saw blade between the ties, clamp the very fragile blade into the U-frame of the saw, and then commence to saw. No other way. Remember, I did all this under instruction from the Fast-Tracks organization for the handlaid turnouts that I was building. The saw will do what you need of it, but you can't saw the frog rails in place. You must remove the turnout and place it in a vice....carefully.
If you go this way, and I feel strongly that you should, when you start the sawing motion against the rails, my experience was to push the saw away from me, using my thumbnail as a guide for the blade, for about 10-15 strokes until the blade had created a sufficiently deep groove that you could commence the back-and forth action. Thereafter, it goes quickly, although you must be careful not to let the blade fall into the next rail when it finishes the cut, or you'll have to replace the blade.
It is a bit finicky, but you get the hang of it really fast, and then it's like anything else about the hobby...yer on yer way.
Gaps? What gaps? I don't see no stinkin' gaps!
selector wrote: JaRRel, unfortunatley, you must remove the turnouts, clamp them on their sides, and insert the saw blade between the ties, clamp the very fragile blade into the U-frame of the saw, and then commence to saw. No other way. Remember, I did all this under instruction from the Fast-Tracks organization for the handlaid turnouts that I was building. The saw will do what you need of it, but you can't saw the frog rails in place. You must remove the turnout and place it in a vice....carefully. If you go this way, and I feel strongly that you should, when you start the sawing motion against the rails, my experience was to push the saw away from me, using my thumbnail as a guide for the blade, for about 10-15 strokes until the blade had created a sufficiently deep groove that you could commence the back-and forth action. Thereafter, it goes quickly, although you must be careful not to let the blade fall into the next rail when it finishes the cut, or you'll have to replace the blade. It is a bit finicky, but you get the hang of it really fast, and then it's like anything else about the hobby...yer on yer way. Gaps? What gaps? I don't see no stinkin' gaps!
Ouch!... remove the turnouts! I now wish I hadn't but I did.. solder the turnouts in place. Would've made removing them soooo much easier. Oh well, maybe I can try another method, like grinding down the insides of the two rails.
Thanks Crandell!
ereimer wrote:jeweler's saws are available online here ... http://www.jewelrysupply.com/jewelry_making_supply_tools/saw_blades_frames.htmlwhat many non-jewelers don't know is that you're supposed to lubricate the blade with beeswax ... http://www.jewelrysupply.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1447it helps a lot with reducing broken bladesdisclaimer: not only am i not an employee of jewelerysupply.com , i've never ordered from them or dealt with them in any other way
Tsk! Now you tell me....