What is the difference between PECO Insulfrog and Electrofrog?
Differences between PECO’s Electrofrog and Insulfrog Turnouts. The electrical power routing of the Peco Electrofrog is different than that of the PECO Insulfrog. The Electrofrog is a well designed turnout. There is no plastic for wheels to run on.
What is Peco Insulfrog?
The PECO Insulfrog is a power routing turnout. The term Power Routing indicates that only the route selected by the switch rails has power. This is accomplished by controlling power to the point rails. Out of the package it is 100% DCC Compatible.
Are Peco turnouts DCC friendly?
The Peco Electrofrog turnouts are power routing right out of the box and therefore are not DCC Friendly. However, they are designed to be easily be converted for DCC operations. The point rails must have insulated rail joiners as they will create a short without them.
What is a Peco Unifrog point?
See the Video. Summary: The PECO UNIFROG is a new turnout design from PECO. Out of the package, it will behave like the PECO Insulfrog turnout. PECO plans to replace their Electrofrog and Insulfrog products with the new Unifrog over time. Doing this allows PECO to eliminate two products and replace them with one.
Which is better Electrofrog or Insulfrog?
Insulfrog points are just more forgiving of how you feed power into them. If you can take the time to learn how they work and how to wire them properly, electrofrog points are the way to go, but you can simplify your wiring a bit (or get away with not wiring them quite right) with insulfrog points.
What are Electrofrog points?
What are electro-frog points? As the name suggests electro-frog or live frog points have the frog or V section rails electrically powered. Like the prototype, these rails are all metal. Every metal wheel that runs over the frog picks up track power.
How do you make turnouts DCC friendly?
A DCC-friendly turnout is one that minimizes the risk of that happening by electrically isolating its point rails, closure rails, and frog, powering each set of points and closure rails the same as their adjacent stock rails and switching the frog’s polarity depending on the route lined through the turnout.
Are Kato turnouts DCC friendly?
A lot of air has been blown around about turnouts where the points may be opposite polarity of the stock rail. The Kato no. 6 is one of these. These are supposedly ‘not DCC-Friendly’, because if the back of a metal wheel touches the point then you get a short.
How do you wire PECO Unifrog points?
Demystifying Unifrog – YouTube
How do you wire turnouts for DCC?
Make Your Old Turnouts DCC Friendly (121) – YouTube
What is an insulated frog?
The PECO Insulfrog has an insulated (dead) frog, made of non-conductive plastic. It is a power routing turnout, a useful feature before DCC. As it is power routing, the turnout has no issues with DCC operation. Insulated rail joiners are required to prevent a short between the point rails at the heel of the frog.
How do you fit a Peco point motor?
How to – Episode 6 – Install a point motor – YouTube
Are Atlas snap switches DCC friendly?
Atlas turnouts are already DCC friendly. Their new turnouts still have those impossible-to-solder-to frogs. So what do you do? Screw a small brass screw into the one of the holes on their frog and solder to that.
What are DCC friendly turnouts?
Does DCC work for N scale?
DCC for N scale
Due to the small scale of the trains, you may find it tricky to get decoders installed into some locomotives… There are very few “impossible” locomotives in N scale, but some can be difficult. You will find there are at least 4 situations when it comes to DCC and locomotives in N gauge.
Can you run DCC trains on DC track?
DCC fitted locos will run on DC. You will need to turn up the controller until the track has a few volts on it to power the decoder.
What voltage is DCC?
This creates a voltage that would look like a continuous line at +15V (or rather at +13.8V but with spikes to a bit above 15V), and that’s the number that’s referred to as the “DCC Voltage”.
What is a frog switch?
A frog is a special section of rail that allows a train to cross over or to ‘switch’ tracks.
How do Peco point motors work?
Peco released the Smart Switch, and it uses a 9g servo to pull and push the tie bar on the point in the desired direction. The servo is controlled by a control board and operated by a simple on-off switch. Once the switch is turned on, the servo slowly moves the tie bar on the point.
What is a passing contact switch?
Passing contact switches from Hornby & Peco are effectively off-on-off-on-off. Throwing the switch from one extent to the other will initially try to throw the point to the same direction to which it is set before throwing it the way you want it.
Are Atlas custom line turnouts DCC friendly?
Atlas turnouts are already DCC friendly. Their new turnouts still have those impossible-to-solder-to frogs.
What is a frog in model railroading?
Model railroad turnouts often come with live frogs or dead frogs, frogs being the portion in the center of a turnout where the two tracks diverge. A live turnout is electrically charged so the engine can pass through easily while a dead frog made of plastic or metal is not charged and an engine could stall out.
Can you run DC trains on DCC track?
In Short, you can run DC locos on a DCC track, but you shouldn’t. You will end up with damaged locos. track when it is DCC. DC won’t harm the DCC locos, however.
What is the difference between DCC ready and DCC equipped?
DCC Ready, a DC locomotive that doesn’t have the DCC chip installed but does has sufficient space inside and has a socket in place allowing a DCC chip to be easily fitted. DCC Fitted, where the chip is installed and no modification is required.
Is DCC better than DC?
If you want simplicity or cost is a factor, DC trains are arguably the better option. If however you can afford more and want all the bells and whistles on your trains – literally – DCC is probably a better choice.