DCC Wiring and Frog Juicers

I am not smart enough to understand and advise you on all your wiring issues, but

I will say that the Frog Juciers I installed and am using on my layout for the frogs on

9 degree crossings work like a charm! Cured tons of stalling, hesitation problems.

ncng

Pete,

I use a dpdt switch to throw the switch machine and change the polarity of the frog.  My switch machines have a common wire and require only one pole of the dpdt switch.  The other pole of the dpdt switch changes the polarity of the frog.  Of course, the frogs have to be isolated and have a separate feeder.  Cheap and easy.  

You can also use a dpdt switch to switch between DC and DCC.  Again, cheap and easy.

Hope this helps.

Ed

I use many of them and they work very well but The Hex Frogs only work with DCC so they would need to be totally isolated IF you switch back to DC. Not very practical.

As to switching from DCC to DC... DON'T.  I say that because I have known people who tried and yes it works but all it takes in one forgetful moment and you have a lot of problems.  If you can come up with some sort of failsafe system then a simple DTDP switch would do the job.

dan,

the reason for wanting to switch from dc to dcc at the flip of a switch is the other 2 rail guy dan has all dc steam and diesels. I have the DCS steam engines and soon to have DCC 3rd rail FT AB powered set.

Ed,

thanks for the info on the dpdt switches. 

I understand. Just be very careful and you will be fine.

I second Dan's comment - you want to manage the risk of having a DC locomotive on a track powered by DCC.  The AC square wave DCC current can harm a permag motor.  On the other hand DC power into a DCC equipped locomotive won't do any harm, and if the decoder is set up for dual mode you can run the locomotive on analog DC. 

There are circumstances where a DPDT isn't convenient.  With a walk around railroad you may want to throw a turnout from more than one location. With DCC this can be nicely done using accessory decoders such as NCE's Switch8 (powers up to 8 switch motors or machines). Each turnout is assigned an accessary address and the turnout can be thrown via a DCC throttle's accessary command.  For more flexibility (such as route control into and out of yard throats) I use a NCE's MiniPanel which with one push of a button can set a route through a maze of turnouts.  With DCC controlled turnouts you can power the frog either by contacts on the switch motor/machine, a micro switch positioned against the throw rod, or by a device like a Frog Juicer. 

Ed Rappe

I'm aware that what I am about to suggest is not "best practice", and is certainly not applicable in all situations, so I'll make it in the form of a question:

Is there anybody else out there who just leaves the frog area 'dead' ?

I discovered during early construction / testing of my layout, which is DC, that in many instances, such as #6 turnouts, crossovers, etc, just having the pickup from the rail on either side was quite sufficent -- there was no need to provide power to the frog.  Now there were some obvious exceptions:

  - any terminal / industrial areas where two axle motive power might operate

  - Curved turnouts, high number turnouts, slip switches, etc

  - any configuration that gave a series of frogs on the same side

  -   and so forth.

And I also readily admit that for every non-powered frog I still provided a wire drop "just in case" experience showed it needed to be energized.  But as I recall it never has.

Just my experience.  Your experience, turnouts, motive power, and preference may vary.

Best regards, SZ