Peco Code 55 Turnouts Contact problem

[flubrush]

I've run into a problem when using Peco Code 55 Electrofrog turnouts with poor, or no, contact between the switch blades and the stock rails. I've done a quick search to see if there are any threads on the topic and those that I have found recommend modifying the turnouts and feeding the crossing via a switch. I don't really want to go to this length to cure the problem. The layout I am building is meant to be a quickie shunting plank. Re-building all the turnouts and providing switching and wiring would take it out of the quickie category.

 

So far I have tried to clean the mating faces of the blades and stock rails but that's not too easy and I haven't had much improvement so far. I've also tried bending the tips of the switch blades outwards by a small amount so that the tip hits the stock rail first and, with a small bit of flexing, might give a self-cleaning joint, but that has had mixed results so far. I've also tried putting some Peco Power Lube on the mating surfaces to see if that had any beneficial effect, but no luck. Has anyone tried any other remedies with any degree of success?

 

I assume what has happened is that the nickel silver rail has oxidised and the pressure contact of switch blade and stock rail has a resistive oxide layer in the sandwich. The track is under a year old and everything seemed to work well up to about three months ago when I last operated the layout. But trying some operation again today brought up faults on most of the turnouts.

 

Jim.

[Etched Pixels]

Generally you need a sulphur laden environment (eg a garage shared with car) to get lots of dark non-conductive build up on nickel silver rail.

 

It should clean off with patience and it's fair to say those points gradually do this and need the odd clean now and then anyway (it only takes a spec of ballast or similar to mess it up).

 

For reliability a lot of people wire the frog rails to a microswitch on the point motor, either the built in ones on the SEEP switches or the add one one for the Peco motor. That cuts out the problem at source.

 

Alan

[Barry Ten]

I never found a simple solution to this afraid, which seemed to particularly afflict the short radius turnouts. I do as Alan says but it does add another layer of complexity to the whole thing, which I find irksome. Wouldn't it be great if things just worked?

[Chinahand]

The generally accepted mod to any Peco points is to cut the frog rails, bond the stock and closure rails together and control the polarity of the frog either automatically (as with Seep PM1 point motor) or manually with a switch.

 

[flubrush]

Thanks for the replies. The modification to feed the crossing nose via a switch is the obvious solution but that would mean a major rebuild of the layout - it is a genuine shelf layout - i.e. built on a bit of Contiboard. Whether I would want to do a rebuild to accommodate polarity switching is now the major question since this layout was supposed to be a quickie running alongside other, more major model railway projects. That's why I was looking for some alternative solution to the problem which might improve matters and could be applied without major re-building work.

 

I normally scratchbuild my track and this is the first time I have used a ready made track system for over forty years - not a good experience. IIRC, Peco track back in those days had some sort of sliding contact between point rail and closure rail which was self cleaning and worked quite well. I might write a note to Peco. You do expect products to keep working properly for a reasonable time.

 

The layout will now go on the back burner and might get re-visited sometime in the future when I've got the time. I will probably junk the Peco Code 55 track and build my own track.

 

Jim.

[Edwin_m]

In my experience the full mod suggested by Chinahand is not necessary with code 55, because the gap between blades and stock rails is so wide that a wheel cannot short across it unless its back to backs are way out of spec. I do however find it helps to feed the frog via a switch on the motor. Admittedly this is not straightforward to do in situ (one wire to solder per point) but it's easier than cutting and bonding the point blades!

[grahame]

In my experience the full mod suggested by Chinahand is not necessary with code 55,

 

 

Yep, it's not really neccessary and I've never needed to do that, besides any cutting and soldering of the rails will compromise the integrity of the point build and invalidate the warranty. And it's probably easier clipping/gluing a peco switch on to a peco point motor and switching polarity to the frog and blades.

 

However, the large N Gauge Basingstoke layout just relies on the point blades for electrical continuity and it's only ocassionally that they need cleaning to re-establish contact. Bending the tip of the blade rail isn't really recommended as you reduce the contact area to just a very small point and risk wheelsets splitting the points. Try using a piece of paper soaked in cleaner fluid dragged between the blade and rail or if its really stubborn muck a fibreglass pen.

 

G.

[darren01]

Hi

I had this same problem with points on my layout; to solve it I used IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol) You can get it from ebay in ; 250ml or 500ml even a 1Ltr bottle ,much cheaper than a model railway shop,

Get a cotton bud and squish it down and dip it in the Isopropyl Alcohol.

Then just clean the blade and the rail on the inside, leave to dry.

This will bring back the contact again and you should get better running.

Hope this helps out

All the best

Darren

[flubrush]

I've just been re-visiting the problem this morning in the light of the recent messages and I have had some success. I had bought some cheap foam paint brushes a short wile ago and I found that they would squeeze into the gap between the switch blade and the stock rail to allow some cleaning. (I had thought about cotton buds but wrote them off as too wide - in need of lateral thinking to squash them ). Using the brush improved one set of points. I used it dry since I have left my can of IPA 100m miles away at my business premises. I'll try and get some IPA locally and see how I get on.

 

Thanks for the reassurance that I might get things to work reasonably well without major surgery.

 

Jim.

[Chinahand]

In my experience the full mod suggested by Chinahand is not necessary with code 55, because the gap between blades and stock rails is so wide that a wheel cannot short across it unless its back to backs are way out of spec.

 

Never say never. Apart from which the OP was reporting that power was not transferring across from the stock rail to the switch blade, hence the suggestion to bond them together which then does away with any reliance on a potentially unreliable contact between the two. Unfortunately you cannot do one part of the modification without the other.

 

There is, incidentally a school of thought, including several well renowned modellers, which recommends this modification should be carried out as standard, irrespective of any impact it may, or may not, have on warranties. I would in any case suggest that the question of warranties is something of a red herring. It should also be noted that Peco themselves have started to partly implement this modification to 00 points by puttng an isolation gap in the frog rails and providing a simple jump lead which is to be cut to complete the modification.

 

Each to his own, of course, but I prefer to do the full modification to my Code 55 points so that I know for sure that the frog polarity, current flow and DCC signals are 100% secure and not subject to any extraneous influences.

[Edwin_m]

...but if you supply power to the frog area via a separate switch, and leave the point blades electrically connected to the frog, then they get power by that route. I have fed all my points via switches without isolating the blades from the frog, and only ever had a short circuit when a wheel moved on its axle. Important proviso that the frog switch must be mechanically linked to the motor - if it is worked off the motor supply by a latching relay or similar then there is a risk of short circuit due to lack of synchronisation.

[Barry Ten]

...but if you supply power to the frog area via a separate switch, and leave the point blades electrically connected to the frog, then they get power by that route. I have fed all my points via switches without isolating the blades from the frog, and only ever had a short circuit when a wheel moved on its axle. Important proviso that the frog switch must be mechanically linked to the motor - if it is worked off the motor supply by a latching relay or similar then there is a risk of short circuit due to lack of synchronisation.

 

My own experience has been that shorts never happen with code 55 turnouts. I use very inexpensive Maplins microswitches to affect the polarity switching, activated by the pin on the Peco motor.

[Etched Pixels]

Ditto I'd say the mods are a waste of time and a good way to wreck a perfectly good bit of trackwork. The slack on the peco points is so big that if you do get a short it means you have an axle way way out of gauge that wants fixing anyway and will be causing random derailments and other problems.

 

Just feed power via a microswitch to the frog or one of the bits of rail that feeds into it (anywhere along).

 

Alan

[grahame]

Unfortunately you cannot do one part of the modification without the other.

 

 

But you can carry out the second part (feed the frog with a switched supply) without the need to the first (bond the blades to the stock rails). As the blades are already effectively electrically attached to the frog there is no need to cut them (and isolate them) and then have to bond them to get an electrical supply to them.

 

I agree with the others that there is no risk of a short via the wheels on code 55 track making cutting and bonding completely unnecessary. And I don't know of any renowned N gauge modellers who recommend such a procedure.

 

G.

[Chinahand]

I'll just shut up then and carry on doing my own thing.

[Jellicoe]

I'm with ChinaHand on this one. Somebody has already touched on the problem of switch synchronicity; something very unlikely with a DPDT toggle switch but almost a dead cert with those dreadful Peco PL13 switches. Having a point blade hovering so close to a stock rail of different polarity was something that gave the DCC brigade the jitters and the practice of isolating the frog was adopted to make the points "DCC friendly", an unnecessary practice for this reason alone since it would take a very wonky wheel set to bridge what must be a 2mm gap.

[Etched Pixels]

For the most part I think of it as another of the "voodoo rituals" that some DCC people are so addicted to, like some of the capacitor removal without understanding.

 

There are cases it matters - for example when running very chunky wheels through fine scale trackwork that was never intended for that level of slack. Peco track is however not fine scale trackwork and the stock rail and point blade are a good scale foot apart. Years of experience from a lot of modellers on big exhibition layouts says its simply not needed in that case and the slack is also good enough for the SEEP switches. The Kato track is a bit finer and does show up bad wheel sets now and then in ways the Peco stuff doesn't - but even then the right thing to do is fix the wonky wheels because the error required is sufficient you'll also get derailments from the bad wheelsets.

 

Now I could believe you might need to do such a mod when using low end rtr wheels on atlas US track and the like - but thats a whole different ballgame and the clearances are much finer.

 

Alan