Any prefference electro or uni for Peco frogs.

[Barnaby]

Anybody got any comments on the new Peco uni-frog point work?  I will be reviewing the electro frogs removed from my old layout but incase they are a little scruffy or suspect I may get some fresh ones hence the uni-frog question.   Should I get elctrofrog again or the new unifrog as they are a little smaller in length which may suit me.   The new layout will be DCC and it is my intention to use Peco track, but which.

I will be building a 12ft shunty plank in 7mm scale.

 

Thanks

[Pete the Elaner]

Do you have a choice?

I thought Uni is Peco's compromise between Insul & Electro so will replace both ranges once the existing tooling has worn?

[Junctionmad]

If your building in O gauge , my understanding s PECO points in 7mm are all electrofrog anyways 

[Barnaby]

This is Hatton's but others also stock them. 

Peco Products  ST-U751
O Gauge (1:43 Scale)
Setrack second radius Unifrog left hand point

Stock Details

Is this item actually in stock? Yes
More than 10 in stock.
Normal UK postage for 1 of this item: £4 (Postage Rates)

Item is in stock in our shop, so is available to Buy & Collect. Add the item to your shopping cart and then proceed through the checkout, selecting 'Collect in Shop' as the postage method

Collect in shop orders should be collected within 7 days of ordering. £150 limit and a £4 admin fee which is refunded on pickup. Please allow 24 hours before collecting, or call if you wish to collect sooner. Please bring photo ID and payment card. hide

SingleQty:for£43(weighs 234g)

Qty:

Edited February 9, 2019 by Barnaby

[Barnaby]

Well I visited my local shop to pick up a pack of 10 strips of phosphor bronze as I had been told the shop stocked.  The owner assured me that he had none, hadn't had any for a very long time and was unlikely to get any?  Good start.

He did however have some Unifrog points in so I took the opportunity to have a look just to see what they looked like.  They did in fact look quite good so I asked the shop owner what did he think about them but he didn't have an opinion one way or the other so no advice to give.  You pays your money and takes a chance.

He said there was no additional wiring to do just put isolation track joiners on all the point rails and that's it. 

I said the metal toe of the frog wasn't electrically connected and would be dead but he proceeded to show me it was until I pointed out to him the single long wire from the toe was free of any rail except for the toe of the frog.  He then changed his mind and said you didn't need to wire it up but it could be used when switched like you would do when wiring up an electrfrog point.

 

So yes they look acceptable quite good in fact, they are shorter in length, I can switch the toe of the frog if I want to but I don't need to, the curve of the switch line is somewhat sharp for anything more than a 0-6-0T loco.  They should be simpler to install though.

 I'll probably stay with the electrofrog points unless Peco have changed them over to unifrog by the time I want to buy them.  Peco plan to produce all their points this way going forward.

 

Best

 

Pickup kit for Loco's Coaches and wagons from EILEENS EMPORIUM.

Comprises:   Two sheets of double sided printed circuit board approx 0.25mm thick, easily cut with scissors. Be careful to file the edges to ensure that there are no shorts btween the two faces. More is available under part number PCB025

Phosphor Bronze straight pick up wire, one of each 0.35mm and 0.5mm diameter (also available in 10 packs PSW035A and PSW050A.

Phosphor Bronze Strip, 1mm x 0.15mm (PF010015A) and 1.5mm x 0.3mm (PF01503C)

Also included are sample lengths of 10/0.1 wire in Red and Black and some Resin Cored Solder. These are available in larget quantities under part number ELW1010. The solder is available in 1m lengths as SLDRC.

This pack allows you to experiment to find out whether wire or strip suits you best and if thik or thin is more suitable.

 

They also do various widths of flat Phosphor Bronze and separate sheets of Printed circuit board for choice.

 

Edited February 9, 2019 by Barnaby
words changed / EILEENS EMPORIUM

[rob D2]

I’ve got the unifrog bullheads in OO. They look nice and I wasn’t intending to wire the frog, but surprisingly my 08 stuttered over them at low speed .

[south_tyne]

19 hours ago, Junctionmad said:

If your building in O gauge , my understanding s PECO points in 7mm are all electrofrog anyways 

 

The setrack points are unifrog

[south_tyne]

14 hours ago, Barnaby said:

Well I visited my local shop to pick up a pack of 10 strips of phosphor bronze as I had been told the shop stocked.  The owner assured me that he had none, hadn't had any for a very long time and was unlikely to get any?  Good start.

He did however have some Unifrog points in so I took the opportunity to have a look just to see what they looked like.  They did in fact look quite good so I asked the shop owner what did he think about them but he didn't have an opinion one way or the other so no advice to give.  You pays your money and takes a chance.

He said there was no additional wiring to do just put isolation track joiners on all the point rails and that's it. 

I said the metal toe of the frog wasn't electrically connected and would be dead but he proceeded to show me it was until I pointed out to him the single long wire from the toe was free of any rail except for the toe of the frog.  He then changed his mind and said you didn't need to wire it up but it could be used when switched like you would do when wiring up an electrfrog point.

 

So yes they look acceptable quite good in fact, they are shorter in length, I can switch the toe of the frog if I want to but I don't need to, the curve of the switch line is somewhat sharp for anything more than a 0-6-0T loco.  They should be simpler to install though.

 I'll probably stay with the electrofrog points unless Peco have changed them over to unifrog by the time I want to buy them.  Peco plan to produce all their points this way going forward.

 

Best

 

Pickup kit for Loco's Coaches and wagons from EILEENS EMPORIUM.

Comprises:   Two sheets of double sided printed circuit board approx 0.25mm thick, easily cut with scissors. Be careful to file the edges to ensure that there are no shorts btween the two faces. More is available under part number PCB025

Phosphor Bronze straight pick up wire, one of each 0.35mm and 0.5mm diameter (also available in 10 packs PSW035A and PSW050A.

Phosphor Bronze Strip, 1mm x 0.15mm (PF010015A) and 1.5mm x 0.3mm (PF01503C)

Also included are sample lengths of 10/0.1 wire in Red and Black and some Resin Cored Solder. These are available in larget quantities under part number ELW1010. The solder is available in 1m lengths as SLDRC.

This pack allows you to experiment to find out whether wire or strip suits you best and if thik or thin is more suitable.

 

They also do various widths of flat Phosphor Bronze and separate sheets of Printed circuit board for choice.

 

 

 

My understanding is that out of the box the unifrog is basically a insulfrog point. However you can wire the frog if desired and then it is effectively an electrofrog. Is that too simplistic a conclusion? 

[Barnaby]

No I think you are correct South_tyne.

There is a small electrically dead part to the frog the pointy bit which is about 10mm long max.  This part has a long piece of wire attached for use on switching it live as is previously done with the electrofrog point.  As everywhere else on the point will be live I can't see even the smallest wheel based loco having any issues with this dead bit but I've not tried it.   Seems like the intention is to just connect them into the track and off you go.

 

Does anybody think differently and if so why?

 

Many thanks

 

 

[DCB]

Sounds like the ideal solution, dead frog wiring with a live frog,   The all the rails always live nature of Live frogs has been a pain in the backside for me with really weird effects which need innovative thinking to get round, and lots of fried plunger contacts on Airfix 14XX where I run across isolators and get a short across the pickups on the same side.

I really don't know why people have such problems with pickups, as long as all the pickups are actually working  Apart from the Peco 00 long crossing which 2-8-0s have leading and trailing wheels on the insulated frogs  simultaneously  I don't really have any issues with pick ups  using live frogs and standard RTR locos.  My  Triang locos have extra pickups on their Romford centre drivers , but that is because the original centre wheels were undersize.  My little Midland 0-4-0T chassis crawls over live frogs fine, and I have taken off all my  RTR tender pickups to reduce drag, 2 coaches worth on the Black 5.   My 94XX crawled over a live frog 3ft rad the other evening with only one of its 3 pickups actually contacting the wheels.  The only locos I know of needing extra pickups are Bachmann /Mainline spit chassis to which I fit pickups between the chassis sides and the wheels.   

Stalling is more likely to be point blades being pushed down and the contact tags losing contact with the underside of the rails  which is a big issue with cast kits and heavilly ballasted RTR.

Insulfrog are great for floor layouts you build at tea time and pack away before supper.

I converted most of my Insulfrog to live frog with an arrowhead of N/S in place of the plastic frog and the rails at the frog pushed in a bit and soldered in, and some of my floor layout Triang Super 4 has also had the live frog treatment, I just have to be careful not to set loop points in opposition!

[Harlequin]

1 hour ago, Barnaby said:

No I think you are correct South_tyne.

There is a small electrically dead part to the frog the pointy bit which is about 10mm long max.  This part has a long piece of wire attached for use on switching it live as is previously done with the electrofrog point.  As everywhere else on the point will be live I can't see even the smallest wheel based loco having any issues with this dead bit but I've not tried it.   Seems like the intention is to just connect them into the track and off you go.

 

Does anybody think differently and if so why?

 

Many thanks

 

 

A 4-wheeled loco (or one with only 4 pickups) may have one wheel on a bit of dirt when the other is resting on the tip of the frog, causing it to stop.

 

But everyone's experience will be different. Some people keep their track scrupulously clean, some don't run 4-wheeled locos, some install stay-alives, some always run their trains at high speed :wink: , etc., etc...

 

Probably the best thing to do is to bring the frog dropper wire through the baseboard but leave it unconnected for now and see how things go.

 

Edited February 10, 2019 by Harlequin

[Pete the Elaner]

16 hours ago, south_tyne said:

 

My understanding is that out of the box the unifrog is basically a insulfrog point. However you can wire the frog if desired and then it is effectively an electrofrog. Is that too simplistic a conclusion? 

It is more involved than that, but maybe simpler to wire depending on what you want from it.

 

The frog itself is by default dead. The similarity with an insulfrog point ends there. Insulfrogs self-isolate & Electrofrogs send the same polarity to the 'not chosen' route, effectively isolating it.

Unifrogs provide a live feed to both exit routes. This is great for DCC but DC modellers who use points for isolation will need to learn new wiring practices.

The dead part is very small with Unifrog so you may be able to get away with not connecting it.

Unlike Electrofrog, if you want to switch the frog feed, there is no cutting to do. As long as you route the frog feed to below your baseboard, you can not bother connecting it straight away. If you later find that you need a live frog, you connect this at a later date.

[rob D2]

I want to use push rods with my unifrogs, but may need to electrify them due to the 08 issue, is there anyway of doing this avoiding point motors and feeds.

 

can use you use frog juicers 

[Ian Morgan]

It should be possible to use a frog juicer if you are DCC. However, lots of people using push-rods or wire-in-tube either install a microswitch activated by an attachment to the rod/wire, or use a toggle-switch like a point lever, connected to the end of the rod/wire.

[Barnaby]

Ian and Rob you could use one of these a Bluepoint point switching unit.

http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/TRA/blue_point.html

They do allow for push rod movement of the point and they include a micro-switch you use for the frog switching.

They are a smart unit but actually work out about the same cost as the frog juicers.

I am going down this route as my layout is a shunty plank at 12ft and I want to be involved with the point switching.  Also I'm not completely won over by the way the frog juicers work ie they detect a short then react which I'm sure will cause glitching of a loco/

 

Best

[rob D2]

Interesting idea , but I’m trying to keep the plank super simple electrics wise.

i use pushrods embedded in the cork, simple and direct no wiring . I’ll run the unifrogs feeds through the board I think in case I get any issues. It may be just the 08 , and most shunting in my later era would be train loco anyway 

[kevinlms]

18 hours ago, Barnaby said:

Ian and Rob you could use one of these a Bluepoint point switching unit.

http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/TRA/blue_point.html

They do allow for push rod movement of the point and they include a micro-switch you use for the frog switching.

They are a smart unit but actually work out about the same cost as the frog juicers.

I am going down this route as my layout is a shunty plank at 12ft and I want to be involved with the point switching.  Also I'm not completely won over by the way the frog juicers work ie they detect a short then react which I'm sure will cause glitching of a loco/

 

Best

Not sure that you will be able to detect a frog juicer switching. About 20 years ago, I helped a friend install an automatic reverser on his reversing loop, on his newly DCC layout.

We had the loco running as slowly as possible over the double break in the track, which we had tested to be actually reversed, i.e. voltage across a gap. We could detect no hesitation whatsoever, as the loco went across. The wheels were barely turning. We played about with it for a while, before deciding it was as exciting as watching paint drying!

Nothing could be seen, but clearly working!

[south_tyne]

In the long term I understand it is the intention of Peco to upgrade all the existing turnouts to unifrog. Obviously given the size of the range, this is going to take many years, but I think unifrog will become the default for their products. 

 

[Pete the Elaner]

14 hours ago, rob D2 said:

Interesting idea , but I’m trying to keep the plank super simple electrics wise.

 

I’ll run the unifrogs feeds through the board I think in case I get any issues.

 

Unifrogs make this nice & simple:

 

On 10/02/2019 at 18:39, Pete the Elaner said:

As long as you route the frog feed to below your baseboard, you can not bother connecting it straight away. If you later find that you need a live frog, you connect this at a later date.

 

 

[rob D2]

4 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Unifrogs make this nice & simple:

 

 

 

 Very true - I really like the bullhead stuff and the look, not so enamoured with the fishplates !

[Junctionmad]

We run half the layout ( about 20 points with tam valley frog juicers. 

 

No glitches , faultless operation 

 

there isn’t ever an actual short circuit as the electronics detects the rising current and switches the polarity much faster then the time to reach full short circuit currents 

 

Dave 

[barrymx5]

On 20/02/2019 at 15:12, rob D2 said:

 Very true - I really like the bullhead stuff and the look, not so enamoured with the fishplates !

Agree. The Bullhead track looks very good. So do the fishplates but sliding them onto the rails takes some patience. After a while there is a bit of a knack to it. All in all I would recommend this track. 

[south_tyne]

2 hours ago, Junctionmad said:

We run half the layout ( about 20 points with tam valley frog juicers. 

 

No glitches , faultless operation 

 

there isn’t ever an actual short circuit as the electronics detects the rising current and switches the polarity much faster then the time to reach full short circuit currents 

 

Dave 

 

Pardon my ignorance, but does a frogjuicer negate the need for a micro switch to change polarity of a electrofrog point? 

 

Sorry if that's a silly/basic question.....

[kevinlms]

10 hours ago, south_tyne said:

 

Pardon my ignorance, but does a frogjuicer negate the need for a micro switch to change polarity of a electrofrog point? 

 

Sorry if that's a silly/basic question.....

Yes, but just in case you aren't aware, frog juicers can only be used on DCC.

[rodshaw]

Presumably a frog juicer doesn't actually change the direction of the point? So you'll still get a derailment if you forget to do that.