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DCC80 Autofrog questions


meatloaf
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Hi probably easy questions but...

 

Using electrofrogs for the first time and its all wired up and working. Occasionaly the loco stops on the frog and loses all power. If I touch the tie bar the loco carries on, so the blades either dirty or not making good contact.

 

So reading up online ive seen people using point motors with a separate add on for the poliarity of the frog.

 

I don't really need a point motor but if I use the DCC80 will it still switch the frog polarity? If so does that mean the point blade is only essentially there to set the direction the train travels thru the point?

 

Will I need to make the modifications to the point ive seen online - bonding the rails together and snipping the little bridge wire?

 

And finally it looks like the DCC80 only needs 3 wires - the track feeds and the frog wire. The track feeds can they come from the DCC bus or do they need to come direct from the point?

 

Sorry for the newbie questions

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You won't need to add a point motor - the DCC80 will still work properly regardless of how you change the route through the point.

 

The feeds can come directly from the track bus.

 

As to the modifications to the point, that's one where modellers will disagree but I don't personally find it necessary.

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On 09/03/2020 at 22:46, meatloaf said:

Hi probably easy questions but...

 

Using electrofrogs for the first time and its all wired up and working. Occasionaly the loco stops on the frog and loses all power. If I touch the tie bar the loco carries on, so the blades either dirty or not making good contact.

 

So reading up online ive seen people using point motors with a separate add on for the poliarity of the frog.

 

I don't really need a point motor but if I use the DCC80 will it still switch the frog polarity? If so does that mean the point blade is only essentially there to set the direction the train travels thru the point?

 

Will I need to make the modifications to the point ive seen online - bonding the rails together and snipping the little bridge wire?

 

And finally it looks like the DCC80 only needs 3 wires - the track feeds and the frog wire. The track feeds can they come from the DCC bus or do they need to come direct from the point?

 

Sorry for the newbie questions

Yes the DCC80 will  act as you say 

 

and yes  you can  power them from the DCC bus 

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10 hours ago, meatloaf said:

thank you for the reply. Will I need to modify the points or use them as they come from the box?

 

As I said above, you don't need to modify them but some modellers do so for additional reliability.

 

By providing switched power to the frog, you've already eliminated the least reliable feature of Peco points, by no longer

relying on blade contact to change the frog polarity. The remaining issues are a matter of choice and experience. If you

go the whole hog, by bonding the switch blades and cutting the bridge wire, you'll eliminate any chance of a short circuit

between the back of a wheel and the switch blade. You've also removed any possibility of a poor connection between

the moving part of the switch blade and the crossing, where they are hinged.

 

 

My suggestion would be to do the minimum approach and see how you get on with it. For myself, with dozens and dozens

of points modified with just frog switching (which is important) I haven't ever had any problems with shorts or failures of

conductivity across the hinge.

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Been discussed before. You need plenty of 'grunt' to make these work smoothly as they are solenoid drive not like Juicers. Standard NCE Power Cab didn't have enough grunt with a couple of loco's hanging around and also another two running. I upped the input to 1.8A, giving more output nearer 16V. Large layout, lots of DCC80s mostly successful but I have replaced most now anyway as they were temporary before point motors. Hope this helps.

Phil

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So to follow up I lifted my track this morning. I decided to mod the points as well but I struggled with bonding the stock rails using the thin wire. Big thanks to the chap at trident trains that did my half a dozen points in a flash.

 

Whilst I was there I picked up the autofrog units and a couple of the DCC concepts bus bar units. When I got home I wired up the frogs and track feeds to the autofrogs and thankfully it all works as it should do.

 

I decided to put the DCC80s  in the non scenic area of the layout mounting them on the surface of the baseboard.

 

All in all im glad I went ahead and did it. 

 

 

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