Single slip woes

[Wear Valley Wanderer]

I'm using Code 100 peco track. So far I've fitted two double slips which work a treat. On part of the layout I've installed a single slip (Sl-80) which is Insulfrog.

 

I've wired this the same way as the others, Isolating all the rails on the outside of the slip, snipped the wires on the back, twisted them together, and plumbed them into the point motors to switch the polarity. Power is to the outermost rails the same as the double slips. My rather crude picture is attached. 

 

Where things are going pear shaped is when I have the locos travelling across the point in the direction indicated. There is a dead spot (Noted in yellow) where there is just no power when the point are thrown in that direction.

 

I've checked continuity with the V-shaped rails which are connected to the polarity switch and all seems fine there on both ends. 

 

Unfortunately I gave one of my short wheelbase locos a nudge across the 'dead' spot and it promptly blew the decoder.

 

Has anyone any idea what could be going on here? 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

 

 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Wear Valley Wanderer

[Free At Last]

If you have wired it correctly you need to ensure you are switching both motors to ensure you have both frogs at the correct polarity even though you may not need the route being set by one pair of blades.


 

[Stephen Freeman]

39 minutes ago, Free At Last said:

If you have wired it correctly you need to ensure you are switching both motors to ensure you have both frogs at the correct polarity even though you may not need the route being set by one pair of blades.


 

In other words, the point blades must either be set for the slip roads or when a diamond the blades furthest away from the vee control the polarity. At least that is the case with live frogs. If you look at the picture you will see that depending on the diamond route determines the position of the  blades, otherwise you will get at short. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Stephen Freeman

[Free At Last]

Here is a sketch of the the motor positions for the three routes through a PECO electrofrog single slip.

 

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by Free At Last

[Izzy]

With a single slip with 'live' frogs you must not set the blades so both 'through' routes are set together. Electrically as has been said you will get a short with both at the frogs where the polarity will be wrong which ever route is used. But this should not occur with a dead frog single slip.

 

So I don't understand why frog juicers have been used as in the included diagram because there are no 'live' frogs to juice.

 

Have you wired both sets of exit rails to the jucier/s ? This will be the problem if you have.

[Philou]

It would seem to me that the motors should be operating as a pair and not singly with the blades either 'up' or 'down' ('up' as shown in the upper part of the diagram just above). I would have thought that the two blade movements in the lower two parts of the drawing shouldn't (or wouldn't) be permitted.

 

As @Izzy says, if they're Insulfrog points, you simply don't need juicers (or insulated joiners for that matter - unless there are Electrofrogs immediately either side).

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

 

[KingEdwardII]

6 hours ago, Free At Last said:

Here is a sketch of the the motor positions for the three routes through an electrofrog single slip.

I think of it differently. There are actually only 2 valid settings for the motors/blade positions. Either both are set for the straight route or both are set for the curved ("thrown") route. The first case covers BOTH of the straight routes through the crossing. The second case covers the one curved route. Any other setting of the motors invites problems since a train progressing onto the curved route at one end would meet the blades set against it at the other end with the high likelihood of a derailment.

 

So I think the simple rule is "switch both point motors together", just as applies to a crossover made up of two points.

 

Note that this leaves open the question of which of the two straight routes is going to be used. If the single slip were electrofrog, this would require a mechanism to set the polarity of the frogs (plural!) to suit the required route. Strictly this should not be necessary for an insulfrog, but it could be done if required. It might be achieved, for example, by a DPDT switch associated with another turnout that controls access to one or other of the straight routes.

 

Yours,  Mike.

[Wear Valley Wanderer]

11 hours ago, Izzy said:

With a single slip with 'live' frogs you must not set the blades so both 'through' routes are set together. Electrically as has been said you will get a short with both at the frogs where the polarity will be wrong which ever route is used. But this should not occur with a dead frog single slip.

 

So I don't understand why frog juicers have been used as in the included diagram because there are no 'live' frogs to juice.

 

Have you wired both sets of exit rails to the jucier/s ? This will be the problem if you have.

 

I wired in the juicers to the exit rails as, rightly or wrongly, I've followed the same wiring as the double slip. Snipping the wires and twisting them together for a polarity switching juicer is recommended on the back of the double slips packaging from Peco. Unfortunately I bought the single slip second hand and it didn't come with any wiring diagrams. For the life of me I can't find one anywhere on the internet despite hours of searching. Contacting the model shops has been pretty fruitless as no-one seems to have any in stock. 

 

If anyone has a picture of the wiring diagram that comes with a PL-80 set of points (On the rear of the packaging), I'd be very grateful if you could share!

 

Internet wise, all I can find is info on a double, and there seems to be an assumption that the single and the double are treated the same. This, however, does not appear to be the case. The fact that I've had to replace a blown decoder seems testimony to that.

 

Since I'm not that electrically savvy, I find wiring diagrams best and easiest to follow.

 

  

[Graham108]

A simple search throws up these links - https://www.google.com/search?q=wiring+a+single+slip&oq=wiring+a+single+slip&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30l2.5953j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[Izzy]

15 minutes ago, Wear Valley Wanderer said:

 

I wired in the juicers to the exit rails as, rightly or wrongly, I've followed the same wiring as the double slip. Snipping the wires and twisting them together for a polarity switching juicer is recommended on the back of the double slips packaging from Peco. Unfortunately I bought the single slip second hand and it didn't come with any wiring diagrams. For the life of me I can't find one anywhere on the internet despite hours of searching. Contacting the model shops has been pretty fruitless as no-one seems to have any in stock. 

 

If anyone has a picture of the wiring diagram that comes with a PL-80 set of points (On the rear of the packaging), I'd be very grateful if you could share!

 

Internet wise, all I can find is info on a double, and there seems to be an assumption that the single and the double are treated the same. This, however, does not appear to be the case. The fact that I've had to replace a blown decoder seems testimony to that.

 

Since I'm not that electrically savvy, I find wiring diagrams best and easiest to follow.

 

  

I’m afraid that you cannot treat live frog & dead frog points the same electrically whatever they are and whether they are for DC or DCC. An added problem is whether they are commercial RTL offerings such as Peco or homemade ones, because with the former you have to know how the makers have arranged them for wiring connections.

 

I don’t know, but assume that the Peco dead frog single slip is pre-wired so that the idea is that you just add the power feeds to each outside rail. No feeds to the frogs or rails at the toe are needed or intended, all being connected/already wired. This is as I guessed where the problem lays. The twisting together of the wires and connections to the juicers.

 

Using juicers with a live frog single-slip however would overcome the issues surrounding frog polarity as using DPDT’s alone without some form of interlocking doesn’t/can’t work. In this respect single & double slips are two entirely different kettles of fish.

[Suzie]

I can only think that there is a problem with the left juicer connecting to the 'yellow' frog rail. As soon as the gap between the 'yellow' frog rail and what is to the left of it is bridged the juicer should provide the red power, the other rail being permanently connected to black.

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, Izzy said:

I don’t know, but assume that the Peco dead frog single slip is pre-wired so that the idea is that you just add the power feeds to each outside rail. No feeds to the frogs or rails at the toe are needed or intended, all being connected/already wired

 

Insulfrogs certainly used to be connected diagonally across the frog, the idea being that all the switching is done by the point blades.

 

It would be useful to see how the slip fits into the layout, where the other power feeds are and where insulated joiners have been used.

 

 

 

 

[Wear Valley Wanderer]

2 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Insulfrogs certainly used to be connected diagonally across the frog, the idea being that all the switching is done by the point blades.

 

It would be useful to see how the slip fits into the layout, where the other power feeds are and where insulated joiners have been used.

 

 

 

 

The slip is completed isolated from the rest of the layout (As with the double slips), with the outer two tracks powered directly to the main bus. 

 

If I get a chance today I'll see about getting a photo.

[Free At Last]

21 hours ago, Wear Valley Wanderer said:

I've wired this the same way as the others, Isolating all the rails on the outside of the slip, snipped the wires on the back, twisted them together, and plumbed them into the point motors to switch the polarity.

 

3 hours ago, Wear Valley Wanderer said:

I wired in the juicers to the exit rails  

I'm confused.com... what are you using, polarity switches operated by the point motors or frog juicers?

[Wear Valley Wanderer]

17 minutes ago, Free At Last said:

 

I'm confused.com... what are you using, polarity switches operated by the point motors or frog juicers?

Sorry, I thought they were one and the same thing.

 

To clarify I had the exit rails connected to the polarity switching terminals on the point motors. When that didn't work I tried wiring the exit rails to Gaugemaster DCC80 autofrogs. Same issue, but at least it eliminated the possibility of a fault on the motor.

[Nigelcliffe]

I'm finding the whole thread very confusing...

 

1 - why did the loco "blow a decoder".  A track short circuit should not blow a decoder under any circumstances.  Unless there's more than track power being applied to the track (so a capacitor discharge unit to throw a turnout would blow a decoder), or unless the act of "pushing" caused a short within the loco (eg. connected the track pickups to the motor leads).   
A decoder which has blown solely due to a DCC track short indicates a really rubbish-quality decoder.  

 

2 - whilst frog juicers (automatic polarity switching devices) and terminals on point motors can both change the polarity of track, how they work is totally different, so not the same thing.  Particularly in the case of slips.   

 

3 - really need work from an accurate wiring diagram for these specific Peco slips.  There are many different guides to wiring slips around, but they all make assumptions about how the slip is constructed (there being lots of ways of building them), and the type of polarity switching used (if any is needed).    I'd start with just the slip on the bench (no wires attached, other than those Peco supply) and use a multimeter to determine which rail is connected to which other rail, for all combinations of the blade positions.   That will indicate whether any form of switching is necessary, or whether switching is optional (to support the blade movement contacts).  

 

 

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

2 minutes ago, Nigelcliffe said:

  I'd start with just the slip on the bench (no wires attached, other than those Peco supply) and use a multimeter to determine which rail is connected to which other rail, for all combinations of the blade positions.   That will indicate whether any form of switching is necessary, or whether switching is optional (to support the blade movement contacts).  

 

 

 

 

I'm surprise that no one else has bothered to mention using a multimeter.

 

 

[meil]

Two points:

 

1 - a frog is set by the tie bar furthest away from it.

 

2 - for the through routes both tie bars must be set in order to have the frogs at the correct polarity. ie they work like a crossover.

[DCCconcepts]

51 minutes ago, Wear Valley Wanderer said:

Sorry, I thought they were one and the same thing.

 

To clarify I had the exit rails connected to the polarity switching terminals on the point motors. When that didn't work I tried wiring the exit rails to Gaugemaster DCC80 autofrogs. Same issue, but at least it eliminated the possibility of a fault on the motor.

 

You say it's an insulfrog single slip. There is no requirement for polarity switching.

 

Best Regards,

The DCCconcepts Team

Edited August 19, 2021 by DCCconcepts

[Nigelcliffe]

8 minutes ago, meil said:

Two points:

 

1 - a frog is set by the tie bar furthest away from it.

 

 

For some designs of slip, with some designs of wiring.  Which this Insulfrog item might not be using....

 

 

Quote

2 - for the through routes both tie bars must be set in order to have the frogs at the correct polarity. ie they work like a crossover.

 

For some designs of slip, with some designs of wiring. Which this Insulfrog item might not be using....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wear Valley Wanderer]

I've just been sent a photo of the back of the single slip packaging by the very kind chap at Durham Trains of Stanley.

There's no mention of snipping the wires and twisting them together like the double slip. It would also seem that the frogs are switched by the opposite motor?

I'm going to go and have a play to see if this makes any difference, multi meter in hand.

In words of Captain Oates, "I may be some time".

 

[Izzy]

How utterly confusing. Says insulfrog but also that the frogs need to be wired to changeover switches? You couldn’t make it up…..could you?

 

However, if the OP’s slip is wired the same, then why it won’t play ball seems strange. I wonder if it’s somehow earlier production that is wired differently. Using a multimeter is certainly the answer.

[Flying Pig]

8 minutes ago, Izzy said:

How utterly confusing. Says insulfrog but also that the frogs need to be wired to changeover switches? You couldn’t make it up…..could you?

 

If the packaging shown by OP is recent stock, is it actually unifrog?  The frogs on that are separate metal parts and not powered by default, but can be connected to a switched supply.

[Wear Valley Wanderer]

The mystery has now been solved. It only cost me a 4-pin chip and hours of frustration, but I got there in the end.

 

The instructions on the packaging are correct, if a little misleading in the fact that you are meant to snip the wires to the exit rails (The two just after the frog itself in the picture I posted earlier). These are then twisted together as you do with a double slip, then wired to the polarity switch terminals of the opposite point motor. Finally, one of the point motors (At least in my case) has to have its track power reversed. The instructions for the point motor suggest on some occasions you may have to do this, but when and why is not explained. Thirdly, I found one of my wires had become disconnected, so checking and double checking with a multi-meter is essential for maintaining sanity. 

 

Now to get on with the rest. Only twenty more points to go. Thanks again to all for your help!

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[KingEdwardII]

15 minutes ago, Wear Valley Wanderer said:

checking and double checking with a multi-meter is essential

Amen.

 

The multimeter is your best buddy when laying track and wiring up.  It catches all sorts of issues.

 

Mike.