How to wire/connect an insulfrog double slip?

[RikkiGTR]

I’m laying my (n gauge) track now and have come to the part where I have a left hand point entering a double slip. 
The slip is insulfrog (the only left hand double slip I could get), whereas all other points are Electrofrog. 
If I follow the rule where I place insulated rail joiners at the v-rails of points then my double slip will be completely isolated by the point and the slip itself as both v-rails of point and slip are on opposing sides. 
 

Unless I don’t need to add insulted rail joiners to the slip given it is already insulfrog? Probably a stupid question but I don’t want to get it wrong.  
 

Track is all fine scale and power is DCC. 

[RikkiGTR]

It's my understanding that I add insulated rail joiners to the parts marked in green, but if I do that most of the entire slip will be dead unless I'm mistaken? 

[jpendle]

I know nothing about the insulfrog version but on the Electrofrog slips there are wires attached to the frogs ands the outer rails to allow you to power them up.

 

Regards,

 

John P

[BR60103]

I did this in OO. 

My approach was to isolate the slip fully on all 8 rails.  I cheated a little by putting the insulators a little way down one of the tracks so that I wasn't soldering feeders to an expensive piece of kit.

Then wire the slip through contacts on the point motor at one end to connect to the appropriate track at the other end. Which one will depend on how you want to run the rest of the layout.  The slip will now be connected to the appropriate block coming in to it. 

You may also want to do something about the normal point on the other track.

 

I first read about this back in the 50s. It was called "X section -- simplifier of route cab control".

 

You could get away with putting a cab selector switch on all the little blocks involved.

 

When I do wiring like this, I like to use test leads with alligator clips on the ends to link wires together until I'm sure that all the rails are connected to the right poles on the point motors. 

 

[ISW]

On 15/03/2024 at 14:40, RikkiGTR said:

The slip is insulfrog (the only left hand double slip I could get), whereas all other points are Electrofrog. 
[snip]

Unless I don’t need to add insulted rail joiners to the slip given it is already insulfrog? Probably a stupid question but I don’t want to get it wrong.  

I had the same issue with my 00-gauge Code-100 insulfrog double & single slips. All my other turnouts / points are electrofrog, the same as yourself.

 

What I did was to simply treat the insulfrog as an electrofrog. Underneath the acute crossings are wires connecting the vee rails (point & splice) to the wing rails. I snipped these close to the wing rail connection, twisted the wires together and added a connection wire (just as I would in an electrofrog). I did this to both obtuse crossings (obviously), and this provides power to just the acute crossings. Then, I added 2 power wires, one each to the obtuse crossings, to provide power to the double/single slip. Installation was thenceforth as per electrofrog, with insulated rail joiners on the back of the acute crossings.

 

Power to the acute crossings is provided through a microswitch activated by the servo on the 'opposite' switches in the double/single slip, as you have to think of a double/single slip as being 2 turnouts installed toe-to-toe, but overlapped by ~60% of their length.

 

I hope this makes sense (i don't have a suitable photo unfortunately), and that it helps.

 

Ian

[Butler Henderson]

The insulfrog double slip is akin to any other insulfrog point in that one rail of a route out that is not set is dead, It can simply be powered by attaching the track feed to the two outermost rails

[adb968008]

On 16/03/2024 at 01:34, BR60103 said:

I did this in OO. 

My approach was to isolate the slip fully on all 8 rails.  I cheated a little by putting the insulators a little way down one of the tracks so that I wasn't soldering feeders to an expensive piece of kit.

Then wire the slip through contacts on the point motor at one end to connect to the appropriate track at the other end. Which one will depend on how you want to run the rest of the layout.  The slip will now be connected to the appropriate block coming in to it. 

You may also want to do something about the normal point on the other track.

 

i did this too…

 

your only ever having one movement at a time over this, so isolating further back you can align to a signal to protect it and stop an over run.

double slips are a good thing and save a lot of space.

 

[Michael Hodgson]

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/41296-how-do-i-wire-a-peco-insulfrog-double-slip/

On 15/03/2024 at 14:40, RikkiGTR said:

I’m laying my (n gauge) track now and have come to the part where I have a left hand point entering a double slip. 
The slip is insulfrog (the only left hand double slip I could get), whereas all other points are Electrofrog. 
If I follow the rule where I place insulated rail joiners at the v-rails of points then my double slip will be completely isolated by the point and the slip itself as both v-rails of point and slip are on opposing sides. 
 

Unless I don’t need to add insulted rail joiners to the slip given it is already insulfrog? Probably a stupid question but I don’t want to get it wrong.  
 

Track is all fine scale and power is DCC. 

I didn't realise there was such a thing as a left-handed double slip!   All the Peco ones look symmetrical to me.

And you would be less likely to get wrong if you didn't insult your rail joiners 🤣

 

I  hope you've got it sorted now, but there's a couple of old threads on this

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/41296-how-do-i-wire-a-peco-insulfrog-double-slip/

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/154444-wiring-peco-sl-90-double-slip/

 

Personally I like the suggestion of just installing it without any extra wires, treating it as wiring two simple turnouts toe to toe, and then add extra wires to anything that's electrically dead.

 

[RikkiGTR]

@Michael Hodgson didn’t even realise I had written “insulted” 🤣

 

Yeah I’ve since discovered they are symmetrical, I just assumed since it was “going left” that it was left hand lol. 
I have insulated it all round and will wire any dead sections when I come to that part. 
I have another double slip at the opposite end of the station, which is Electrofrog, but I omitted this in favour of a couple more points. I’m going to use my branch line (which will be a dock or scrap works) as a test bed for complex point work, as I have an asymmetrical 3-way point plus the aforementioned double slip. I’ll keep it isolated from the rest of the layout until it’s all working properly. 

[RikkiGTR]

On 16/03/2024 at 20:53, Butler Henderson said:

The insulfrog double slip is akin to any other insulfrog point in that one rail of a route out that is not set is dead, It can simply be powered by attaching the track feed to the two outermost rails

 

So should I NOT add insulated rail joiners to it at all?

I have them on every rail on the double slip but I'm about to add dropper wires and I do wonder if I should just use regular rail joiners after all... or IRJs all-round but power the two outer rails with droppers?

[SRman]

4 hours ago, RikkiGTR said:

 

So should I NOT add insulated rail joiners to it at all?

I have them on every rail on the double slip but I'm about to add dropper wires and I do wonder if I should just use regular rail joiners after all... or IRJs all-round but power the two outer rails with droppers?

 

DO use the insulated joiners on all the rail ends.

Then, as per Butler Henderson's response, solder track feeds to the two outer rails - that's just two wires needed.

[RikkiGTR]

That makes life much easier since I already have IRJ all round. Didn’t like the idea of lifting that section of track.  

[Dunsignalling]

I did this on an uncompleted layout years ago, which was not equipped with point motors as everything was in easy reach (so fully digital operation).

 

As others have said, IRJs all round and treat it as a standalone item, fed off an appropriate auxiliary switch.

 

In my case I just treated it as another section and fed it like all the others, from a DPDT switch on the panel.

 

The new layout is getting an electrofrog one, acquired pre-owned but unused at very modest cost at a recent exhibition.  

 

John

Edited March 27 by Dunsignalling

[SRman]

59 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

I did this on an uncompleted layout years ago, which was not equipped with point motors as everything was in easy reach (so fully digital operation).

 

As others have said, IRJs all round and treat it as a standalone item, fed off an appropriate auxiliary switch.

 

In my case I just treated it as another section and fed it like all the others, from a DPDT switch on the panel.

 

The new layout is getting an electrofrog one, acquired pre-owned but unused at very modest cost at a recent exhibition.  

 

John

 

Exactly what I did on my old layout, using cab control, with the double slip being its own small section.

 

 

[Brian]

This is a DCC question not a DC one, on DC separate controller feeds are often used for different tracks entering the DS.

 

On a DCC layout using an Insulated double slip then no IRJs are needed!  All that is needed for best performance is a pair of dropper wires attached to the outer stock rails of the DS. 

[RikkiGTR]

@Brian - will it harm performance if I leave the IRJs where they are? It may be a pain to lift that section of track, could even damage the DS.

[Grovenor]

No problem, surplus IRJs don't matter so long as you have feed wires connected to all rails.

[Dunsignalling]

6 hours ago, Brian said:

This is a DCC question not a DC one, on DC separate controller feeds are often used for different tracks entering the DS.

 

On a DCC layout using an Insulated double slip then no IRJs are needed!  All that is needed for best performance is a pair of dropper wires attached to the outer stock rails of the DS. 

 

Exactly as one does on a DC layout.

 

On a DCC layout it makes no difference whether IRJs are used or not.

 

On a DC layout you might be able to get away with some insulated and some not but which may well vary depending on other aspects of the layout, and you'll still need to feed it through a changeover switch.

 

Insulating all the rail ends just eliminates any possible variables. Should you later decide to change to DCC, all that is required is to relocate the feed wires from changeover switch to the power bus. 

 

[SRman]

16 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

... snipped ...

 

Insulating all the rail ends just eliminates any possible variables. Should you later decide to change to DCC, all that is required is to relocate the feed wires from changeover switch to the power bus. 

 

 

I absolutely agree. Again, it is exactly what I did later on when I converted to DCC. There was no change to the existing cab control wiring needed, with each section simply switched to the DCC cab, which replaced one of the DC analogue controllers.

[RikkiGTR]

So I’ve wired up my DS by powering the outer stock rails but all locos stop dead on it. So I think I’m gonna do the scary job of lifting it and replacing the IRJs with standard ones. 

[Graham108]

20 minutes ago, RikkiGTR said:

So I’ve wired up my DS by powering the outer stock rails but all locos stop dead on it. So I think I’m gonna do the scary job of lifting it and replacing the IRJs with standard ones. 

Before you do that have you thought of manually connecting the DS to the adjoining tracks using just pieces of wire of, if you have them, crocodile clips? Might identify a simpler fix than the drastic move you're thinking of.

[RikkiGTR]

To be fair it shouldn’t be as difficult as I had imagined. The track is only screwed down at the moment so if I remove those it should be reasonably easy to lift. 
 

Had I know regular rail joiners were ok to use I would have done that to begin with. It’ll always be on my mind until I do it. 

[Graham108]

On 27/03/2024 at 08:49, Dunsignalling said:

 as everything was in easy reach (so fully digital operation).

Love it! I'm exactly the same - although I do have to walk to switch some points

[SRman]

18 hours ago, RikkiGTR said:

So I’ve wired up my DS by powering the outer stock rails but all locos stop dead on it. So I think I’m gonna do the scary job of lifting it and replacing the IRJs with standard ones. 

 

If the locos are stopping on it and the outer two rails are powered, then it suggests that connecting the rails to the adjoining tracks may not work either. There may be a problem with the contacts connecting the through path for the electricity. As Graham108 suggested, try bridging the rails with wire first.

Edited March 29 by SRman

[RikkiGTR]

Ok, I’ll try connecting the rails first to see if that works.