Electrofrog Wiring

The Electrofrog is power routing, controlled by the switch rails. Clipping two wires on the closure rails will isolate the frog and the switch rails. This also prevents a short caused by the back of the wheel grazing the switch rail and shorting it to the stock rail.

There should be another wire with provides power to the frog's point and wing rails, which will be needed to keep things moving. Finally you need insulated rail joiners or gaps to prevent a short where the point rails meet at the heel of the frog.

You may want to solder jumpers between the switch and closure rails for reliability.  

Here are some pictures and diagrams.

Apparently clipping the

Apparently clipping the feeder wires on the closure rails is not mandatory for DCC but eliminates the risk of shorts if polarity change isn't in-sync with changing direction with the points.  But as per recommendatoin, I clipped those wires but I had to buy a sharp pointe wire clipper (off eBay) to get in the space to cut the wires Peco installs at the factory.

You must use insulating joiners on the two rails coming off the frog.  Since this was a ladder, I added a feeder just beyond the insulated joiner to provide power to the rail on the next turnout.  In fact I had to do this to all the turnouts in the ladder at the same point.

Since I don't trust my soldering skills near plastic ties, I cut a metal rail joiner in half and soldered the feeder to it.  Perhaps not as good as soldering to the rail itself, but safer than melting ties, for me at least.

As for powering the frog in DCC, I've bought a number of Tam Valley Hex Frog Juicers to run feeders to the frogs.

Cutting metal joiner in half?

Nice looking job Jim. Just wondering how you cut that joiner in half so neatly (without restricting the rail's slot)?

Demel cutoff wheel.

Demel cutoff wheel.

Tue, 2021-03-23 05:07

Not that you asked, but should others be reading on,

Our club played with Frog Juicers until we realized that you can't use Frog Juicers and Circuit breakers (in particular PSX) on the same layout. The Juicers would cause the Circuit breakers to trip. We had a point where they were basically triggering each other non-stop.

So manual polarity throw via switch-machine vs. electronic solution became our mantra. 

You need circuit breakers with a timing setting

You need circuit breakers with a delay adjustment so the frog juicers trip first. Just set the circuit breaker delay to a longer trip time and the frog juicers will work fine.

From the TAM Valley website:

Thanks Joe

Indeed, I plan to use both Tam Valley Frog Juicers and PSX breakers so glad to know they can both be set up to work.

The confusing thing about that quote "Older versions of the PSX were slower and the frog juicer would trip before the PSX circuit breaker."  That implies a bad thing.  But yet the solution is to slow the newer ones down so it sounds like the older kind would be less of a problem?

I received my PSX breakers from a fellow model railroader and I don't know if they are the older kind or not, if that matters.  Or can they both be programmed for optimal compatibility with Frog Juicers?

No, the older ones

were slower and that was good.  They changed the design, sped up the PSX, and then had to add an adjustable response to restore sanity.

Blair

Since I obtained my 4 PSX

Since I obtained my 4 PSX second hand, how do I discover if they are the older or newer type?

More on frog juicers and PSX

By the way, this kind of stuff is what I'm putting in the TMTV QAT session mini-clinics -- stuff that you may not know but are gotchas.

Anyhow, here's how to determine if your PSX boards are new ones with the configurable delay -- taken from the web ...

New Peco Unifrog Code 83 Ad

This was copied from a message on the UK RMWEB in their Peco Subject Area

The RMWEB discussion focused on the machined switch blades being used in more lines of Peco track as opposed to the traditional model hinged turnout blades. 

Wish they would get around to the Code 70 versions as that Code 83 rail just looks too tall to me. I guess painting and weathering it helps. 

Hattons lists them at GBP 18.50, that's about USD 26 at the devalued USD rate of $1.40 to the GBP.  by the time they get through US distributor and retailer charges they will be in the $35-$40 range. 

Hatton's

Hatton's offers pretty efficient mail-order service to the USofA, deducts the 20% VAT that US customers don't have to pay, and is good about efficient packaging.  Buy direct. Fun store to visit if you're up around Liverpool.

Ken, ironically the

Ken, ironically the advertised new unifrog Peco #6 is currently a turnout I am avoiding due to the frog having a similar propensity as the insulfrog to short when metal wheels bridge the two rails of opposite polarity.  Shame as the new version has nice improvements with the points.  Anyway,   Peco has acknowledged the frog issue and plans to re-engineer it.