Hello! I am very new to the hobby and I’ve watched about 100+ hours about the topic and about DCC in general and for some reason it’s a little hard for me to wrap my head around the wiring part. I’m doing a shunting layout and I want to know answers to a few (basic?) questions I have. 1. I have seen you need to edit the points, but if my layout doesn’t make a circle do I need to “DCC” my points still? 2. What type of points would work better for DCC operations just for a shunting micro layout I’m doing? 3. Is any brand of points better to use than another? 4. Do insulfrogs vs electrofrogs make a difference in DCC shunting and which is easier to work with? 5. I’ve looked around and didn’t see any DCC ready points on the market. Do they have DCC ready points already made? I thank you for reading and hopefully you know more than me about this haha
If you don't want to throw you switches manually, you will need some sort of switch interface and servos to get your switches to work with DCC. Insulfrogs are easier to use than electrofrogs, but can give you dead spots especially if you use 4 wheel engines. With electrofrog the setup is slightly more involved ( has to be isolated from rest of tracks as you have to set the frog polarity when you throw the switch - see Peco's manual for details) but hardly have any dead spots. It is personal choice of which switch manufacturer you want to use (ready made or DIY). Some have up to 3 codes for the same scale track. For servo's you also have a wide choice or switch motors (eg tortoise). Some of the switch motor choices will also influence which switch control you will pick as they have various options built in. To control the switches you have DIY, self build and program or shop bought options. (Options is really wide here and depending on the manufacture, they might include signalling, electofrog setting, additional toggle switching, feedback of switch setting, led reporting, from 4 to 16 connections and so on). Search www for something like Wiring for DCC, they normally also cover how switches can be used and wired. Pick a few of the popular manufacture's and check out their switch offerings (sizes and shapes) and see which will fit in you layout plan and space. If you want to go the manual route most of the above fall away but you will still have the Insulfrog vs Electrofrog option when selecting tour points. Also you cant use DCC and/ or PC to control your points. Some prefer it this way.
Okay so I do plan on throwing the switches manually. So all I have to do is nothing for that? If I chose manually throwing would I still have to edit the electrofrog? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Blue point switch machines I have found to be really easy to use. They are a manual type switch machine. Also they let you wire the frog which gets rid of the dead zone on the switches.
Manually you still have to add a switch or slider for an electrofrog. Wiringfordcc have on their switch page descriptions and diagrams explaining the different switches and wiring for it. "https://tonystrains.com/news/peco-electro-frog-turnouts-dcc/" The nice thing about this www explanation is that he has a nice animation of an electrofrog switch. If you watch how the colour change on the throw of tie bar you will understand why the 2 inner rails have to be isolated (creating short) and that you have to work a toggle or slide switch in to your manual throw. Easiest on manual throw will be a slider switch. All this falls away on a insulfrog switch. Peco has recently launched a new insulfrog range where the isolation in the frog is so small that is only a hair width away from an electrofrog. BTW most of the recent or "new" switches is DCC friendly. See Wiringfordcc the difference between the types and where you need to install links/ wire to make it more DCC friendly. You probably going to end up trying a few different switches before settling on a preferred manufacture(s).
