We had an all hands meeting, so I blew home, and even though I was early, I missed the delivery today, however the mail lady left the "sorry we missed you" slip. I went to the garage and started goofing with my balky F7's then heard the mail slot on the door, so I ran. I caught the mail lady, who had more mail for us, and gave her my signed slip, then she dropped off my packages before speeding off and calling it a day. Hurray! I got a box of ebay winnings from Gordon, and my care package from Loren... Turnouts! :shade: I quickly fought to tear open the package, and after what seemed an eternity, I finally got them out of the blister pack. (I hate blister packs:thumbs_down When I seen the backside of the turnouts I said.. Oh yeah!, power routed frog and points! Defintely DCC Acceptable! Not perfect, but very good! So I took out the 4 screws to inspect the insides, and seen an elegant little mechanism that switches polarity of the frog and points as the turnout direction is switched. The bottom of the turnout is made out of 1/32" FR pc board material, with the power routing circuit that reminds me of the Tortoise Switch Machine inside, although there are no extra contacts for accessories. A nice little turnout throw wire was inside, that moves the points when the slide switch on the ballast is thrown, and there is a sizable magnet inside that snaps the points in place with authority! So, I modified my test track to include an inner passing track with a left and a right turnout, hooked up the DC and put a couple F7's on the track. My F7's are terrible runners, so I did not expect much, but I ran them around a couple laps to warm up, then slowed them down, and crawled through these turnouts. The power routing works great! No stalling. I then started rapid switching back and forth while the locos were on the othe side of the track trying to see if there was any make before break shorts, but there were none. The next test was to run the loco into closed points, and that shorted out the DCC, resetting my NCE system. As soon as the loco wheels touched the frog, the DCC system shut down. This needs to be watched, as you can melt down a locomotive's trucks if the loco sits there too long and the DCC system cycles on and off, resetting itself after each 5 amp pseudo AC short. After a several seconds the wheel will get hot, and melt down the trucks. I have had this happen to a GP35 on a Peter Wright turnout in the same situation. I like the solid frog and points, which give an air of reliability to their solid appearance, and electrical pickup is very good. This is a nice turnout, and I will be using lots of them in the future! Now, how about larger radius curved track?
thanks for the analysis robert. i can't wait until mine get here. haven't heard that they were billed or sent, but am awaiting a reply to my inquiry. it appears that MTL really out-did themselves on this effort. dave f.
Here is a proposal for a DCC powered turnout signal circuit to help alert loco engineers as to the safety of entering the new MTL turnout, to help prevent shorting the DCC system: If a loco enters from the right side, and the turnout is thrown for the other track, the loco wheels will short out at the frog. The signal will tell you if it is electrically safe to enter the turnout from this direction. Any comments or ideas?
haha! In theory it sounds good, but at the train shows parents hold their kids up to our modules, and they hang on and grab things, and flip switches. We tell the parents NO, but they don't listen or care. After all, they paid to get into the show, and they demand to see a show. If their toddler derails your train, they just smile and walk away. You turn your head for a second, and stuff happens. I blink my eyes several times a day, and that is all it takes for someone to throw a turnout on you.
Robert, thanks for the great report. You signal head will work just fine and you can string another pair of bac-to-back LED's for the reveresed turnout track. I have a very easy way for us to make up some signals like this, I'll send you over the drawing and we can work on it on Sunday. Oh, detail pix please.
Look across the tracks, such as you might do if you were to put a straight edge from track-to-frog and back-to-track or a straight edge from side to side across several rails. I notice on the only one I opened is there seems to be a sudden change in height of the rails. Is this normal or do I have a mis-mold. ...don
No, mine do that too. As soon as a train runs over it, it goes down flush with the tops of the other rails. I think it's the magnet that does it. I ran trains back and forth, round and round, and tried everything I could to get them to fail, as I was testing them. I would rather burn up a switch on my test track than when I am running at a sho on my modules, so I wanted to be sure to find out what was going on. I probably went through both turnouts, each of the 3 ways in, about 100-200 laps, as I was fiddling with them and sometimes just letting them run unattended. I must have switched them both about 300 times or more, maybe many more times, while trying to detect sparks, or any make before break action that could mess with their reliability. So far, I am really satisfied.
Robert: I am talking about where the frog point rails meet the frog. I would say that the only track I have opened has a jump from frog point rails to the frog itself - like a mm to 1/2 mm as you pass along the rails. I'm not sure I have a way to actually measure it with my tools, but studying it under 10 power magnification just doesn't look quite right. It just looks as if this end of the frog is not fully compressed into the roadbed. NOTE: Doing some more checking, it may be a problem on RIGHT Turnouts ONLY. ...don
For those of us not running DCC, the power routing of the frog & points can also be used to selectively power and isolate sidings and spurs, right? Like PECO power routing switches in N? Am I thinking correctly on this? Vince
I don't think the turnout will route power beyond itself. It's just an electrofrog design with the frog and points power routed, but the 3 connecting ends of the track are routed normal. Here are some pics of inside: And here is one of the turnouts integrated into my Timesaver module:
Fantastic work Robert! It looks great and you can not tell untill you look very very close at the ties.
These switches have to be operated manually? I thought they would come with switch motors? Robert, fantastic pics & work as usual
I use 1/16" solid copper wire for feeders soldered to the rails to prevent damage while connecting modules, and I use standard zip chord speaker wire (14-16awg stranded) for the power bus. Rated 15amps, I only use 5 amps through it.
Frog too Shallow! Hah! Finally! I visited my new LHS today and bought a right and left turnout just to see what all the fuss was about! Actually, I bought a pair cause a had a few bucks to spend. Nice! My MTL GP35's breeze right thru without a moments hesitation. The AZL C44's I have throw a fit every time they reach the frog. I come to the quick conclusion that the AZL wheel flanges are a bit larger than MTL's. The wheels have to jump up on the inner frog workings as they pass thru! I do not have any AZL SD-7X locos yet (AT&SF/BNSF has not been released yet) but do the wheel flange have the same problem as the C44's do? How about the SD45, or SD40-2, or any of the other AZL Brass workhorses? Is this flange incident of the AZL C44 only insolated to the C44 or does if afflict other AZL Locos? I was first thinking I could use a thin dremel diamond disk to deepen the frog flange path but the metal looks a bit thin. My only other possible corrective action would be to turn the diameter down in a lathe machine! If it's not one thing it is another! Hobo Tim p.s. Look forward to your answers!
