Tortoise Feeds Frog, Peco Electrofrog

Am I a complete moron? I cannot for the life of me figure out why my Tortoise machines aren’t feeding the frogs in my my Peco Electrofrog turnouts.

I have connected Terminal 4 on each of my Tortoises to each frog, soldering the wire to an inner rail between the frog and the point rails. From what I understand, this should route power to the frog via the SPDT switch in the Tortoise. (These are Peco Electrofrog turnouts, purchased before they came equipped with “DCC friendly” snip-and-solder wires underneath).

I have seen diagrams showing a single wire from the Tortoise to the frog, and the only other wires connect Terminals 1 and 8 to the bus wires, so this is how I have set it up.

However, my turnouts are still relying on the points to connect to the stock rail—it is as though my Tortoises—all six—are not powering the frogs.

What did I do wrong? I messed something up, obviously. Do I need to connect Terminals 2 and 3 to the stock rails? I’ve seen a single diagram showing that configuration, but I’m afraid of damaging my switch machines.

 

Here’s a pic of where I soldered the wire to the frogs. The other end of each wire is soldered to Terminal 4 on my Tortoises. (Sorry is the pic is upside down. Not sure what’s wrong with the interface between this site and my iPhone).

 

Without a diagram I can only guess, but you should have attached a wire from each appropriate rail to the Tortoise electrical switch that feeds current to the frog. So you are sending the frog nothing, I think..

 

Terminal 4 is the center pole of a SPDT whose other poles are terminals 2 and 3. So yes, you have to hook track power to those two. As to which rail goes to 2 and which to 3, that's something you have to determine.

 

Thank you! My understanding of SPDT is pretty limited. Does the power going to terminals 2 and 3 have to come from the track itself, or can it come from the bus wires?

 

Yes, it can come from wherever. I attached mine to the feeds to the rest of the turnout.

 

Do you think I could attach them to the feeds powering the Tortoises? That would certainly be the most compact solution.

 

I'm reading this as you want to power the frogs from the poser that moves the stall motor. Absolutely not, that's an epic disaster in the making. The stall motor operate with a single voltage of straight DC. The frogs and rails are powered with constant voltage with digital info superimposed on it. I have a vision of many blown decoders.