Need your opinions on turnouts for use with DCC. I have turnouts that I will have to replace for DCC control. The track is code 100. I have 7 turnouts in the system now so cost is an issue.
Trunouts What brand/type of turnouts? Our club has hand laid turnouts that use the contacts on the slow motion machines and when we went from DC to DCC, no problem. We have a few Peco turnouts. Peco turnouts. Many favor Peco. Shop around the Internet for best price with shipping. About Peco ElectroFrog Turnouts: Valuable Information from Loy's Toys About Turnouts in General: Valuable Information from Loy's Toys About Peco InsulFrog Turnouts: Valuable Information from Loy's Toys Lots of DCC layout info below. Store all links in Favorites. http://www.wiringfordcc.com/switches.htm Rich
Why do you have to replace them??? Many turnouts work fine either way. Those that don't can generally be modified. See links in previous reply.
Sorry Guys, I should have included the following; (3) Bachmann 44561 LH, (2) Bachmann 44562 RH, (2) Bachmann #4 turnout 44557. Went on Bachmann forum and was told they must be replaced with DCC turnouts.
Based on what I can determine, the Bachmann turnouts are probably power routing, meaning that power applied to the points end is routed to one of the opposite ends based on the direction the points are set. This should present no trouble for DCC as-is. Even though track power is DCC, the turnouts can be controlled manually or via the normal remote controls using the original train-set transformer for power. If you want to contrl turnouts via DCC, a stationary decoder such as the Digitrax DS-64 can be used in place of the manual control buttions supplied with the turnouts. But... http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00ADph As a general practice, I place insulated rail joiners in the exit rails of all my turnouts and provide separate power feeds to the trackage beyond. That way no matter what the turnout configuration, I avoid those sneaky, back-door shorts.
I have both DCC and non DCC Bachmann turnouts and have upgraded a Bachmann diesel and a turntable to DCC. Looks very feasible to me to upgrade these turnouts provided you could/can get compatible DCC decoders. (The way I did the diesel upgrade was not really worth the time and money I spent.) I am also interest it this upgrade and may try it myself in the future.
There is no such thing as a DCC turnout. There are switches that work better than others on DCC. Why? Because DCC sees and reacts to short circuits much faster then most DC power packs and throttles. The short still happens on DC, the pack just doesn't react quick enough to notice. Really, there is nothing mysterious about DCC that causes short circuits differently then DC. Each has two wires and when they come together without some resistance between (motor) that's a short circuit. Now fix the reason why they are shorting and you have what has become to be know as a "DCC friendly" turnout. Most off the shelf turnouts will work well on DCC with a little tuning and making sure that all equipment has their wheels gauged properly. Martin Myers
To quote Doug S "As a general practice, I place insulated rail joiners in the exit rails of all my turnouts and provide separate power feeds to the trackage beyond. That way no matter what the turnout configuration, I avoid those sneaky, back-door shorts." I am new to all this and did not initially do this and as soon as I got my turnouts hooked up to my Tortoises and Wabbits, I had some shorts that confused me initially but after studying the problem, insulated rail joiners were the difinitive answer.
I have no problem with anything you said. Because of my background (starting with a Bachmann train set). I am currently in an almost all Bachmann medium size DCC layout (not recommend by me). So in my ignorance “DCC turnout” really means a turnout with a built-in, track powered, DCC controller. I believe this is what was being talked about by the person requesting help, because he identified his turnouts as Bachmann products. I would like to do the same on my layout, and also do not think that buying new turnouts is a feasible answer for me. In all fairness to Bachman, their may be some very good reasons such an upgrade was not available.
After doing some research, I believe upgrading these turnouts to track powered DCC control is significantly more difficult that I thought at first. The addition part (visual inspection only) in the turnout looks like just a decoder. But in my understanding, there must also be some form of low profile energy storage involved. My layout has a half inch of foam under the switches which I could easily use for extra space. So I am thinking that I have room for the following decoder. Current version of “NCE Snap-it Decoder - Twin Coil Switch Machines 524-115”. It is the one that has a single large capacitor next to the terminal block. Is anybody using this accessory decoder (or an earlier version) with the Dynamis? If so, I am interested in how combatable these two units are (in use & in programming)?
