To help with problems of trains stalling going over points without frog power, I installed Tam Valley DCC mono frog juicers - www.tamvalleyde... These are great little units, and I really can't recommend them highly enough.
Hi Iain, yes frog juices for surface mount points are tops. As I can't bend and get under the layout, all my electric point motors are the Peco surface with added Juicers. The joy of seeing the first un interrupted travel of a loco over a point with a juicer was a pleasure. Barry.Devon.
Hey another product you might consider if havent heard of is a Keep Alive. Assuming you're using DCC and the locomotives are equipped with decoders (obviously lol) the Keep Alive makes your engines power on through dead frogs, dirty rails or other unusual power spots.
Thanks. Yep, keep alives work well, but mean you have to fit them to all locos. I don't know how well they'd work without the frog electrified at all, so would still need something like these frog juices if the point motor didn't provide power. I usually clean track before each running session, so thankfully haven't need to install keep alives yet! Thanks for watching. Iain
Great video explaining track work and wiring points with Frog Juicers. (Nice trackwork with good sleeper spacing, why others leave gaps at rail joints). I am building a new later with DCC control. All my points have the frogs rewired through a contact switch on the point motor. In this case, do I need to fit frog juicers ? x The Bigfella x x Paul x
Nope, you can skip the frog juicers if your point motor has a contact switch that provides the correct polarity! Just make sure that contact switch isn't reversed ;) Ask me how I know! I only used frog juicers on a couple of the turnouts where I couldn't get the point motors wired under the layout, otherwise I let the point motor handle provide the correct polarity. Good luck with your new layout. Iain
@@NewcastleCentralOOGauge Thanks, your video and reply cleared a lot of points, no pun intended.. There’s around 40 points on the new layout, and any saving in cost, addn wiring a great help ..
Yep, totally get it! I think Newcastle Central had 23 turnouts around the station, so any savings added up really quick! Little different, but my current layout is an early work in progress, and will dwarf Newcastle Central - youtube.com/@gncascadedivision
Hi there great vid, very informative, that 43 of yours a bit of screamer have you thought about gettting the strathpeffer conversion for it they really work well get one via E bay Regards Alan.
Hi Iain, I recommend adding some velcro pads to the back on the frog juicer and attach to the baseboard. You wouldn't want to risk them getting pulled by accident and snapping those thin frog wires. Great vid, thanks for sharing. Jason
Already done, yep :) The frog juicers are out of the way, but I didn't want to risk it, as that wire coming down from the frog probably won't stand up to much abuse and would be pain to replace! I did the same with the 5amp booster itself (which I didn't show at all, the video clip was all messed up), as that just sits between the DCC controller and the DCC bus so didn't want that just hanging by the cables.
hi iain we had a problem with a small peco crossing and hornby class 66s. with their over wide wheels making contact with both rails at the crossing section and shorting out. we isolated the center rails and used two of these and problem was soled. brilliant gismos lol
Oh that's a smart way to do it. I wouldn't have thought to isolate the center rail and use two juicers, one for each side rail. They are pretty smart devices.
Good vid, no waffle, which I like! I can't see that these make any more difference than a frog polarity switch on the point motor? The simple polarity switch changes the polarity before the loco gets there, so every bit as good. I think you are only using them on the non-surface mounted points though? I have used a polarity switch (rod operated off the motor) hidden by a pile of sleepers for that (can also be undermounted through a hole, but not at my age...), and a microswitch does pretty much the same thing. Not as elegant maybe but saves a wodge of cash. What I am really interested in is your control board, which looks a masterpiece - do you have a vid/article on making that? Especially the LEDs showing the "road", as the only ones I've seen are from the US and there seems no way of buying them. Trackmaster has wee LEDs but not sure about the mounting of them. I made a similar board years ago using an A3 plotter but it wasn't as professional as yours.
These work in instances where the point motor doesn't offer frog polarity switching. All other instances have the point motors controlling the frog polarity accordingly.
Yeah, they're not just useful for surface motors - I have a few point motors underneath the layout where the accessory switch doesn't quite make contact with the bus feed so occasionally doesn't power the frog. I got bored of trying to perfectly align them just for them to fail again, so for the worst ones, replaced them with juicers. Cheaper ones are available by the way - Hattons do 3 x Gaugemaster DCC80s for about £15. www.gaugemaster.com/item_details.asp?code=DCC80 They work out about £5 per motor - I realise postage is going to be steep for you - but next time you have an order in, if I was you, I'd chuck a few in the box! Great to see smooth trains!
Oh, thanks for the info the Gaugemaster frog juicers. That said, I'm a little vary about Gaugemaster after the PM-1 point motors ;) Next time I order in from Hattons I might throw a few in so that I have them on hand. I have a feeling I'll be replacing a few of the point motors and will need them.
Yeah, I think from now on my point motors will be standard Pecos without the accessory switch, and just tag one of those frog juicers onto the frog. Easy and far less can go wrong.
They are a whole lot easier, I can see that. And once the surface mount points are painted and if I did something with the wires coming out the rear, they actually look somewhat passable as being prototypical (if on the large side). But they're so much easier to install, same with the frogs. No messing around getting it aligned.
Just found out about these frog juicers and watched your video. Out of interest are you still using insulated fish plates on the rails joining to the frogs?
Yes, you still need to use insulated fish plates. The current is going to change depending on what polarity the frog juicer is outputting, so without those insulated plates, you'd create a short. These are really quick to install and they pretty much just run themselves. Good luck! Iain
