RailPro > RailPro Specific Help & Discussion
Frog Juicers compatible with RailPro?
Alan:
--- Quote from: Tom on July 17, 2018, 07:58:52 AM ---...
Also, it would have been nice to have known sooner that Shinohara turnouts are wired to power the frogs for whichever way the turnout is aligned. It is almost worth considering pulling a few Atlas turnouts and replacing with Shinohara to solve the problem the way it should have been solved in the first place. They can still be found, and rumor is that Walthers will reconstitute the Shinohara line.
--- End quote ---
Applies only to the old, out-of-production, pre-DCC, 3 digit pt# Shinohara switches. Current production 4 digit pt# DCC-friendly Shinohara switches have an isolated frog that is dead unless you route power to it via a feeder. My layout has 72 of these each with a feeder to the frog with polarity controlled by a Tortoise.
Notice the insulated gaps on the ends of the frog and the feeder soldered to it:
G8B4Life:
Your welcome Tom.
It took me a while to remember where the ANE docs were it's been so long since I've visited their site. All their docs can be found here for anyone looking: https://www.anemodel.com/DL1.html.
What brand of frog juicer do you currently have? From previous discussions here the line from frog juicer manufacturers seems to be "Nope DCC only" or "It might work on DC but we don't know or care to find out for you" so it'd be interesting to know.
Alan would know better than I on the electrical side of this so perhaps he knows if this is the answer or not but from your description of your current arrangement with the PWR-56 and the frog juicer it sounds like the PWR-56 is detecting the short quicker than the juicer is changing the polarity hence the shutdown and all is good once it comes back on.
I read back a few posts and it seems that Joel just used the PWR-56 to power the Smart Frog and didn't use another power supply thus:
--- Quote from: JJ Crooke on August 07, 2016, 09:51:28 PM ---The wiring is the same as a Mono Frog Juicer (left rail, right rail and frog) but it must also be powered by a separate set of wires. Since my turnout was already wired for the Mono Frog Juicer, I've added two additional feeder wires (16 gauge) from the bus (14 gauge) to power the SmartFrog.
--- End quote ---
- Tim
Alan:
--- Quote from: G8B4Life on July 17, 2018, 08:24:29 AM ---...
Alan would know better than I on the electrical side of this so perhaps he knows if this is the answer or not but from your description of your current arrangement with the PWR-56 and the frog juicer it sounds like the PWR-56 is detecting the short quicker than the juicer is changing the polarity hence the shutdown and all is good once it comes back on.
...
- Tim
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I agree the PWR56 is detecting faster. Really the only possible explanation other than the juicer is faulty.
My layout uses homemade circuit breakers for power districts. I discovered while prototyping the circuit breaker design that modern power supplies have a very very fast trip response time. It was quite challenging to build a circuit breaker that was faster than the power supply yet didn't nuisance trip. I had to dial in the component values to a very narrow range to get it to work as expected. Since frog juicers work on essentially the same principle I am not surprised to see them less than 100% reliable.
TwinStar:
--- Quote from: Tom on July 17, 2018, 07:58:52 AM ---
...Shinohara turnouts are wired to power the frogs for whichever way the turnout is aligned.
--- End quote ---
Can you explain how this works? The Free-mo standard has a prohibition that reads:
S4.10 All turnout frogs shall be powered. Turnouts shall not rely on switch points to power the frog.
I'm wondering if these two are related.
Alan:
--- Quote from: TwinStar on July 17, 2018, 10:57:36 AM ---
--- Quote from: Tom on July 17, 2018, 07:58:52 AM ---
...Shinohara turnouts are wired to power the frogs for whichever way the turnout is aligned.
--- End quote ---
Can you explain how this works? The Free-mo standard has a prohibition that reads:
S4.10 All turnout frogs shall be powered. Turnouts shall not rely on switch points to power the frog.
I'm wondering if these two are related.
--- End quote ---
Shinohara wiring aside, the prohibition may be because switch points are notoriously poor contacts.
You read a lot about people experiencing connectivity issues with points. The usual fix goes something like solder a jumper across the hinge joiner. If they have problems with the points then they automatically have problems with the frog if it is powered from the points.
How about more pictures? ;D
Why treat points differently than any other piece of track? Drop a feeder through the same hole used for whatever point mover mechanism you have or for point flickers, drill a hole near the hinges and use sufficiently long flexible feeders. Problem solved permanently, no hardware, near zero cost.
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