[EdWills]

Hi. Has anyone successfully modified Peco On30 electrofrog points without melting much of the plastic that it attached to the rail? There are many excellent on-line and magazine articles demonstrating how to convert live frog '00' and 'O' points, crossings etc., but the Peco On30 points have not been engineered in a similar fashion as the '00' and 'O' items and I could not find one demo on On30 points specifically. There is no added wire at the frog to attach a feed wire to, and the frog and rails nearby are surrounded by plastic underneath. I have considered purchasing a small spot welding device to allow me to attach fine wire to the rails as done by Peco at the factory, but not sure if the wire will connect successfully. On-line demos (non model railway) have shown that some small spot welding devices may not provide a permanent weld for the wire.

I do not wish to rely on the very small contacts on the switch blades, and adding extra wire to the closure rails and corresponding stock rails shouldn't be a problem as there is sufficient room between the On30 sleepers after making a cut to the plastic web underneath. I wrote to Peco a few weeks ago requesting advice, but have not heard back to date. I fully realize that they are very busy trying to keep up with production, so I wonder if any members on this forum have any suggestions so that the moderately expensive points don't end up as a ball of plastic with nickel silver rail attached? I am confident with the use of a soldering iron, and have regular 60/40 and lower temperature melt solder plus necessary clip on heat sinks for electronic use in my tool box, along with a number of iron tips. However the very limited space - due to the the point construction - may make things difficult.
Cheers, EW

 

[Graham Plowman]

Can you post a picture so that we can see what one of these turnouts looks like ? Both top side and underside.

I wrote an article about OO live frog wiring some time ago here: Live Frog Wiring - Model Railways On-Line

My suggestion would be to adopt similar principals by cutting the sleeper webbing to make the yellow connections to bridge the switch rails to the stock rails. You'll need to cut the switch rails close to the crossing. Since it is a live frog turnout, your crossing will be electrically bonded. The only issue is connecting a wire to it. Again, I'd be doing that by removing a sleeper web on one of the wing rails (those splaying out from the crossing) and soldering a wire to the underside of the rail. Another option might be to wire to the underside of a fishplate and fit that onto one of the wing rails.

An article here about droppers Power Feeding with Droppers - Model Railways On-Line gives tips on attaching wires to the undersides of rails - please DON'T commit the solder globule sin! : Avoiding Solder Globules on Rails - Model Railways On-Line

 

[EdWills]

Can you post a picture so that we can see what one of these turnouts looks like ? Both top side and underside.

I wrote an article about OO live frog wiring some time ago here: Live Frog Wiring - Model Railways On-Line

My suggestion would be to adopt similar principals by cutting the sleeper webbing to make the yellow connections to bridge the switch rails to the stock rails. You'll need to cut the switch rails close to the crossing. Since it is a live frog turnout, your crossing will be electrically bonded. The only issue is connecting a wire to it. Again, I'd be doing that by removing a sleeper web on one of the wing rails (those splaying out from the crossing) and soldering a wire to the underside of the rail. Another option might be to wire to the underside of a fishplate and fit that onto one of the wing rails.

An article here about droppers Power Feeding with Droppers - Model Railways On-Line gives tips on attaching wires to the undersides of rails - please DON'T commit the solder globule sin! : Avoiding Solder Globules on Rails - Model Railways On-Line
[/QUOTE

Hello Graham.
Many thanks for your reply. You are correct of course, that cutting the sleeper webbing to bridge the switch rails to the stock rails would be a good idea and is not difficult. The sleeper spacing on the On30 points is reasonably spaced for soldering wires to after cutting the webbing. I am not sure that my pathetic photos will load on this site, but I will try. The photos of the underneath of the points are quite blurred unfortunately, as my camera is ancient like my skill set! I like your suggestion of attaching a wired fishplate on to the splice or point rails for frog/common crossing switching. I wondered if adding a short piece of rail to the metal fishplates then using insulated joiners to the track leading off from the points would work? I could use a roller gauge to keep the alignment correct. I think roller gauges may also be o.k. as heat sinks when soldering near to plastic webbing?
Thanks again for any and all advice. Cheers EW.

 

[Graham Plowman]

Ed, thanks for those pics. These turnouts are the same as the old 009 turnouts I have, prior to the current versions.

Taking one of your pics, I have marked it with colours:

Yellow: This is where you need to cut the rails to create a gap. This will isolate the entire crossing V.

Red: On the underside of the turnout, use a knife to cut the plastic webbing off the underside of the rails and then wire between the two rails per the red line. This bonds the rails such that there is no reliance on the switch blades for electrical contact.

Green: These are insulated fishplates.

Blue: On the underside of the turnout, again, cut away the plastic webbing and solder a wire to the underside of one of the rails. It doesn't matter which one as the whole crossing V looks electrically bonded to me, but if you have a problem, solder the wire across both rails. This will electrically power the whole crossing.
This wire needs to be fed from a switch on a point motor so that the polarity of the crossing is switched.

Once you make the above changes, this will be a properly wired live-frog turnout.

 

[EdWills]

Hello Graham.
Many thanks for your advice. I didn't want to wreck the points, and this looks to be the ideal way to modify them.
Cheers EW

 

[butler-henderson]

Use a saw to make any neccessary cuts to the sleeper base - do not be tempted to use a knife as that will probably result in the rail detaching from the sleeper base.

 

[Graham Plowman]

Use a saw to make any neccessary cuts to the sleeper base - do not be tempted to use a knife as that will probably result in the rail detaching from the sleeper base.

I wish people wouldn't dismiss tried and tested methods (which used to be published on Peco's own packaging/instructions years ago, although not the reason I use the method) only to promote a less satisfactory method.

Assuming a turnout per the OP picture which has not been laid, a sharp knife applied to the underside of a sleeper base requires only two cuts, neatly aligned, parallel against the adjacent sleepers. The movement is directly downwards, pressing the sleepers against the rails, exactly where the moulding attempts to hold them, therefore, will have no effect of detaching plastic and rail.

Contrast that with a saw which by definition, is long and straight and cannot be aligned flat across the bottom of a rail. Add multiple sawing motions which can move the plastic/rail interface and because of the aformentioned bottom of rail issue means that sawing has to be done from two directions because the blade cannot be got in close enough. Compound this with the issue that the saw can cut into the undersides of the rail web before the plastic is fully cut through. Add the risk of twisting of bending and finally, add the filing to tidy it all up.

Sorry, but sawing is far too messy, far too much faffing around and far to aggressive a treatment for these relatively fragile units. Two simple cuts with a sharp knife will do a far neater job in less than a couple of seconds (with no further work required) without risk of any damage.

I hereby dismiss sawing as valid advice in this instance.