[Phil Newman]

Can anyone advise me please on wiring up the above Peco crossings, I have read up on this subject and it seems the easy way is to use a frog juicer? These are quite expensive and i will be having a lot of crossings on my new layout so i want to wire these up as cheaply as possible if i can. I am running DCC and N Gauge. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. The above crossings are electrofrog by the way.

 

[Graham Plowman]

No! No! No! Frog juicers are totally unnecessary, purposely designed to part people from their money. There is no situation which can't be wired without them.

You need to treat these track sections as a totally isolated and self contained unit, and use switch-gear on a neigbouring point motor to power the appropriate direction across the crossing.

I haven't seen the N gauge products, but most 00 gauge products from Peco already have feed wires attached for this purpose.

 

[Phil Newman]

Hi Graham, I thought there must be a solution! Your right these crossovers come with four wires already attached one on each of the frogs and one on each of the outer rails. What I need to know is how to wire them for DCC so I don't have polarity issues. Thanks for your response, and if you have the answer please let me know.
Best Regards
Phil

 

[RFS]

It makes no difference whether you're wiring for DC or DCC - the wiring is the same. You can use a DPDT switch as shown in the Peco instructions in diagram 10 here - http://www.peco-uk.com/imageselector/Files...%20Turnouts.pdf

Alternatively you can use a twin switch on the connecting point, which must have been modified to fully isolate the frog electrically. I use Tortoise slow-action point motors which have two built-in SPDT switches. The first is used for two of the frogs - the point's own frog and that of the crossing furthest away (as they both always need the same polarity), with the other crossing frog switched by the second switch. The only proviso is that when a train takes the straight route through the crossing, the turnout must not be set to route over the crossing, else you'll get a DCC short. But this is standard prototype operation anyway.

 

[dwb]

Here's a drawing I created some time ago:

David

 

[Graham Plowman]

Phil,

QUOTE (Phil Newman @ 26 Nov 2015, 17:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi Graham, I thought there must be a solution! Your right these crossovers come with four wires already attached one on each of the frogs and one on each of the outer rails. What I need to know is how to wire them for DCC so I don't have polarity issues. Thanks for your response, and if you have the answer please let me know.
Best Regards
Phil

RFS and dwb have provided the correct answer.

The only thing I would add is that to avoid all possible shorting issues, you may want to fit isolating fishplates to every rail end.
Without knowing the context of the layout where these units are to be laid, this is the safest approach, although depending on the feeds from neighbouring track, you may not need to fit insulating joints to every rail.
Personally, I would isolate the whole thing and provide power ONLY through the switches - this is what I have done on the two slips on the entrance to Ashprington Road:

 

[reddo]

Thanks dwb for posting that picture as that is also what I need for this weekends wiring exercise. Cheers

 

[dwb]

QUOTE Personally, I would isolate the whole thing and provide power ONLY through the switches
I also do this.

David