- Improve reliability of the switch frog
- Install the Tortoise switch motor
- Pilot the motor by a DCC decoder
Today, I look into powering the frog from a Peco switch.
Default Peco electrofrog
By default, the Peco frog gets its polarity when the switch point touches the stock rail. The whole component made of switch points, closure rails, and the frog switch polarity as one of the switch point touches the stock rails. This setup is prone to shorts and to weak power in the frog.
Frog piloted by the switch motor
There are three easy steps:
- Remove contacts between the frog and the closure rails (and increase the gap)
- Add electrical connection on each side between the stock rail and the closure rail
- Remove the spring in the throwbar
In this first step, I cut both of the small wires and pulled on them with a plier.
Then, I increased the gap between the frog and the closure rails with a flat screwdriver. This is critical to avoid any electrical shorts:
For the second step, I followed what a YouTube video recommended by continuing the electrical connection from the stock rail, to the closure rail, to the rotating point between the closure rail and the switch point. I did not recommend doing that. It worked fine for the first side, but I struggled a bit on the other side with the soldering iron and heated the rail too much. The plastic melted and the switch is not damaged.
The next 2 photos illustrate the mistake mentioned above:
In the image below, we can see that the plastic melted at a place that is supposed to rotate freely to ensure an easy swing of the switch points.
The third step is to remove the tiny spring in the throwbar:
Lastly, I shortened the crossties near the switch points:
Help from YouTube
And: