A couple of weekends ago, I purchased a couple used Atlas RH #4 powered turnouts for $5 ea. Not bad. I had previously been almost ripped off on ebay where I bought five LH Atlas #4 turnouts for $36. Good price, only two were sub par. First the RH from the trainshow in Deland, FL... This was a Bachmann turnout that had the green connector. NOT the E-Z track version, but rather an older Atlas-esque style. No ballast, just the rail and ties. When I hooked it up to other track to test it, I found that my loco was shorting. I took the turnout off and put my multimeter on it. I discovered that whenever the turnout is switched to straight, BOTH sides of the divergent track are shorted. And when the switch is flipped to the divergent track, both the STRAIGHT rails are shorted. Is this some sort of fancy turnout proprietary to Bachmann that serves a special function? Now on to the the ebay debacle. Got 5 turnouts. 3 were good - good solenoids, good alignment, good electrics. One rusted apart on me when I tried hooking it up, and the rails weren't attached to the ties on the single end. WD40, soldering iron, and hooked it up to a good sturdy straight track, and it actually runs real nice. So down to one bum unit. This one has an open on the straight segment of the turnout. There is no continuity between the moving part of the point rail and the straight part. I understand a lot of this wiring is internal to the plastic ties. Is is something that can be fixed?
Is this a turnout with an insulated plastic frog, or one with a live metal frog? (what Peco calls "Electrofrog") I wonder if this is a turnout designed (or modified) to be power routing- ie. only delivers both polarities of power to the selected route. Sounds like this could be wired like any power-routing turnout- put an insulated rail joiner or insulated gap on the inside rail of each diverging route at least on the rail that connects with the frog. Or gap both rails if you want. Then add feeders to the rails on the gapped diverging lines, so they do not need to be fed through the turnout. I can envision three different situations which would affect how you wire the arrangement. (Actually, you are not feeding the turnout itself, but the track beyond the turnout on the diverging end...) For DCC, just need a feeder beyond the track gap. For DC layout with what I will call "train set" wiring, everything live with no blocks or sections, just need feeders beyond the track gap. For DC layout with block control, the tracks beyond the gap may be a separate block. However, if one or both of the routes past the end of the turnout are dead-end spurs, you can omit both the track gaps and feeders. The turnout just automatically kills power to any spur for which the switch is not thrown. Sorry, I have probably made this both too complicated and still not covered all the eventualities...
Yes, I'm worried about the pass through current in the rails. Its definitely an insulated frog. I can't ever imagine a scenario where you would want both rails shorted... Sent from my Galaxy S3 using Tapatalk.
