I thought the same, why not use the built in feature for that in the tortoise motors With the risk of getting reprimanded or something like that, I’m going to say, this is why some people find model railroading complex and expensive sometimes, why adding more when you can do it with less and that doesn’t mean you are cutting corners or anything it is just the most effective and less expensive way to do it and probably the right way to do it (( I know, I know everyone is different, but sometimes it’s just about making things easy and simple)) Hope you all understand my point of view

Hey Don! Yes the Tortoises can do that, but I wanted to show a way that anyone can power the frogs. That way if somebody came across this video and didn't have tortoises, they can still implement this.

Thanks for answering part of my question, before I posted it.

You are correct, but I think Jimmy was just demonstrating that there was no loss of power as the loco went through the turnout.

Keep alive vs juicer/other method. If u have a couple locos or u travel to other layouts. The keep alive is most likely the budget friendly route. If u have lots of locos, run at your layout a lot and have visitors. Probably best to make sure the track work is more bulletproof. Making the other option a good call.

The biggest problem with the Keep Alive is that, so far at least, very few locos come equipped with a Keep Alive. The Keep Alive is very bulky and can be tricky to install. The Nov 2022 Railroad Model Craftsman has an article on installing a Keep Alive, and the author had to cut away a portion of the weight to make a space for it. I use frog juicers on all my turnouts, and if I could, I would install Keep Alives on all my locos as well.

The only difference is that with a KA, during the time of no contact, the decoder can't receive commands just continues to execute the last one. Since directly after the turnout there could be a train, I am not comfortable with uncontrolled locomotives moving towards them. I still use KAs though, but only on those locomotives where it's absolutely necessary. And I have all my frogs live.

My turnouts are also manually thrown, using pushrods mounted in the fascia. The pushrod operates a DPDT slide switch under the turnout, which provides power to the frog.

Yes you are correct. I did this video to show everyone how to fix the issue regardless of switch machine. I didn’t want to show how to use the tortoise and somebody who doesn’t have it is out of luck.

The loco hobbling across the turnout is because of the design of the turnout frog (what an ugly word - in german we call this "Herzstück", that is heart piece). Most older designs of model turnouts use either a metal or plastic cast piece with grooves in it for the frog. The loco (or car) is supposed to run on the wheel flanges through this part of the turnout. This was done because "back in the days", clearances for wheel flanges had to be much larger, the wheels had to be wider, than what is possible with modern maufacturing today. This means the gaps between rails in the turnout had to be so large, that a wheel would just drop in and no smooth running was possible. Even worse, a wheel flange could be caught in the gap and cause the loco or car to derail. By replacing rails with this one-piece frog, basically just a block with grooves in it, the wheel flanges could ride "on the floor" in the bottom of the grooves, resulting in smooth running and reduced risk of derailment. However, this requires rather high wheel flanges. As wheel flanges have become much smaller and even wheels have become finer over the last decades, this no longer works and when running over an old-style frog, the wheel will drop a bit into the gap, causing the rolling stock to wobble. It is possible to build model turnouts with a more protoptypical layout, where the wheels run on rails, but as this requires much smaller gaps, this also means wheel flange width and the distance between the inner parts of the wheels on the axle have to be very tightly controlled. Some rolling stock might need to have their wheelsets adjusted or even replaced. For example, I have read that you have to expect problems running some old Fleischmann rolling stock through prototypical Weinert turnouts. So either you want prototypical track and no "axle dip", then you need to make sure all wheelsets of all your rolling stock is up to standard (which can be quite a lot of work and also get expensive if you have to replace say a hundred wheelsets...), or you want to just run your existing stuff without much work, and the wobble and the unprotytypical look does not bother you to much, and this is when you choose the old-style turnouts. Prototypical turnouts are usually also more expensive. You should be able to reduce the sinking in of new rolling stock in old-style turnouts by raising the frog floor a bit (fill up with brass tripes etc), but this will in return make the occasional old wheelset with really flanges climb up. So if this is worthwile or feasible depends on the composition of your rolling stock (as well as your tolerance for wobbling locos and small-scale, fiddly work). As @DIY and Digital Railroad 's main message seems to be that you neither have to be an expert modeller, master craftsman and a millionaire (all in the same person) to have fun with a model railroad, but that model railroading should be an accessible hobby, he made the quite sensible choice to go with the cheaper traditional turnouts, which allow to run older, cheaper rolling stock without having to invest to much time, thought and money into the evolution of wheelset standards and norms...

There is no trial and error needed, you can measure it with a multimeter and solder once.

My hunch is you need a juicer for each frog, but Tam Valley has great customer support - they can tell you for sure.

Any.

Yes. I personally dislike the idea of this but at a few critical points it could work. It could cause problems with decoders but I have heard of very large model railroads that work just fine with them.

So the frog Juicer works in a similar way to an auto reverser in that when it detects a short circuit caused by the turnout being aligned differently than before, it reverses the polarity.

Yes you are correct about the Tortoise. The reason I didn’t is that I wanted to show a way to solve the issue that would work for anyone and didn’t rely on having a tortoise switch machine.

It is an "electrofrog" turnout, in the sense that the frog can be energized, as opposed to an "insulfrog" where the frog is made of plastic. The terms are trademarks of Peco, but many people use them in a general sense.

@@benbedothu if it was a electro frog, why then did his engine hesitate or stumble?

@@bruceyoung1343 Electrofrogs "can" be energized, but that doesn't mean they always are. As Jimmy says at the beginning of the video, the frog has to be separated from the stock rails, as they are of different "polarities" (more like phases, polarity has no meaning with DCC). Now you could connect a permanent feed to the frog from one of the stock rails, but that would cause a short in one of the directions. That's why you need to have a frog juicer, or use the terminals on the Tortoise, or use frog-juicing switch decoders to power the frog, as this way, the frog will always have the same signal on it, as the stock rail the wheel is going to travel on at.

Hmmm. What brand of track are you using?

Some turnouts have a pretty small section which is electrically isolated. When locomotives with wider than normal flanges run through these turnouts, the flanges can bridge across the insulated portion and cause a short, even in DC. Examine your turnout closely: you should be able to see the insulated gaps in the rails around the frog. Then move your loco through the turnout (with track power off) and see if you can spot any trouble. It could be one or two "bad actor" locos on marginal turnouts.

@@DIYDigitalRailroad its peko.

That turnout is an Atlas code 83 #4. The frog is completely isolated. I actually disassembled a junk one of these to make sure haha!

@@DIYDigitalRailroad Are the frogs really that bad on Atlas switches? It looks like the locomotive is taking a flying leap over the frog.

@@IC-Tom Haha! No. I warped the plastic a bit when I soldered it. I filed it back down.

Yes I wanted to make the video so that someone could fix the issue regardless of switch machine. If I did the tortoise only, then somebody who doesn’t have the tortoises would be out of luck.

@@DIYDigitalRailroad I understand and that makes perfect sense. I was just wanting to save you a few bucks if I could. Thanks for all the valuable things you have taught me in your wonderful videos.