Date
1 - 20 of 23
AR Vs Tortoise to power frog
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Perry A Pollino
I posted a problem I was having with Locos stalling on turnouts, in particular a cross over.
After a lot of trouble shooting I discovered the AR does not always swicth the polarity when the switch moves. I am considering scrapping the AR's and using the Tortoise machines to swicth polarity. Wondering if anyone has any advise as in does and Don'ts. I am N scale and using Barrett Hill Touch Toggles and thier tortoise adapters. Thanks Perry |
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I always use switch machine contacts to control frog polarity on turnouts and haven't had an issue. On my layout I mostly use Bluepoint machines, but Tortoises work the same way.
I also use DPDT relays controlled by switch machine contacts for reverse loop polarity. I don't plan on ever having any AR circuits on my layout ever, at any time, or in any location. Tim |
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I use Tortoise contacts for frog polarity and DCC Specialties PSX-AR to control polarity of return loops. I keep the frog polarity completely independent of the return loop polarity and I have never had an issue. I have not experimented with having the AR unit throw the return loop turnout automatically.
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Dale,
Your methods are like mine. I make the turnout for a return loop in the same electrical block as the approach. I suspect, since I'm using Tortoises, that having the PSX-AR throw the turnout would not be 'fast enough to matter' ... most of my locos have keep alives in them and so I pretty much have to make sure the turnout is properly aligned before I start into it. Probably the only important drawback to a keep alive ... but I'm willing to deal with that simply because the advantages out weigh it. Plus my philosophy is "if you are running turnouts - you're not paying attention". *G* - Jim - Jim |
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Tom O'Hara
Hi Jim, Maybe I am misunderstanding what you said. If the Tortoise and AR work without keep-alive devices, they'll work with. The energy storage works for the engine but doesn't have any effect on the polarity of what the engine "sees". That comes strictly from the track, which is handled by the KA device or Tortoise. I've had KAs since they came out and never had any problems with my reversing circuits. ....Tom On Sat, May 1, 2021 at 6:45 AM Jim Betz <jimbetz@...> wrote: Dale, |
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Tom,
Yes, they both "work" ... that's the problem. By the time the AR has thrown the turnout (due to detecting the approach of the loco - a short) the keep alive has run the loco far enough to derail (before the turnout has completed the realignment). It's the "catch-22" of keep alives ... they aren't meant to keep the loco running when there is a real short - only when the loco looses power for just a bit (dirty wheels/track) ... but they do and so you still have to line your turnouts ahead of your train. And, specific to running around a reversing loop, there isn't any device that I know of that allows you to do that in a "fire and forget" method. IF you always ran the train the same direction and you left a long (1 foot or more?) enough approach to the turnout and your turnouts completed changing direction before the keep alive got the loco all the way to the derailing point ... then it would work. Of course, that would use up some of the track in the reversing section. Do we need that last 2 car lengths in the reversing section ... possibly not - most guys would say "yes". The other gotcha in this method is that if you don't stop the train before it crosses into the point where it is detected ... you can't have the train "stored" and run another train into the loop - because it will cause a short. Many (most?) reversing sections are actually more than one track in the loop in order to store more than one train at a time. As I've already said - there just isn't an "automated reversing loop" that works for all situations. Some/many/most of the mfgrs of decoders are -finally- including a setting (CV) that allows you to control how long the keep alive will keep the loco running. I, for one, simply don't understand why the keep alives have to have such large storage capacities. There has to be a better design for the keep alive itself that makes it work for dirty track for "any" decoder (without a CV in the decoder). - Jim |
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Tom O'Hara
Yep to all of that. I use the TCS KA 1s or 2s exclusively because they give me the shortest time. it's still more than I need. When I do an install, I always make sure the client knows what he's getting in terms of what you just said. On the other hand, I still throw my turnouts with fascia-mounted switches or with the throttle. We tend to use the technology that is tuned to our operating modes. ...Tom On Sun, May 2, 2021 at 9:28 AM Jim Betz <jimbetz@...> wrote: Tom, |
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Paul O <pomilian@...>
Keep-a-lives are a “Band-Aid” for improperly maintained locos and track. My two cents. 🤪 Paul O
On Sunday, May 2, 2021, 12:57:07 PM EDT, Tom O'Hara <tomohara5@...> wrote:
Yep to all of that. I use the TCS KA 1s or 2s exclusively because they give me the shortest time. it's still more than I need. When I do an install, I always make sure the client knows what he's getting in terms of what you just said. On the other hand, I still throw my turnouts with fascia-mounted switches or with the throttle. We tend to use the technology that is tuned to our operating modes. ...Tom On Sun, May 2, 2021 at 9:28 AM Jim Betz <jimbetz@...> wrote: Tom, |
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Don Weigt
Tim,
Like you, I've never had AR circuits on my railroad. Unlike you, I probably will add some soon. My railroad has a reversing loop that's five blocks long, totaling about 60 feet in length, with the third block being about half the total length, and the only one that needs reversing now that I'm running DCC only. The other four blocks are the arrival and departure tracks, as well as mainline through tracks of my main yard. The reversing block doubles as a hidden staging area, my railroad's connection to all points east. I've used photodetectors and lights to show the location of trains as they move through that hidden area, and manually controlled the reversing. Trains may be arriving or departing at the west ends of those yard tracks at the same time as another train enters or leaves the reversing block at their east end. Adding to the complexity, those four visible blocks also have a crossover from the track nearest the layout edge to the next one, and that next one has a passing track connected to it. At the west end, two turnouts bring those three tracks down to one continuing out of the yard, while a third turnout provides a route to the turntable. No one turnout's position can be used to control the reversing of the third block. The turnouts and points that would determine which way to set the reversing polarity or phase to the hidden block are too far away, and the trackwork between too complicated, This all made sense when running DC when the railroad was first built. Trains were run into the hidden tracks from the second track from the layout edge, and reappeared on the track at the layout edge. Mainline polarity was changed while the trains were in the reversing block, which almost always stayed set for the trains' normal direction through it. Fast forward to today. I'm running DCC only. My mainline track power phase is fixed. I'm reversing only the power to that long hidden third block. I have a young grandson who doesn't understand why that track power reversing switch needs to be thrown and when. Rather than try to devise the logic to control the phase automatically as a train approaches one of the ends of the reversing block, I plan to have an AR circuit do it. It still will be necessary to prevent one train entering the reversing block while another is leaving, which would short out track power regardless of reversing block power phase. But, that is easier for my grandson to understand than that he needs to make certain a toggle switch is set the right way as his train approaches the reversing block, and that the toggle switch needs to be reversed before his train reaches the other end of the block. Running the railroad will be easier for me, too, and the control panel simpler. Don Weigt Connecticut -- |
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Don Vollrath
Don W. Have you considered making the storage tracks constant polarity and the mainline (or at least part of it) the AR section?
DonV |
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Don;
I'll soon have a situation similar to yours. A double ended staging yard where one end represents Charlotte for southbound trains, and the other Winston-Salem for northbounds. Both of these happen to connect at the same place on the visible layout, at a little place called Barber where the Charlotte to Winston-Salem line crossed the Salisbury/Spencer to Asheville line at grade. If you look at this crossing with the line to Winston-Salem to the north, then Charlotte is south, Salisbury is east, and Asheville is west. There are connecting tracks in the north-west, south-west, and south-east quadrants. (There is now another on the north-east quadrant, but it hadn't been built yet in 1974, when the model is set.) I figured on using this for a turnback during open houses, but not operating sessions. Like yours, I can have trains entering and leaving is opposite directions at the same time on different tracks. I will probably set this up so that you cannot line up conflicting routs that would cause short circuits, but it's going to be a while before layout construction gets that far. Tim Rumph Lancaster, SC |
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Paul,
I agree with you about its being a "band aid" - and I still install keep alives in almost all locos. The locos simply run better in all situations. Properly maintained locos and track is the reason why keep alives were invented - but the "side effects may include" the benefit of rock solid slow speed performance and un-interrupted sound is something that I, for one, have been "seduced by". For me - the sight of a train going down the track "all herky jerky" is a problem ... even one stutter is a problem that I will correct. It literally "kills my buzz" (it interrupts my ability to believe that "this is a real railroad"). I still clean track and wheels. OFTEN. But if/when I miss something I can rely upon the keep alive to have my back. Scale comes into this topic as well - if you are in O-scale you don't need keep alives. I don't know about S but suspect that even there the added mass of the locos is sufficient to make keep alives at least questionable. I'm in HO scale. I can see the difference. Many of my keep alives are "home grown" and do not use super caps for their power storage (some call it a "short duration battery"). Others use the commercially available keep alives. I prefer the home growns because the loco doesn't run very far on the keep alive power, never far enough to derail if it runs a turnout, but you often don't have space for the home growns. As a demonstration of the capabilities of using a keep alive I installed one in a non-sound, HO, Atlas S-2. I then fine tuned the S-2 diesel switcher to move at it's slowest possible speed at speed step 1 on the throttle. I then put it on a layout that had not been run - nor cleaned - in over a month. It ran literally everywhere - at the painstakingly slow speed of 12 ties a minute! One of its tests was up a grade and around the end wall (about 30 to 40 feet long total). We were also working on other stuff at the same time. Twelve ties a minute is so slow that you literally had to stop and look at, and wait to see the movement, and stare at the front of the pilot to see that it was actually moving. It did not stop nor even hesitate briefly in the hour plus it took to travel that distance. This was -Way TOO Slow- and was done simply as a demonstration - but it proved to me just how well stuff can run with a keep alive. I'll continue to install keep alives. YMMV. I also prefer decoders with a setting to limit the amount of time they will continue to function without seeing the DCC packet stream from the track. - Jim |
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Don,
Wise decision - in my opinion. And you know what - operators other than your grandson will appreciate it/depend upon it as well. Because using a DCC auto reverser means that you don't have to pay attention to "where the train is" and that is one of the biggest reasons why DCC is the way most layouts are going. All of my track is "protected" by a DCC circuit breaker (auto reversing or not). And my layout is broken into DCC power districts by those breakers that make sense for how the layout is operated. That way guys running in one area (and causing a short due to running a turnout) don't affect guys running in another area. Often those "areas" are both sides of the same aisle. Or when the train that is running "on the mainline up/back there above/behind the yard ... so when the guy running the yard runs a turnout (I know you don't ever do this - but I've been known to run a switch from time to time) his short doesn't cause the train on the main to stop. - Jim |
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whmvd
Jim, I'm on G-Scale, and wouldn't dream of getting rid of the keep-alives. Worth their weight in gold. A drawback that's not so easy to see is that on track dirty enough to make the keep-alives do their thing, you will also find that the engine is much more likely to miss DCC commands. After all, the contact problem is still there, only somewhat hidden. In your crawl-test, it would be interesting to see what would happen if you were to (automatically) send headlight-on headlight-off commands at pretty high rate. The dirtier the track, the more packets will be missed, resulting in irregular blinking. But the progress would still be smooth! Wouter On Mon, 3 May 2021 at 15:44, Jim Betz <jimbetz@...> wrote: Paul, |
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Don Weigt
DonV, I've thought about switching the mainline "polarity" instead of the storage tracks, but concluded it has no overall advantage, given the other connections in the yard to the tracks that would need to be switched. There probably are other track plans where it might be an improvement, but I'm convinced mine isn't one of them. Don W -- Don Weigt Connecticut |
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Don Vollrath
Post a diagram of your track plan or remind us of the link if you have already done so. Then me and others might have other suggestions.
DonV |
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And if you switch the main - you may run into problems with another train
being 'across' the gaps and preventing the auto-reverser from working. Bottom line - reversing is/can be a "tricky topic". My own method is to make the turnout that 'approaches' the reversing section in the same power district as the main, and then - whenever possible - make the "legs" of the turnout longer (i.e. making it less likely for a train to short as opposed to reverse) ... giving the turnout machine more time to completer the throw before the train gets to where it is a short. - Jim |
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Don Weigt
DonV, I don't have a decent way to post my track diagram. It would need to be hand drawn, then scanned. Back in the '90s I had more CAD capability than I do now. Moving on in my Microsoft computer OS meant leaving my old CAD behind. I may still post something. But, I'm not really looking for a better solution. I don't think there is one. The point of my message was that there is no "one size fits all" solution for reversing "polarity" control. Don Weigt Connecticut -- Don Weigt Connecticut |
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Don Weigt
I've drawn a diagram of my railroad's yard and reversing tracks. I looked for where to post them to the group, but didn't find the place. Can someone point me to it?
-- Don Weigt Connecticut |
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Don Weigt
I created a folder for my drawing's PDF file, but couldn't find how to post it there, so it's uploaded into the general files area, I think, and the file folder and picture folders I created are empty. I have some learnin' to do!
-- Don Weigt Connecticut |
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