Frogs

[Selmar]

Confused. I want to electrify the track for DCC, to control the engines only. I'm using Peco and the points are ST-6. I don't understand at all the potential for short circuiting. Frogs? Isolated frogs? What's a frog and should it bother me? Do I need to do any work on these purely manual points? Thank you.

[bluedepot]

I think these are iso frog so don't worry about it - the frog is plastic so non conductive

I would suggest you do some background reading on the pros and cons of live v isolated frogs and dcc wiring

tons of posts in here plus loads on web

good luck


Tim

[ntpntpntp]

Yep, as Tim says your setrack points have insulated plastic frogs (the V where the rails meet on a point) and the blades are connected so that they are always the same polarity as the rail they close against, meaning you don't have to worry about shorts.

Here's the first couple of things a google search for "live frog dcc" came up with (there's loads more stuff out there to read!)

https://www.buffersmodelrailways.com/image/data/electrofrog-points.pdf

http://www.gaugemaster.com/instructions/dcc_concepts/Wiring-Pointwork-and-Special-Track-Conditions-For-DC-or-DCC-2014.pdf