Model Railroading > One last DCC Question

All:

Are Atlas Nickel silver switches compatable with DCC?
(manfactured in the last 10 years.)

Thank you for the coments in advance,
Charles n

(Thank you for the other posts about DCC.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/26 12:21 by charlesn.

Yes.

It was the older power-routing Shinohara switches that weren't DCC-friendly.  They could cause brief shorts due to the switch point that wasn't pressed up the stock rail having the opposite polarity of the other stock rail.  The small distance between the point and the stock rail could cause a wheel to briefly touch both rails causing a short. These shorts are so brief they don't typically cause any issue on DC layouts.  On DCC layouts however, these momentary shorts will disrupt the high-frequency DCC signal being sent thru the rails.  Some decoders are much more sensitive to these momentary shorts than others.  

I had some older Atlas GP40s about 20 years ago that came with a factory-installed convertable Lenz decoder in them (They ran right out the box on DC and if you repositioned a jumper on the board it changed it to a DCC decoder.)  For some reason, a momentary short would sometimes cause these decoders to put the loco in "full speed forward" mode.  Not good, especially when parked in a staging yard.  All these decoders got replaced pronto with TCS A4Xs and the problem disappeared.

Norm

Interesting.   Half the switches on my layout are older Shinohara and they are no problem at all.   If a switch works for DC it will work for DCC.   Electricity does not care if it only flows one way or flows back and forth a short is a short and no shorts are no shorts.   I also have hand built turnouts made from stock rail with hand filed points and frogs and everything is hot and only the rails past the frog have to be cut to stop shorts, just like an older Shinohara.   They will work just fine.   I have a large layout full double track and run trains continuously and throw turnouts as needed and nothing ever stops.    The biggest problem with turnouts are ones with insulated or plastic frogs, stay away from them at all costs as they will cause your power to loose contact and stumble.

Richard.

You shouldn't have an issue with the newer Atlas turnouts. It's the older stuff that can cause issues either with the point rails or the rails just behind the frog being too close to each other and the edge of the wheels spanning the gap.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

The whole older thing is kind of based on perspective DCC friendly turnouts have been the norm for over 10 years now.
The real problem was with the oldest Shinohara where the tie bar between the points was metal, Making the points 
electrically all one piece. That causes all the other complaints described. If the the tie bar is plastic or other non-conductive
material, that's all that's needed. There are at times some issues with frogs and how they are insulated or powered, sometimes
in really hard to troubleshoot ways, but that's a whole other thing. Me I like insulated frogs, But I generally run two or more units MU'd 
which can cover momentary blips. And I mostly use Peco turnouts.