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Juicers on the Frogs
For those who are new to the term ‘juicer” here is a brief explaination. A frog juicer will automatically switch the power on a frog. A wire from a frog juicer is used to power the frog – if the frog is of the wrong polarity and shorts, a frog juicer will detect a current surge and will almost immediately switch the power before the engine dcc decoder or the dcc command station can notice.
George who models in HO scale asks:
“My dcc oval two-track layout has 4 zones, each protected by aPSX beaker. Using NCE sb5 for power. Recently a car derailment caused a short on one of the 2 crossover turnouts (Bachmann ez track dcc, left and right #6). Result: damage to SB5. Thinking of installing juicers on the frogs to avoid this again. Any thoughts?”
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3 Responses to Juicers on the Frogs
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I use the Tam Valley frog juicers for all my switches. I would not have a switch without one.
Frog juicers ensure the frog is the correct polarity. But what you need is a circuit breaker.
I wonder why the breakers didn’t go?
I also use a simple inline “overload circuit” in each of the 2 zones that I run.
It’s a 12V, 50W globe in series with each bus “line”.
If there is a short, the lamp will glow brightly and give you a moment longer to kill the power or remove the short.
I also use a separate Tam Valley DAB005 booster for rail and accessories.
Another layer of built-in protection.