Soldering broken frog wires.

[Aussie 3 railer]

Hello All,

Would it be possible to drill a small hole vertically down through the centre of the frog then fit a replacement wire through the hole and solder it in place. Then just run a file over the top to clean off the excess. I did solder a new wire to the undersides but its such a small contact area to get at and there was a fair bit of melted plastic although it does seem to have worked. Shame Peco don't use a larger gauge wire it would help and a larger clear area woud be a great help.

Dirk

[508035]

Hi Aussie 3 Railer

I'm assuming you mean soldering a wire to the frog when a turnout is the right way up, that being the case I can say that it is possible to do although rather awkward when working in the V area as it is difficult to keep the heat from melting the plastic holding the neighbouring rails in place.

The way I have previously solved this is by soldering the replacement wire ( with a coloured sleeve to prevent shorting out the power ) to the outside of the respective rails away from the side where the wheels would run, I have before now ended up with solder on the wrong side of the rails and it can be a pain in the butt to remove it but yes, definitely give it a go.

[Tricky Dicky]

Repairing a broken frog wire will probably require a bit of paring back some of the plastic on the underside of the Vee and using the well described process of rail wiring
viewtopic.php?p=707#p707

For a point fixed in place it can be done from above by soldering to the inside of one of the Vee rails but could be messy and damage the plastic or end up depositing solder on the part of the rail where the wheels make contact.

On a unifrog point I would leave it as only the very tip of the frog switches polarity, there is no way of fixing from above and precious little to solder to below. A unifrog without a switching frog will simply perform as an insulfrog point and if your stock performs OK on standard insulfrogs then you should have no issues.

Richard

[Aussie 3 railer]

Thanks for the tips everyone. Hopefully the one I solder underneith works OK. Generally when I tested the others after my modifications they worked OK.

Dirk