Electro frog or insulfrog

[Railway man 123]

Which point type should I pick for my DCC layout. I have found out that there are two types of point and i am wondering which one is the best for me? I have heard that trains run better with electro frog. I am running dropper wires to all of my track and I am wondering also how to wire droppers to elctro frog and why do people wire there point motors to them.

1:what should I use

2:if electro frog how to wire droppers to it 

3: why do people wire point motors to the frog of the point

[Augustus Caesar]

There is an absolute deluge of information on this specific question out there.

It has been answered more than once on this forum too plus YouTube is a very good place to begin your quest for an answer.

 

Rather than try and type loads of text here explaining it all as it has, as stated, already been done, try this link on YouTube, selected at random, which is quite detailed and uses 'colour coded track' to outline what is being discussed.

 

 

There are a lot of other YT channels which will help you further. Of course it is down to personal choice but I use electrofrog as there is definitely a better performance and less chance, for example, of locos stalling at the frog.

 

Good luck.

[Flashbang]

To answer the OP questions..

1)  For the very best running Electrofrog has to be the best.  However, Electrofrog points are not made by Hornby.  Peco is the usual manufacturer.  Also Electrofrog points are not the same size or to the same radius turnout as Hornby points, Electrofrog are far larger.

2) Droppers are soldered to either the points outer Stock rails or to the stock rails undersides before track laying,

3) Point motors are not wired to the Frog.  A change-over type of switch operated by the point motors movement is wired to the frog and track feed wires to improve the power connection to the frog and the points moving switch rails, rather than rely on switch balde to stock rail contact. There are further improvements available for Electrofrog points too.

[ColinB]

With electrofrog points if you want to go really slow over the points then the loco is less likely to stall as there are not so many bits of plastic on the frog area of the point. The down side is you have to do a bit more planning with your layout. On an electrofrog point straight out the box the point blade puts an effective short across the turnout side not being used, so you have to use insulated fishplates. I use electrofrog points, but I also have isolating sections so if the point is in the wrong direction the loco stops. To me I don't know why everyone goes paranoid over having electrofrog points with DCC, DCC is just using a digital signal, ok if the loco loses the signal it stops but is does on DC. A big advantage of DCC is if you have issues with the locos stopping at points just add "stay alive" to the DCC decoder. Lets face it, if you use code 100 Peco track, they don't make electrofrog slips or cross overs ( I really wish they would redesign these with less plastic).

[Somerset Modeller]

Try watching this video, it will help you understand the difference.

Chadwick Model Railways does alot of helpfull videos.