Powering Frog with Tortoise (opinion)

[Texasperry]

Folks,
When I first started wiring up my layout  I powered all my frogs with DCC specialties Frog AR. In my initial planning I was going to use ground throws for all but a few turnouts I could not reach easily, being an around the room shallow layout. as i constructed and tested I decided in N scale  I did not want to reach into the layout. So I installed tortoise machines.  I am now adding few turnouts and decided to try using the contacts on the Tortoise to switch frog polarity rather than buy another Frog AR. This has me thinking about maybe eliminating all my Frog ARs.
So as my subject implies; I am asking for opinions on the reliability of the tortoise contacts VS the Frog AR.
Thanks
Perry

[GaryHinshaw]

I have had zero issues with the contacts on my Tortoises.  For calibration purposes, I have ~50 installed and in operation for ~7 years.  I would not hesitate to use them again.

[dem34]

Work great in my experience, only thing I would say is make sure you use the official wiring diagrams. Blew up a battery on my bench because a there are quite a few inaccurate wiring diagrams out there.

[nickelplate759]

+1 on Tortoise being reliable.    DO test your wiring (with a multimeter) of each frog  with the turnout thrown both ways before you power-up the tracks.   Not because of any issues with the Tortoise, but because some of us occasionally make mistakes.  A dead frog isn't too bad, but a reverse-wired one can be a Very Bad Thing.

[John]

I wire all my tortoises to power frogs .. never had problems in 48 years ..

[Ed Kapuscinski]

And don't forget about using the SNAPS connectors if you're concerned about getting the wiring wrong, or just don't want to have to worry about soldering to them.

[Texasperry]

Thanks to all.
I may just eliminate my Frog ARs. It would certainly unclutter some of my layout wiring.
I am using Barret Hill Turnout touch toggle controls. He has produced a Tortoise adapter that re positions the contacts on his screw terminals to be a bit more user friendly. The center two screw contacts are motor control and 3 on each side are the aux contacts.
Perry

[jdcolombo]

I'm late to the party, but same experience here: I have 80 Tortoise machines on my layout, and they have worked absolutely perfectly for 10 years.

BTW, what I did was wire 2-foot lengths of color-coded wire to the terminal strips on the Tortoise on the bench.  Red for Track +, black for Track -, green to power the frog, etc.  Then I used the Euro-style terminal strips under the layout to complete the wiring after installing the Tortoise.  That made installation easy, and I thought would make it easy to replace one if I needed to do so.

Never have needed to do so.

John C.

[nickelplate759]

I'm late to the party, but same experience here: I have 80 Tortoise machines on my layout, and they have worked absolutely perfectly for 10 years.

BTW, what I did was wire 2-foot lengths of color-coded wire to the terminal strips on the Tortoise on the bench.  Red for Track +, black for Track -, green to power the frog, etc.  Then I used the Euro-style terminal strips under the layout to complete the wiring after installing the Tortoise.  That made installation easy, and I thought would make it easy to replace one if I needed to do so.

Never have needed to do so.

John C.

I did something similar, and used Cat5 wire for that purpose - has 8 conductors neatly bundled and color-coded. The terminal strips were mounted to the benchwork - with Velcro!  I have had to remove Tortoises a few times - not because of the Tortoise, but because of issues with either the linkage to the turnout or the turnout itself.   The Cat5 pigtail and Velcro made it easy.

[peteski]

I'm late to the party, but same experience here: I have 80 Tortoise machines on my layout, and they have worked absolutely perfectly for 10 years.

BTW, what I did was wire 2-foot lengths of color-coded wire to the terminal strips on the Tortoise on the bench.  Red for Track +, black for Track -, green to power the frog, etc.  Then I used the Euro-style terminal strips under the layout to complete the wiring after installing the Tortoise.  That made installation easy, and I thought would make it easy to replace one if I needed to do so.

Never have needed to do so.

John C.

That is what we did on my friend's layout.  Then we used CAT5 cable from the terminal strip to the control panels. That results in very clean wiring.  IN the last 20+ years I think we only had to replace one switch machine, and that was an easy task.