Model Railway Forum

Please forgive my stupidity when it comes to all things electrical but two bits of advice would be greatly appreciated. Recently at a show an exhibitor recommended electro point clips to improve/guarantee good conductivity for electrofrog points. His layout ran faultlessly. I've fitted some and they seem to 'foolproof' things even though I've have used multiple droppers on my track (or is it just my imagination?).
Two questions;
Are they worth using? (a fiver for bits of wire seems expensive but it won't break the bank.
Can the wire which crosses the rail (i.e. doesn't have contact with the inside of the rail) be painted to help hide it?

Thank you in advance.

Re: my previous post - sorry, I meant I am using insulfrog points as was the exhibitor I was talking to.

I don’t use the clips myself but I have heard that they can becom hot in use and in extreme circumstances melt the plastic sleepers.
Am I right in thinking that their purpose is to bypass the self isolating nature of the points? In which case I prefer a DCC bus and soldered droppers.

You say you have multiple droppers, so you're technically back feeding into the points and onto each of the points switch rails, assuming no IRJs are fitted to their frog rails. So the use of the Hornby Electro point clips is not really gaining anything! But fitting them wont hurt.

They do get hot I had problems with melting. Could well have been my fault.

Ultimately they are the Hornby answer to getting a DDC trainset to work as its an easy way to keep all the track live, as a trainset develops into a model railway with scale and size then issues of how much current your drawing over them creates new problems, heating and I suppose scenic side they aren't that great either.

But for crossovers and points going to a siding then they are handy and quick way of making sure your not relying on the point contacts for power.


I have some fitted from before there was a bus, just to get everything moving and they are still there now, although probably redundant at least they dont get lost

I found one of my locos with a neo magnet was hoovering them up, so I just put more droppers in.
Rob

Thanks for your replies. Being a belt and braces sort I'll leave them in situ for now and get rid if any problems occur.