Wathers older 90' turntable success!

[Anonymous]

I have complained on one of these forums before, and feel I have an obligation to let you know things are resolved. Well, probably, I haven't got it into the layout yet...
I had poor luck with the first generation of the old Walthers 90' turntable. It had what they refer to as "monkey gears", as in no matter how much you monkey around, it won't work right! There was a small motor, which turned a shaft, which turned a gear to turn the mechanism. Trouble is, you had to put the gear and worm on the shaft, and I bent THREE shafts, after beveling the ends, lubing the shaft... Well, it wasn't bent much, but the low-torque motor would not run smoothly, it would move in spurts, like the second hand on a clock Rrr...Rrrr..Rrrr... It would not run slowly enough to be able to stop at the spot you wanted it to.
Walthers sent me a new adaptor for the new, flat motor/gear combo, and now the table is smooth and slow. I tried to get them to exchange the old motor/gears for a new one, but no! I had to shell out the money for a new motor (#933-1050), and while it was worth it to get my table working, I was surprised they didn't stand by their product better. But, it looks like it will work fine now. You still have to eyeball the alignment, but it looks like you can move it slowly enough to be able to get it exact.
This probably has NOTHING to do with the new 130' turntable, I hope they used NO parts from the old. After posting a request for help here previously, I found out that no one seems to have been able to get that old mechanism to work! I've heard lots of stories about how to adapt something else, even the Atlas mechanism...
Dean Payne
[:)]

[davekelly]

Dean,

Glad to hear of your success!! You have to let us know how it works out when you put it on the layout.

Dave

[claycts]

I second that, I have the Walthers and the Heljan and after the horror stories I am think of Diamond Scale.

[Javern]

yah and its too bad, I always thought the old Walthers tt looked good..just was a clunker to run

[harryb3]

I am a little late in adding my two cents to this, but here goes anyway. I too found the motor / gear system was very troublesome and I worked out a solution by going manual. I discovered that by using a piece of 3/8" dia. all-threaded rod, it meshed well with the gear for the turntable axis. So that prompted me to build the turntable into a piece of plywood with bracket mounts to support the all-thread rod. Getting everything lined up was not as difficult as I thought either. However, I did have to make sure that the rod was not tight up against the gear to ensure that it would not bind or wear out prematurely. I added a little crank handle to the end of the rod and it works well; though it does take many turns from position to position.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by claycts

I second that, I have the Walthers and the Heljan and after the horror stories I am think of Diamond Scale.

I hear the Diamond Scale is a challenge and takes many hours to put together. A bowser is simpler and has a robust design but less detailed.

[Anonymous]

The Walther's turntable has the ability to make one question their modeling skills. It is just a plain bad design. The way the gears mount are not very secure so just getting that part to work is a pain, let alone having the rails wired correctly. I had to settle for the god hand method as my interest was the look rather than the functionality. I'm thinking of adding a turntable to my new layout but am a bit hesitant to shell out $300 for something that looks good and works.