Ok, so I saw a number of messages about the Walther's turntable kits being a pain on the motor and DCC fronts, but my son had to have a "turning table" ... the Atlas one is such a toy, so I bought the Walther's kit for $40 in the LHS.
What a royal pain this is . First, instructions are not accurate/confusion. Soldering insides of brass rings that dont fit ont he shaft once a small blob of solder is on them. Putting fine details on the top, then turning the model over? Glad I did not do that. Rail mounting, mounting of wipers for track power ... wow 8-hand assumption again! No reverser! so now I got to shell out another $20 for an AR-1. No depth marked on the box.
I hope after all the trouble it will work. I have not installed yet as I need to purchase a JIG SAW to cut out my benchwork ... they did not tell me I would need more than 1" depth.
The BOM cost on this is $5, MAX ... I paid $40 for it, and I got this. Disapointed!
Np01,
Save your money, don't buy the AR, instead install a DPDT center off toggle switch and use that instead. One end of turntable and entrance lead, put a little sign, when the signs match up, the polarity is correct, when they don't match up, reverse polarity by flipping toggle.
Center two leads on switch go to turntable bridge track, top two term. on switch go to power source, jumper bottom two term. on switch, criss-crossed from top two. You said it's manual anyway, so no big deal.
Frank
EDIT: I should add, forget the ring set-up, use the two wires to the bridge from the center and don't worry about twisted wires, just remember to alternate bridge rotation, between, clockwise and counter clockwise and you won't have twisted wires.
NP01,
Im right with you on this.. That TT is not worth it, ya, looks great, but, its a pain and realy does not work if you ask me..
As for the atlas TT, I know I know, toy is what it is, but, I know a lot of people have done great work making it look real! I know a lot of those here know what I am talking about!
Technically, there were turntables like the Atlas one, but they were pretty rare - primarily on remote logging railroads, or maybe some industrial plants. Still it works great. It would be nice if Atlas could adapt that mechanism and motor to a more typical 'pit' turntable...especially since their roundhouse kit that goes with their turntable is so good.
We have had several/many discussions about this lamentable kit, or at least the version of it that I purchased and erected in 2005. I had to place two large styrene flat shims on either side of the pivot post, between the large pinion gear and the base of the pit. It's the only way I could stablise the bridge on the other side. The bearing was laughable. I had to creat washers between the two wiper rings because if I had tightened the copper wipers enough to keep them from eventually sliding down and off contact with the rings, I'd have broken something. The washers acted as flanges to keep the wipers more or less in place.
The newer built-up indexable one is miles ahead of that kit. Oh, did I mention the troubles getting consistent and reliable gear mesh with the motor in the kit version?
I also made the mistake of buying this kit. If I had it to do over again I would save and buy the built up. However I did get it to work passibly (Not well - just passibly).
Repeating some of what has already been said.
Buy a 3 position center off switch for the polarity. I use the control shed on the bridge as a marker - the switch is marked Yard (when the shed is on the yard side of the turntable) or Rndhouse
Jim in Costa Rica
Modeling freelance Northern California late 1930s
Sorry - most of my previous post didn't get posted for some reason. I don't want to re-type the whole thing so I will try to summarize.
I also had to solder wires to the wipers. To make sure They don't get wound around the shaft I use the shed on the bridge as a marker again and make sure that shed never goes past a post I have placed on an unused side of the pit. It can shuttle 360 degress from one side of the marker post to the other side but never goes past the marker.
I motorized the kit but there is so much slop in the mechanism that I have to manually hold the table in position when I am transfering the engine off and on the table.
Good luck - with some fiddling you can get it to work passibly.
I originally had the built up 90' motorized turntable by Walthers, despite all of the good reviews about this turntable mine only worked for about a week, then the electrical began to show problems indexing, then after a while just turning properly. Despite a number of suggestions by Walthers the turntable was sent back to Walthers.
It never came back, Walthers has no idea what happened to it.
I could not afford to buy another of these turntables, so my layout ended up having a wye in the yard to turn the engines.
Having the wye in place provided me the turning capabilites for the engines, this worked fine for a year or so, but the new yard layout with the wye ended up taking up too much space. In addition I wanted to replace the roundhouse
So, not willing to buy another expensive RTR 90 turntable I ended up buying one of the 90' roundhouse kits. I had read on one of the model railroad forum sites that the kit had been upgraded and was now quite usable.
I ended up installing the kit, and can inform the members on this site that it works quite well for me.
Never bothered with the motorizing kit, heard it was extremely noise.
The turntable is moved by hand and is easily positioned with a bit of practise.