I have just installed the Walther's 90 turntable and am about to start to assemble the Walther's roundhouse.
I am planning to build 5 stalls and am wondering what would be the best way to wire the power to the tracks in the individual stalls. Walther's has provided pits to position in each bay.
The base of the turntable is plastic and the rails slide into position in each of the bays. It seems to me that the most logical place to attach the wiring for the tracks is at the very front of the roundhouse about an inch past the roundhouse floor, I would wire to the inside of each track.
I will probably park a couple of my non DCC steam engines in the roundhouse and adjacent tracks so should likely put in switches on those tracks.
Any advice would be welcome
My friend has an N scale one of these. He wired a rotary switchin. One position to each track and numbered the tracks. That way he turns the switch to what ever track needs power to move the loco onto the turn table. One switch instead of one for each track. All his locos are steam and sound equiped. Joe.
I required a 'concrete' apron between the end of my roundhouse and the turntable...about four inches worth. It was the perfect place to hide my feeder wires that were soldered to the bottoms of the rails just as you are thinking...right after the plastic deck to each bay. Once I was happy with the soldering and power, I simply spatula'd in the plaster compound and smoothed it, covering the feeders. I later used a sharp tool to clear out the flange paths.
What I did was to have two feeders coming off the bus nearby, and then I fashioned a harness of sorts with three (in your case five) feeders soldered to the first wires and then up to each rail, keeping an eye on the right polarity for whichever rail to avoid a short. It is simplest to have each bay track with the same polarity as the lead on the other side of the turntable.
You can always wire an on-off switch in series into one of the first wire feeders leading to the harness if you would rather not have those bay tracks powered all the time.
The rotary switch suggestion is also elegant and useful...think about it. I like less costly suggestions, but mostly due to a combination of laziness and being in a rush to get to completion.
Crandell
Thanks for the quick response. The idea of the rotary switch, great, so simple.
Crandell, concrete the apron area, yes I like that easy to do and hides the wiring.