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wireing an atlas motorized turntable

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  • Member since
    October 2006
  • From: Los Alamitos, California
  • 322 posts
Posted by Oakhurst Railroad Engineer on Saturday, September 4, 2010 10:19 AM

I'd suggest you just wire your old DC powerpack to drive the turntable motor.  Easier than installing a DCC decoder or trying to run the turntable motor in DCC analog (DC) mode. 

The turntable track of course should be wired for DCC.  Nothing special required here.  If you run sound locos, they will restart when the turntable rotates across the slip rings (switching from A to B directions), but in DCC nothing changes.

Good luck ...

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  • Member since
    December 2004
  • From: Bedford, MA, USA
  • 21,483 posts
Posted by MisterBeasley on Friday, September 3, 2010 5:32 PM

It's just a motor.  Like putting a DC engine on a DCC track, it will just sit there and buzz.  If Digitrax supports running a DC engine, you could even dial in zero and run it.  Not a first-rate solution, but it shouldn't hose up the DCC system.

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

  • Member since
    December 2001
  • From: Pennsylvania
  • 709 posts
Posted by nedthomas on Friday, September 3, 2010 4:59 PM

The drive motor is DC not DCC.This may be the problem.

  • Member since
    December 2004
  • From: Bedford, MA, USA
  • 21,483 posts
Posted by MisterBeasley on Friday, September 3, 2010 3:46 PM

If the turntable, lead track and roundhouse tracks were wired correctly for DC, they will work fine with DCC.  There is no difference in wiring.

If you look around the rim, you'll see most of the slots are labelled "A," while the rest are labelled "B."  All tracks leading to A slots should have one polarity, while tracks leading to B slots would have the other polarity.  The wire terminals near the rim are for the turntable track itself.  The power for the motor unit comes from terminals on the motor drive.

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

  • Member since
    April 2008
  • 5 posts
wireing an atlas motorized turntable
Posted by hiwayrnr on Friday, September 3, 2010 2:52 PM

I have my layout wired for dcc. I recently added an atlas motorized turntable, following the enclosed instructions.  all good untill I tried to wire the roundhouse track.  as of now my digitrax stuff is on it"s way to florida for what I hope will be warrenty repair, however, I now wonder if it matters if the instructions were for dc wiring and not d c c     so in the hopes i have not fately injured my digitrax stuff, can anyone help with wiring instructions, or a website to visit?   i don"t want to do this again  thanks.         by the way the cab and the db 150 are in track idle mode, the factory tech instructions did not clear it, it beeps 8 times which the factory tech claims is not one of thier error codes and they are baffeled, and I am too.

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