Turntables and indexing

[Anonymous]

Can anyone help me with a turntable and indexing mechanism they can reccommend. Cost is not a factor. I'm in HO scale.

[Anonymous]

I once used a spring loaded pick up on a rail with a break at ever stop. Then added a manual over ride switch to get to the next one. It was a bugger to get to work but was a great factor when done.

[Anonymous]

I have two, both from Diamond Scale company - they're listed in Walthers. It's a pretty good brand, and you can get their drive and indexing kit, along with panel faceplates. They use a cast plaster pit, mounted on a solid board, with all holes predrilled for you. You paint the pit, add the ring rail (provided), buid up the bridge - pretty basic: wood structure, plastic girder side cover plates, wood ties, and your rail. They also provide the arch- metal castings you can solder together. The drive and indexing go underneath the layout. You have to be careful about the fit of the bridge to the drive 'spline' piece- don't want a lot of slop there. And, the indexing uses spring contacts mounter underneath the layout- make sure they're far enough out from the center to give you good resolution. I found it easier to fix my track alignment using one track to the pit, and get the rails on the bridge right, first - then line up to the rest of the tracks. It involved some work - definitely not shake-the-box - but it's an impressive thing, and works quite well. If you really wanted to go all-out, I'd buy their kit for the turntable, and instead of their drive, buy one of the servo drive kits advertised in MR.

[lwolohon]

Have you had any problem with the gears, especially the large gear slipping on the shaft? I had a 105' table that I sold, it worked fine. My new one, 120' has just been installed in the layout. It looks like the large gear on this table is slipping on the shaft that is connected to the turntable. This shows up when a locomotive is run on to the table to be turned, even a diesel an RSC-2. This is tough to get at. Thanks for any ideas. Larry Wolohon, [e-mail].

[gerryleone]

Iowa -- (I believe I mentioned this once before on this forum, so I hope no one gets mad at my repeating myself.) Way way back in the early 80s I did a short article for MR's "Electronics Symposium" on using an easy-and-cheap-to-build optical electronic circuit for a number of different uses. One of those uses was to create a turntable indexing system using a twin-coil switch machine. If you're interested, I've got the article posted on my website at: http://home.earthlink.net/~gerryleone/trains.htm . Click on the "articles in print" and then "Train Situation Indicator Uses." Hope that helps.