Turntable

[electrolove]

I would like to use this turntable in my layout.

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3171

Anyone using this table? Can someone please tell me how it works when it's motorized.

Thanks in advance

[Anonymous]

I don't have any experience with the 90' turntable and motor by themselves, but I am doing a mod to it using an Atlas TT and motor to drive it with the Atlas indexing.

See this link-
http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11763&SearchTerms=mod

You might want to give it some consideration.
There's another thread about the mod at-
http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16363

Doug

[Anonymous]

I installed a 90' turntable on my layout. There was some things that I had to do to get the thing to run well.

One problem that I had to correct was the out of round of the side walls of the pit. Go ahead and dry fit your bridge, part #2, and your deck, part #3, along with the plastic bearings into your pit, part#1. Then place that assembly in ti the hole you have in your layout. Slowly turn the bridge by hand to find any places were the decking on the bridge might be hitting the side wall of the pit. carefully remove any areas that are binding.

When you have shaved and polished any areas that were causing problem dry fit the motor and power it up and do another check, in the well were it wll be installd, and check it out again shaveing off any areas that might be binding. When I installed mine in my prepared well it had minor binding that I had to correct, (diffrent stress areas i guess).

The only other thing that I did was to slow down the RPM's. It was way to fast for a realistic operation. Luckly I was abel to watch an engine being turned on an actual turntable. I timed the operation and then I tried to duplicate that on my model. I found that 5 volts did a close job.

My own opinion. I am happy with what I have and how it works. If you consider the price I think it was a bargain. My locos get on go around and get off. What more can you ask for?

Joe

[electrolove]

Is this the Walthers turntable that I was talking about, did you use this to motorize it?

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-1050

How do you stop the turntable at the right place, can you please explain how that works?

QUOTE: Originally posted by nixa1

I installed a 90' turntable on my layout. There was some things that I had to do to get the thing to run well.

One problem that I had to correct was the out of round of the side walls of the pit. Go ahead and dry fit your bridge, part #2, and your deck, part #3, along with the plastic bearings into your pit, part#1. Then place that assembly in ti the hole you have in your layout. Slowly turn the bridge by hand to find any places were the decking on the bridge might be hitting the side wall of the pit. carefully remove any areas that are binding.

When you have shaved and polished any areas that were causing problem dry fit the motor and power it up and do another check, in the well were it wll be installd, and check it out again shaveing off any areas that might be binding. When I installed mine in my prepared well it had minor binding that I had to correct, (diffrent stress areas i guess).

The only other thing that I did was to slow down the RPM's. It was way to fast for a realistic operation. Luckly I was abel to watch an engine being turned on an actual turntable. I timed the operation and then I tried to duplicate that on my model. I found that 5 volts did a close job.

My own opinion. I am happy with what I have and how it works. If you consider the price I think it was a bargain. My locos get on go around and get off. What more can you ask for?

Joe

[electrolove]

What's the reason you are making a modification the the turntable? Just curious...

QUOTE: Originally posted by douort

I don't have any experience with the 90' turntable and motor by themselves, but I am doing a mod to it using an Atlas TT and motor to drive it with the Atlas indexing.

See this link-
http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11763&SearchTerms=mod

You might want to give it some consideration.
There's another thread about the mod at-
http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16363

Doug

[Anonymous]

Hi Electrolove

Yes same two items. 90' turntable and their 12v motor kit.

I ran my wirs to the facia and connected to a double pole double throw toggel switch with center off. With a little expermenting you can get it right on some of the time. Other times I go a little to far and I have to revese or I don't go far enough and have to give just a shot of juice.

A few months ago I added a momentary push button and that helped. Now I throw my toggel either east or west and use the push button to line it up. This works alot better. I would dearly love to have an indexing unit but at the prices they want I haven't even added it to my long list of things I need. Two switches and a little wire about five bucks will do me fine.

If I can help in any way just ask.

Joe

[electrolove]

So what you mean is that there are turntables with indexing units and without indexing units?

And the ones without indexing units is harder to lineup to the track? And the ones with indexing units lines up very easy?

So that's the reason that douort (earlier in this topic) is modifying his turntable with the Atlas indexing unit? I think I understand this now, right or wrong? :-)

QUOTE: Originally posted by nixa1

Hi Electrolove

Yes same two items. 90' turntable and their 12v motor kit.

I ran my wirs to the facia and connected to a double pole double throw toggel switch with center off. With a little expermenting you can get it right on some of the time. Other times I go a little to far and I have to revese or I don't go far enough and have to give just a shot of juice.

A few months ago I added a momentary push button and that helped. Now I throw my toggel either east or west and use the push button to line it up. This works alot better. I would dearly love to have an indexing unit but at the prices they want I haven't even added it to my long list of things I need. Two switches and a little wire about five bucks will do me fine.

If I can help in any way just ask.

Joe

[selector]

I have that turntable, and I have had two problems. The first, as above, was binding, but mine seemed to be in the pivot shaft, and was discovered only after assembly. So far, greasing has not helped. I do not believe that there is any binding inside the bridge bowl, i.e.- against the walls.

Second problem was with gear meshing. The motor drive gear would not mesh with the large black ring mated to the pivot shaft well enough to drive the bridge in a 360 deg rotation. I had to place shims under the motor and tighten it down with the screws just snug against its mooring. When I then placed it against the balck ring and closed it up, it worked well, if stiffly.

They need a lot of tweaking to get them flush with the layout, at the same height as the approaching spur, and able to swing through a complete arc without jerking so hard that the loco and/or tender get dislodged.

Good luck. I have been putting this matter off until I have the reserves to persevere.

[Anonymous]

The best use for the Walthers turntable motor is an endless loop conveyor belt simulating moving traffic along a straight stretch of hiway. Just paint the belt, add lane stripes, cement your model trucks cars and buses to the belt, use "view blocks" on both ends and Voila: animated traffic. Just kidding but the motor is slow enough r.p.m. to make a convincing hiway scene. My turntable? Maual, as in cheap, cheap, cheap; that favorite "bird call" of MR's on a budget.

[ereimer]

i've been researching turntable motors and indexing , and not all indexing kits are expensive .

http://www.dallee.com/Turntable.htm

$69.95 . not too bad . the more expensive ones include fancy electronics that control a stepper motor and are programmable to go to an exact position so you can use a rotary switch to select which track you want to move to , rather than having a simple sensor to tell the motor where to stop and just using a push button to move the bridge from one track to the next with the Dallee

i haven't found any online examples of the Dallee unit at work yet

[Anonymous]

Chicken or the egg? The alingement problems that seem to haunt auto turntable operations begs the question: should the table be mounted and operating before the construction of the Roundhouse? Sounds like another "cart before the horse" scenario, doesn't it? I'm only thinking of how to "take the curse" away from tedious tweaking "after the fact." Perhaps any "tweaking" might be less troublesome (and more fun) if the table motor took priority (smooth performance) over the perfectly spaced loco births? Not prototypical? As I recall, the Roundhouse grew in size directly propportional to the increase in volume of the R.R.'s business. This would entail a bit of "kit bashing" on the Roundhouse (added spacers between births and extended roof areas, etc.) but the final result would be a roundhouse that is uniqely "your own." Remember the older dilapidated sections of the building abutting a newer addition? There were actually some tangent "stubs" (off the radii) that temporarily had no cover at all until later construction. Seems to me that you could take your choice between hi-or- low-tech. solutions. Oh yes, locos grew in size during the "golden years," so perfect spacing around the pit was rarely the case. What a great hobby!

[Anonymous]

The reasons I chose to modify the Walthers 90' TT and use the Atlas unit to drive it are these:

1. The author of the original mod article says it takes the slop out of the Walthers unit. I can't verify this because I never used the Walthers unit out of the box.

2. The Atlas unit uses 15 degree indexing. I plan to use the Atlas Roundhouse, #150-709, which is set up for 15 deg indexing and is a good looking model at an affordable price.

Doug