Walthers Turntable #3171

[Anonymous]

Has anyone figured out how to get the gear teeth on the large gear to mesh with the gears on the motor of the Walthers 90 foot turntable table without a major reconstruction job? I drilled a hole through the motor cover and can see the gears clearly now. They simply do not mesh so the bridge turns poorly if at all. Additionally, the motor gear shaft has some slack which allows the bridge to move as soon as a locomotive moves on to it with derailments resulting. Are there any workable solutions for making this product work or should I just give up. Walthers admits the gear wheel may be warped but does not admit that the bridge does not work properly.

[cacole]

The only solution to this problem is, buy a better brand of turntable. The Walters turntable had extremely sloppy tolerances and was poorly made. I fiddled and fumed with one of those on a club layout for a couple of months before I decided to chuck the thing and get a better brand.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that strong advice. Fortunately, I haven't wasted much time trying to rejig these things. Unfortunately, I cut two holes in the layout and have spent countless hours trying to think through the problem. Can you suggest which brand(s) would be reliable with DCC and durable? Let's say at this point that cost is not an object. After all I just wasted a bunch of money buying two Walthers 3171 kits and the motors to power them. My dealer will not take them back . Walthers did send me another 3171 kit and two gear wheels. However, the problem seems to lie in the kit being inferior and I have no doubt, were I to assemble the replacement kit, that I would experience the same problem again.

[northern_blues]

FWIW, Walthers is releasing a brand new turntable offering at the end of the month (I guess that would be today). Know nothing about it and don't work for them but I saw the ad in MR.

[tstage]

siremly,

Supposedly, Diamond Scale makes a good product. Their 90' turntable still may have a few issues with it but I don't think it's anywhere in comparison to the 90' Walthers turntable. Marty McGuirk mentions both in The Model Railroader's Guide to Locomotive Servicing Terminals from Kalmbach Publishers and likes the Diamond Scale better

Walthers has a new modern 130' that is supposed to be due out any day now. It's a "Built-up" so it already comes fully "assembled and motorized with programmable indexing". (Taken from Walthers Cool Winter Buys catalog that I just received.) It also comes with a heftier price tag: $299.98. (ouch!)

I guess you gotta figure out which is going to hurt worse: the higher price or the headache that you'll get continuing to work on the other one.

Tom

[northern_blues]

$299.00 U.S. retail for that new Walthers turntable? I can only (shudder) imagine what it will cost up here in Cdn. Probably $450 and then add 15% taxes on top of that and presto, voila, over the magic $500 dollar mark. Great.

[Anonymous]

Fleischmann offers a turntable too, I think it scales out to about 120 feet. Its ready to drop into the hole. I have one and the motor has always worked very reliably, but I've had two problems with the turntable: (1) the switch supplied with the model looks cool, but its a piece of junk that stopped functioning after less than 100 iterations. I replaced it with a momentary-action center-off toggle and had no more trouble, but it screwed up the design of my control panel. (2) I've had some trouble with the system for supplying power to the track as it lines up with the turntable.

I've heard very mixed opinions about the Diamond Scale turntables, leading me to wonder if they simply are inconsistent in terms of quality.

[Anonymous]

Thanks gentlemen. I , too, live in Canuckland and must always figure in at least 25% exchange and 15% taxes for anything coming over the border. The new Walthers turntable puts itself out of my ballpark for a few reasons among which are :

1. It is 18 inches long which is about 4 inches longer than I can fit onto the layout.
2. I have just had problems with 2 of Walthers 90 foot tables. Why would I buy a more expensive product by the same manufacturer?

It appears that I need some more suggestions based on experience in order to formulate a firm decision regarding the purchase of reliable turntables. Keep the ideas coming, please.

[tstage]

siremly,

I read somewhere that the bigger turntable is a vast improvement over the smaller less expensive turntable. Still doesn't help the sticker shock, though. I would image that MR will be coming out with a review of the new Walthers turntable in the not-to-distant future.

Tom

[foxtrackin]

Check out the bowser turntable, I have a friend who has one and he highly recommends it. He has been modeling for years and is very much in the know. You have to order them direct from bowser. Just go to google and type in bowser. They are not cheap.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone used a Marklin turntable?

[Pennsy58]

To answer your direct question, this is how I solved this problem with mine. It seemed to slip all the time and would not turn properly. I cut a hole in the cover under the motor to see what was going on wrong. Sure enough, the gears were not tight against each other. I took a drill and increased the size of the mounting holes on the motor box slightly. This allowed me to move the motor in tighter to the big gear of the table then tighten down the motor mounting screws. This was about eight months ago and the table has turned well since.

As far as the slack, I had this problem too. I'll have took look again, but if memory serves me, I wound up placing a thin washer at the base of the shaft of the turntable to force the contact rings up tight against the bowl of the turntable. This took some playing around with for get from too tight to no difference. Once I got it though, the problem of the turntable drifting on me stopped.

Got mine working well now, agree totally that this shouldn't of taken all kinds of extra work to get it to work properly, but I dont' give up easy with money already spent.

[Anonymous]

How about turning it manually? Does it see that much action and do you have an indexing system, or is it line of sight? Big step going from a $29 tt to a $300 tt.

[Anonymous]

I need two turntables. My system is point to point. Turntables will see a lot of use. No indexing : line of sight concept anticipated but that may have to change.

Motors purchased at same time turntable kits were purchased since I wish operation to be automated . Turntables not at edge of layout so trying to eliminate any kind of reaching in.

I will try the screw hole movement idea on one of them: I was considering drilling new holes or creating slots to slide the screws to remount the motor but I will try that first.

How did you remove the large gear ring ((which has been glued on as per the iinstructions from Walthers))in order to mount the washer on the shaft?

[Pennsy58]

For the ring removel, guess I got lucky. I tend to under-glue stuff so I was able to softly pry it off. The shaft did get boogered up a tad but was stil usable for re-assembly. The washer was placed between the bottom of the gear assembly and the bottom cover plate. This resulted in the gear, contact plates etc being pushed up snug against the bottom of the bridge. Its a trick to get it all in place then screw the bottom cover plate back on.

[WilmJunc]

I'm playing with this same turntable and experiencing similar issues. I drilled 1" holes in the cover to make the gear contact location visable. I used a small drill to slot out one of the motor screw holes to make it adjustable so that the motor gear could be brought closer to the large drive gear. I have not had the opportunity lately to really test out the modifications. Based on recommendations from others, I also discarded the electric wiper system and have the tracks wired direct (I'll just have to be careful not to twist the wires too much).

[Anonymous]

I worked on one of the 3171s and got improved but noisy operation. One change is a temporary fix and that was to remove one motor screw, loosen the other motor screw, jam a piece of .060 styrene between the motor and the housing and then tighten up the remaining motor screw. This allowed the motor gear to mesh better with the large ring gear. I will return to relocate the other motor screw after I have used the table in the layout for a period of time. The other fix is permanent. I made small curved pieces of .010 and .040 styrene laminated together. Then I located the small pieces between the large gear and the pit bottom at 4 places. If you trace the outline of the motor/gear casing with a pencil onto the pit bottom, you can locate these pieces so they don't obstruct the housing and are equidistant around the gear ring. These pieces stopped the wobbly movement of the gear ring and the turntable bridge and tightened up the movement of the bridge so that it remains fixed in position when stopped. The next step is to try to work out some way that the wipers will remain in contact at all times with the brass sleeves on the shaft. Any ideas. I don't want to remove them if I can avoid doing so since the lead wires will twist and affect the movement of the bridge.

[claycts]

Anybody want a NEW #3171 in the box? I am going to kitbash it and try the Heljan I also bought if that does not work I will use teh ARMSTRONG TABLE! Boy you folks scare the hell out of people. I feel I need to ask about everything I get/ But that is a GOOD THING, Keep telling it like it IS!!