Motoring a Turntable

[Anonymous]

Hello

I am currently rebuilding a Diamond Scale turntable for my club, and was wondering what some of yall used in motoring turntables. I was also thinking of using DCC, but really didn't know if that was the best way?

Thanks for the help

Ryan

[Anonymous]

Does Diamond have a motorizing option for their TT? I'm not familiar with the Diamond brand, but Walthers and Atlas offer motor options with their TTs.

I'm in the process of splicing together an Atlas unit to drive a 90' Walthers unit. My motivation for that is to get the 15 degree indexing of the Atlas unit along with the 90' length of the Walthers. The newer Atlas motors have a belt drive compared to the older Atlas motor units with a gear drive, which were extremely noisy.

Doug

[Anonymous]

As a matter of fact they do offer a motor kit
http://www.diamond-scale.com/Products/products__motor_index_drive_systems.htm

I'm wondering is it possible to run a turntable on DCC? Has anyone done this? Would it be possible to run DCC on a Diamond Scale motor? Or do I need to be looking at something else?

[Anonymous]

I'm a little curious why you might want to run a TT on DCC. No offense, but the wiring to operate a TT is pretty simple. All you need is a switch.

Am I missing something?

Doug

[Anonymous]

I'm just trying to come up with ideas to make this work. This is new grounds for me, so bare with me if my ideas are totally different.

[Anonymous]

Okay looking back through some more MRRs I finally found a artical in the Nov. 2003 MRR on wirring DCC for a turntable and roundhouse. I'll look more into this and keep yall updated.

[ndbprr]

I ran mine when I had one with a handcrank. I got a Kemtron worm and gear with a box from Walthers. I soldered the gear to the turntable shaft and the worm to a brass rod that came out through the facing of the tablework. I bent a crank into the brass rod witnt wo 90 degree angles. It worked fine for years. Today I think turntables and roundhouses are space wasters that took up over half my railroading area and I don't have either. I also aution others to comsider carefully if they want to devote that much space to a storage area but to each their own I guess.

[Don Gibson]

A geared motor drive such as . American Switch & Signal's 'Hankscraft' motor comes to mind. That wth a DPDT (CENTER OFF) Momentary Toggle.

A small cheap 12V DC power pak can supply power and fix the speed.
Power to the track can be DC or DCC - and is separate.

The OLD Diamond Scale (OR) had both a manual screw drive, and an Auto Indexing system. I don't know what the new owner is offering.

Good turntable. I painted the 'Cement' casting using Floquil Concrete, White, and 'Mud'

[robengland]

the advantage of using a DCC decoder as a controller is that it can be controlled by any handset, or by a PC. Fascia or panel controls are much harder: would need a lot of fancy gear.

Also of course you can control the speed for fine manual positioning, not just off/on.

me, I'm going to use a hand-crank

[rexhea]

I use a mobile decoder on my CMR TT thanks to a suggestion from Teffy. Any operator can control it from any where and vary the speed from wide open down to an almost invisible crawl making the alignment a snap. Track power barely knows it's there.

CMR sells the gear motor for over $80, but you can get the same motor from your local electrical supply for less than $45. It's nothing more than a Dayton gear motor at .5 rpm. All you will need to do is buy a coupling to go with it.

REX [:D]

[Anonymous]

As Rex said "I use a DH121 decoder to power my TT and am very happy with the results". I've addressed it to 99 so I can use a throttle to make it run.

Bob

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info I'll post pictures further along on the project

[oleirish]

Atlas has a new and quieter motor,when did that come out?Would like info on that?I've an old atlas TT and motor and you are right! they are noisier.

OLE'IRISH

[Anonymous]

Oleirish:
Here's a link for the new version Atlas TT motro w/belt drive-

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/150-304

Doug0