Walthers 90’ Turntable Build - Finished!
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- Hey everyone, here is the long awaited second part of the turntable build. It’s a little quick so hopefully you can follow along and get some help along the way if you’re think about it in the process of building one yourself :)
- Zábava
Am getting this installed and I appreciate you going over some things. My biggest problem is that the pit isn't round and the bridge is rubbing against the sides. I removed the wheels and filed down each end of the bridge. Have read a lot of negative comments but I can't go back now-- I have a 12 5/8" hole in my 2ft benchwork! Say a prayer for me!
I’ve definitely found this turntable kit to be difficult, I’m not sure if it’s just an old style that needs to be updated or what? Manufacturing process maybe? I took the wheels out too but I didn’t have issues with rubbing. Regardless I had to set mine aside for the time being, I upgraded to the dcc one (it has its quirks too) but I do plan to get it operational again in the future. See if I can’t streamline its operation. But yes, good luck to you indeed! A lot of trial and error for sure.
I changed those plastic wheels for some N gauge wheels off a wagon. The flange helps the turntable run smoother.
I was wanting to do something like that! Great idea!
that is crazy you had to do all those modifications to the motor kit
sparky107107 in a perfect world it would’ve worked fine I think. But the more I installed it, then uninstalled, it just wasn’t working. Maybe I went a little on the extreme but I did really try to make it work the way I wanted. And in the model train world, modifying kits is sometimes a must! I’ll use it again, but like I said in the 130’ video, having the DCC programming is definitely the way to go.
Great video and good information. Thanks for sharing, I'll be referring to this in the next few weeks trying to finish mine.
Thanks! It definitely wasn’t perfect, another gentleman actually used sealed bearings for his, that’ll be a future project for me lol
Awesome work! I have one myself that I will need to build. Is there any way for you to share a diagram of how you wired it up? I'm trying to figure out how to actually turn it, and also how to maintain power to the track in the same way you have, even when the polarity needs to switch.
Thanks! It was...ok...haha in my opinion anyway, the wiring is very simple, leads soldered to the individual rails on the table to the two brass collars, when the table is mounted into the pit there are two tabs that will be installed and make contact with the individual collars. Attach leads onto them and you can either use a digitrax AR1 like I have or a SPDT switch, the auto reverse circuit can be adjusted and will allow for seamless transitions, the switch will allow you to reverse polarity manually. You can either spin the table by hand, or install the recommended walthers motor kit.
This isn't the most user friendly kit to build or use so keep in mind it will be a process of trial and error! I haven't used mine in quite sometime and would like to return to it, potentially use a different motor, custom mounted, as the walthers one is very noisy and hard to control when lining up tracks perfectly. Good luck and sorry for the delay in my response.
Maybe change the plastic wheels of the turntable out for metal wheels or at least take the plastic ones out and round them off finding the flat spots.. or trimming the casting pieces that might not have been cleaned off before production. I'm not into DCC yet and am happy to stick with DC so things like this are very helpful. Great little video thanks.
Thanks for the ideas! I had thought of some metal wheels but didn't make it much further then the literal thought of it. I haven't touched it in a while actually, planning to get it going again in the future but I've found a few guys on here to have some good ideas as well handling power delivery for example. Thanks for watching!
Nice video.
I have a scratch built 90' turntable I built years ago. (HO Scale).
The turntable itself came out great. The thing that stopped me from completing the whole process is I need bogies (those wheels at each end of the turntable bridge) as even thought the turntable and base are solid (turntable is mostly metal as well as the shaft that turns it).
The issue is the bridge will still dip about 3/32 to an 1/8 inch (depending on engine weight) and will surely cause issues, so I never finished it.
I haven't found a place I can just buy well made metal bogies and still alluding me how I could accurately built function ones that will pick up power from the rails in the turntable pit.
I enjoyed your video.
Phil
NYC Area
Wow! Yeah I can relate! I was able to get this one functioning as well, fortunately the rails are powered through leads that run through the shaft of the table itself, but holy was it a pain to get everything lined up! I had to set it aside eventually just for the simple fact of reliability and ease of use. I might get back at it one day to see if I can stream line it a bit more, but I’ve since opted for the DCC version from walthers which allows way more prescision when operating. Still a bit picky. But way more quiet too. Good luck finding a good couple sets of bogies, I wanted to find some too to replace the plastic ones the kit came with and never had any luck…it wasn’t the best video, but thank you for watching :)
@@MAYNE_line Thanks for the reply.
What type HO railroad are you building? I am building a mountain type railroad. John Allen, from many years ago, was my favorite modeler and Allen McClelland as well.
I like rugged scenery and many bridges, which I have scratch built over 20 to scale. (Although been too busy the last year unfortunately to do any work). I hope to change that soon after I am done with a recording studio rebuild (the virus impacted my photography business so trying to generate some income from my former business).
Thanks again for the replay. I'd send you a photo of my scratch built turn table (or bridges if you're interested), but CZcams doesn't support posting images unfortunately. All the best!
Phil
NYC area
When I built my "yard" about fifteen years ago I installed one of these. Mine turns smoothly in one direction and a little jerky in the other. I've never figured out how to fix that yet. After the turn table was in use for a few years, track power on the turn table was a bit iffy. I replaced the brass wipers with Nickle silver rail. Problem solved. It's a pretty sweet turntable and I use it for my steam engines. My Riviossi Milwaukee Road Hiawatha streamliner has to be EXACTLY centered or it won't fit. All the others are fine.
No kidding, I hadn’t thought about using pieces of rail for contacts under there! I had a gentleman recommend using sealed bearings, not only for conductivity but to help keep the dang thing centred lol I’m not using this one currently as I’ve upgraded to the DCC 130’ Turntable, but I do plan on using this 90’ one for a future project :)
Haha I know how that is! My Royal Hudson just fit, the lead pilot wheels and trailing tender wheels were literally on the edges of the rail!
Alot of nice CP engines!!
Thank you! I might be slightly biased 😅
Good video! Deterred me from buying it though as the result is not what I would be looking for. Obviously I am going to have to fork out much more money. But the video was most useful.
Thank you! Yeah my thoughts originally were hey, budget! It’ll ‘work’. And I got it to the point of working, but it’s not anywhere close to the ease and accuracy of my DCC turntable, mind you it has its quirks every now and then too, but a million times better overall! And yeah you definitely pay for it but it’s worth it :)
I am looking into adding this to my layout but they have a DCC version , great job building
I didn’t realize I hadn’t replied to this! If you haven’t bought one yet I definitely recommend the DCC version, they are more money but it will save you the headache of trying to make it run proper every time. The DCC programming is relatively easy on my 130’ Turntable and it seriously works perfect every time I use it :)
Do you just glue the rails to the turntable itself? If so, are there any extra wires that need to be added?
Also, what control box do you use for the 90’ turntable that works best?
Yes, all I did was glue down the correct length of rail to the table :) I soldered a set of power feeders off each rail before though as it’s much easier then doing it after. Sorry for the delay in my response!
So, on top of the power kit you need to purchase I used a digitrax AR1 (you could just use a toggle switch to reverse polarity) and powered everything with an old Atlas 12V power supply I had laying around, although I did find the walthers motor to be a bit loud it did work as intended!
Hello watched this video, I'm in the process of assembly, noticed the wires coming off brass tabs,where do they go? Any help would be greatly appreciated thank you.
Sorry for the delay, although not the easiest or most user friendly kit to build and use, I had soldered the track leads onto the brass collars. There are two tabs that hide underneath the pit and make contact with those brass collars, which have leads attached and run to my digitrax AR1 (auto reverse circuit) which is then attached to track power. Hopefully that helps!
One question, how did you get your locomotives moving on and off the turntable and how did you place the turntable tracks on the edge of the turntable pit and still make the locomotives moving? I have this and i can't make my locos move and when I connected the service tracks on the edge of the pit, they kept moving when I turn the table.
This kit is a good deal but requires a ton of work to properly function unfortunately. I honestly haven't used it in quite some time now, but I do intend to revive it in the future.
I used a digitrax AR1 to auto reverse the table when I spun locomotives (feeders attached directly to the table tracks of course as per kit instructions but you can also use a toggle switch to reverse polarity), I used a 12v DC power pack to control the table motor and even that at a very low speed would make it very difficult to line up the service tracks on either side. But it was possible with enough patience.
Did you need to wire the turntable service tracks to make the trains move or did you have to do something else?@@MAYNE_line
Hello, how are you?
I did not find anything about the driver that makes the rotator turn, is there any specific control for this that is sold separately? Obrigado
Doing fine, just got off a train about an hour ago actually.
In this case, the motor kit from Walthers (933-1050) is DC powered, meaning any quality DC controller/power pack can run it by simply hooking up the positive and negative wires, the turntable however, I found to be a bit jerky during operation but it could’ve just been my skill at building. You don’t have super ‘fine’ control when turning but with enough time you could be a pro.
So yes, I suppose the control you use would be sold separately (if you don’t already have a DC power pack), I used an old Atlas DC power pack I had from way back when I was a kid, just as an example :)
How are you doing
Doing fine thanks, been a while lol
Shall never buy one of these ever again I shall go.peco
Haha yeah man! I ended up going with the 130' dcc turntable from walthers, it still has a few hiccups but way more user friendly once set up and programmed.