I finished the basic assembly of the unit today and here’s how I improved on it’s performance.
After assembling the bogies and attaching them to the ends of the bridge I conducted a test fit and spin. I found it was binding about halfway through it’s revolution. At first it appeared that the bridge was tilting and that was causing the binding, so I held a slight downward pressure and found that wasn’t the reason. The pit itself was actually slightly out of round, so rather then try to grind down the side of the pit I decided that since they weren’t visible anyway I’d sand down the bogies, this worked like a charm.
The second problem I found was trying to keep the wipers at a constant distance apart and maintain proper contact with the brass rings on the center shaft. To accompli***his I drilled a second hole in each one and used an additional screw to secure them, this also allowed me to move the contact point to the other side of the shaft resulting in better and tighter contact with the brass rings. Other than soldering the wires to the wipers instead of using the screws as suggested by the directions I had no further problems assembling it and it works fabulously in both directions. SMOOOOOOTH as silk !
I’ll try to get some pics up later this week before I secure it to the layout permanently.
Good work! It takes some massaging, but once you beat that kit into submission, it seems very content. I used different fixes, although I never did fix the out-of-round problem entirely. I’ll go back next fall and fix that, wire in an AR, and that should do.
I noticed similar problems with my Heljan TT. The bogies lacked detail that I wanted so I frabricated my own.
I wanted my bridge to be removable, so I re-engineered the drive and power pick up.
Runs like a Timex.
The modifications and improvements you have made are commendable; however, by the time you correct all of the problems that are inherent in this turntable, it seems to me that you have spent more than what a better brand would have cost if you had only known beforehand what you were getting into.
We had one of these on our HO scale club layout and tried everything we could collectively think of to improve and stabilize it – the end result was that it was replaced.
That’s true, however Diamond Scale was out of business when I started my project. Walthers didn’t have their new, larger and index TT. I didn’t like the looks of the Bowser TT. Although it is a fine running product, I don’t like the brass pit wall or flat pit floor. Plus were’re talking about something that cost a few hundred dollars. Many modelers just don’t have that kind of budget. Except for the Diamond Scale bridge arch, I don’t think I spent over $50 for the kit and drive.
Now Diamond Scale is back and the Walthers 130’ TT is available, but I’m not about to trash a TT and roundhouse that looks and works fine and spent years building. In fact, I had spent much more time on fine detailing of the bridge and pit than making it run smooth.
Actually, I like the challenge of making a pig fly. It’s my favorite part of the hobby.
I had the same out-of-roundness problem as you and I did exactly the same thing to fix it, namely sand off the bogie frame a little bit.
But I also had a problem with the wheels. There was a sprue bit on the tread that had to be filed away to make the wheels rotate properly. It’s too bad they didn’t put metal wheels on this turkey.
george
It is way cool when something less than wonderful is made to operate wonderfully. Doing that now with some Athearn RDCs. Yeah, I could go Proto, but what the heck, let’s see if I can do it! If not, its only a couple of bucks.