I have installed a Walthers 130’ turntable #933-2859 and I am ready to wire it. Can the power that turns the table come from my DCC track wiring or do I have to use a separate DC power supply.
Jack
You can check the Walthers documentation for the -2859 table to confirm how it ‘does’ DCC. For some reason all the documentation I can quickly find from Walthers online is for the -2850 model, and the information for the -2859 (from a third-party model-railroad supplier) is cagy about the ‘control box’ you need for "DC/DCC compatibility’
[quote]
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Control Box included for use on layouts with DC or DCC train control
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New Cornerstone Turntable Control Box for simple operation & programming with:
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Programmable indexing for up to 99 different tracks
Overmod, thanks for your reply. My turntable is a #933-2859. I am using a Digitrax DCC system; however, I just want to operate the rotating of the turntable with the box that came with the turntable. So, can this be done with power from my DCC track wiring or do I have to use a separate power supply, such as a PS14, to rotate the table?
Jack
I just plugged into the track. For the limited amount of use it gets I have not had an issue even if I have four or five locos running at the time. I have an NCC 5 amp sysytem.
Here is the link to the ‘revised’ -2850 manual (it’s a straight PDF download):
https://www.walthers.com/fileuploader/download/download/?d=0&file=attachments%2F09330000002616a.pdf
I suspect this will tell you enough detail. The important consideration is that DCC track voltage is normally regulated (by standard, I think) around 15V, which the ‘control box’ would then be designed to reduce internally to match what the installed motor expects to “see”.
If you want to power the turntable motor directly, I’d advise using a dropping resistor or voltage-to-voltage converter if it’s a nominal 12 volts – I suspect the type of motor used for a turntable wouldn’t have the overvoltage tolerance of the Maxon and Canon motors being discussed in the other ‘motors’ thread here.
If this is the case, ‘repurposing’ something like a 12V wall wart. giving it inline fusing, might be a less expensive way to go. But I do suspect that the table is built to work correctly with DCC supply at 15V through its control box.
I concur with Brent that the current draw of the turntable would be a trivial addition to that being drawn off the DCC bus unless you’re running wildly more than the ‘usual’ number of loads concurrently.
The -2850 is the one that came with a DCC decoder built in to the control box, so you could control it with DCC or use the buttons on the box. The -2859 is the one that is only controllable from the control box. They box claim 12-18V AC as an acceptable power source - so unless you set the DCC system to O/G scale, the voltage will be under the mex. 15V is more or less a convention for HO, the standards only specify a range which the booster can output and what the decoders are required to withstand. For a device like the turntable that does not actually use the DCC signal for anything, there is no requirement that it handle a specific voltage range.
–Randy
Randy, thanks for your reply. That fits exactly with what I just read in my instruction manual, that came with the turntable, that I just found. Printed in the manual I discovered he following statement, in bold:
“Do not use DCC track power for the turntable control circuit, or Track DC (throttle) on power pack.”
I also found the following on a diagram in the manual:
“TT Control Power
12-18 VAC or
16-24 VDC
250ma
Do not use Track DC
(throttle) on power pack.”
Jack
PS Thanks to all who replied.