I have the original (non-DCC) Walthers 130 ft TT powered by a Miniatronics transformer with an output of 12VDC / 1 amp. This was the power source recommended to me by Walthers technical support. My layout is DCC.
I am completing a months long layout maintenance project to take care of numerous problems, both operational and cosmetic. I am currently working on the engine terminal area. After cleaning the TT pit and fixing some damaged railings on the bridge, I cleaned the electrical contact points, both in the center hole of the pit and the bottom of the bridge. I also cleaned the bridge rails. I used my track cleaning fluid for all of this. When I put the bridge back into the pit, I discovered the TT would not rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise. The power light on the control box is on but none of the other lights come on when I press the buttons that are supposed to turn the bridge. I lined up the bridge by hand with one of the leads and tried to move a diesel loco onto the bridge. As soon as all four axles were on the bridge it stopped dead.
I got out the multimeter and the first thing I tested was the power leads from the bus line to the TT control box. It showed I was getting full power at those contact points. The next thing I checked were the electrical prongs that sit in the hole in the center of the pit and which make contact with the bridge. The ones which power the track are only getting about 80% of what the tracks leading to the pit are showing. When I put the bridge back in and tested the bridge rails, it was only getting about 50% of the juice the lead tracks get.
As for the contacts that are supposed to control the bridge rotation, I am showing it is getting some juice but the needle moves only about 20% of the maximum on the multimeter. I don’t know what normal would be since this is the power that comes from the transformer and not the DCC bus lines.
Obviously, this is not a good situation. I have a 130 foot armstrong turntable and
I don’t have one of these so I’m just guessing, but is it possible that there’s some residual cleaning fluid or some gunk or lint that got pushed back into the center hole that could be disrupting proper electrical contact? I’d pull it back out and look with a flashlight to see if there’s anything in the center hole.
Pulling the TT out is a last resort because of the 22 lead tracks that would have to come up in order to do that. I have good light into the hole although I have to lean way in and there is a repair shop that I have to lean over to look into the hole that makes it a little difficult. That would go before I would consider pulling the TT out. There are 6 electrical contacts and the outer 2 are for the rail power. When I first looked inside both of those had green tarnish on them. I used some Tarn-X last night and waited until this morning to clean them with the rail cleaner. They seem to be shiny so I don’t think there is any gunk or tarnish left on them.
I am trying understand why I am losing power from the bus leads that supply the track power to the control box to those contacts in the pit and then I lose even more power from there to the rails. There is a 6 line phone jack running from the control box to the center of the turntable and that supplies both the track power and the TT motor power. I would have to see if I could remove the cover from the bottom of the TT to see if there are any bad connections. Even if I can remove that cover it would mean working under the benchwork which at my age is not one of my favorite things to do but would still be preferable to pulling the TT out to work on it.
IMPORTANT: Do Not Use on stainless steel, chrome, pewter, aluminum, brass, zinc, marble, artificially oxidized silver, knife blades, lacquered surfaces, pearls, opals or any porous stones, Avoid spilling on laminates, countertops or any synthetic surfaces which may be affected; clean spills immediately. Use in well-ventilated area.
There are two “contact cleaner” products I use. CRC 2-26 and for even more critical areas DeOxIT D100L:
Normally I wouldn’t have used the Tarn-X but I figured with visible green tarnish I would need to cut through that before using my rail cleaner. Now that it’s been done, I’ll have to deal with it.
Is there any reason to think that the Tarn-X would cause a permenent loss of conductivity? In the past, I have used Rail-Zip on the TT and gotten good results but I’ve read on these forums that Rail-Zip is not a good choice as a rail cleaner although I can’t rem
A John, I’m at a loss over the power indications/apparent deficit, but have you opened up the mechanism at the end of the bridge? If you do, I’m pretty sure there’ll be some crud in there that you’ll have to clean out. Happened to me, even though I was quite fastidious about keeping mine clean.
For the contacts, I’d use some spray can contact cleaner. They say to let the residue evaporate, so don’t try the drive and rails for about an hour.
Before I began my maintenance project, I was having trouble with the TT stalling and I did find a small piece of ballast in the gear but was unable to extract it on my first effort, its wedged in there pretty tight. It wouldn’t stop the TT from rotating. It would just quit when it hit that piece of debris but I could reverse it. I was expecting to have to deal with that problem but now I’m getting no response at all.
Do you have a brand name for a spray cleaner. That’s the kind of thing I would expect to find at Radio Shack but some many of them have closed in recent years that I’m not sure where to find one. I’ll bet Amazon will have it and if so, I could have it within a couple of days. Being an Amazon Prime member saves me shipping costs and I can get it within a day or two. I’m trying to get into the mindset of looking on Amazon first for the things I need. I haven’t shopped for model railroading supplies yet so I’m not sure what all they have. I still like going to my LHS for those.
I was reading about the “Sulfamic” acid contained in the Tarn-X. This seems to be the same stuff used for Lime-Away, too. A slightly safer version of sulfuric acid.
Tarn-X is supposed to be a quick dip for silver cleaning. Any longer exposure begins to etch the metal. I’m sure this is the same reaction that acid-based solder flux will attack electrical components and thin traces on P-C boards.
Different strokes for different folks, as they say. I use the CRC in the green can which is labeled Contact Cleaner and Protectant. Works great on my track.
The loss of voltage has to be only about one thing. The path from the source to your meter has some oxidation or other crude that’s providing a resistance to the voltage and causing the drop. Not much else it can be.
One place you could have oxidation is where there are connections of the wires. Terminal strips, etc. Given the oxidation you’ve already found, there certainly could be some hidden in the pathway.
The unknowns in an electrical contact situation would scare me away from Tarn-X.
If I were doing it, I would avoid getting off on any other possibility until I had made sure there were only clean contacts everywhere from beginning to end of the feed.
I suspect some locations might be hard to get to, but if it were mine, I’d want to be able to measure the voltage in each segment of the feed starting at the source. If it’s starting out correct, and ending up as low as you’re reporting, there are some serious issues from either oxidation or loose connect somewhere.
Sometimes your meter leads can have trouble getting a firm contact with the feed. Sometimes the point has to penetrate a film of some sort that has formed on the measured device. Might even be Tarn-X, I don’t know what that stuff might leave to help prevent crude formation on silverware, etc.
Believe me, I know from experience that it can be tough trouble shooting a turntable that’s hard to get to. You can ask me how I know that.[:D]
I think I discovered the problem and unfortunately it is not going to be an easy fix. I was double checking the power supplies to the control box and the little green piece that the power supplies are attached to broke off. It had probably been weakened and finally gave way. At first I thought it had just come unplugged because the main controller on my Lenz system has similar type connections and they plug in but on closer examination, it looks like the tabs have actually broken off. It’s not going to be an easy fix. I might try to solder the input wires to the appropriate posts but if I can’t manage that with my limited soldering skills, the box will probably have to be replaced.
It’s after hours at Walthers so I shot them an email explaining the problem. I doubt the non-DCC control box is still carried but I am hoping the new DCC control box is compatible with the old turntable pit.
Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear back from Walthers. It’s my understanding that department if badly understaffed. You might have to take several shots at it to finally get someone.
Yep. At one time, you could pick up the phone, call, and get a live person on the other end of the line. Now, you can’t get a call back or a return email.
In this case, we are talking about the original non-DCC 130’ turntable. No way is Walthers going to have replace parts for something that old.
There have been lots of Walthers TT threads but the search engine is kaput and since I never owned one, I can’t swear what I am about to say is absolute, but I don’t think the current controllers are backwards compatible.
If the turntable motor, itself, works, you can power it with an old MRC powerpack. The control and speed is good enough to precisely stop the table at the correct point.
They are not compatible. You need to repalce the electronics underneath to work with the newer controller. There are 3 versions by the way, the original one which apparently failed a lot, a second gen which was much better, and the DCC one (which is just a fancy controller that can take DCC commands)
If the turntable is not at the rear of your layout, it is fairly simple to just hook up power to spin the bridge, and just aling it by eye like the real ones did. We have one on the club layout and it never works, neither does the transfer table. So I am skipping all that and just making my turntable manually controlled - we have another non-Walthers one on the club layout that is driven by an old handheld DC controller which always works, and is easy to line because it sits near the edge where the user controls it.
Google a bit and there is someone who adapted an Arduino to control the Walthers table and replace their failed controller. It’s in a thread on a different forum so i can’t post it here.
Is this the model number 933-2850 . I had very bad experience with mine and removed it after 2 years of screwing around. Do you have a picture of what exactly broke? I have the whole thing sitting in the original container. I doubt it will ever see service.
I never was able to get the indexing to work so even when it was in good shape, I was aligning it by eye. When you say you are making yours manually controlled, does that mean you are using a hand crank or other device to rotate the bridge? I’m wondering if that might not be my best solution. Although I would have to figure out how to wire it and reverse the polarity. On my branchline I have the old Walthers TT that you had to buy the motor as an add on part. It worked well for about a year before it quit. Since I only use it twice during an operating session, it’s not a big deal to just reach under the benchwork and spin it by hand.
I don’t have a picture but I think I can describe it. It is a simple piece with four small terminal posts. Two were for rail power and two control the bridge motor. Each post had a screw that faced the aisle that you would loosen and then drop the tip of the wire into a hole on top, then the screw is tightened to hold the wire in place. Each post has an L shaped tab that is soldered to what I’m guessing is a circuit board. I’d have to open up the case to see for sure. What happened was that piece somehow got hit and it hinged downward so the screw terminals were facing the floor and the wire connections were facing the aisle. It wasn’t made to hinge so when that happened the L shaped tabs got straightened and evidently just broke off. Apparently when it first happened it broke the connection to the TT motor but only weakened the connection to the rails. Yesterday it broke off completely. It should be possible just to solder the input wires to the connection but it will test my soldering skills which are not very good and I might end up destroying the control box but at this point what do I have to lose.
