I have read that the Walthers turntable kits were problematic. I can get one new in its box for what seems to be a great price. What were the potential problems and can they be solved, or should I pass on the deal?
Thanks
Dave
EDIT: Oct. 21. I have purchased the turntable and I am now in the process of correcting the problems and figuring out how to detail it.
Last year I purchased three of the new DCC 90’ turntables, and none worked. Two went back to Walthers for repairs and came back 4 months later. The third, I just gave up on. They worked for a bit, then crapped out. I have since had a friend remotor and configure to run on analog with simple DC power packs with my eyballs setting the track lineup…Much better and more enjoyable. The DCC concept was not necessary as most folks would stand in front of facility to operate. Who needs a hand held throttle to run it? the programming was quite sensitive and time consumimng and basic design was poor.
The structure itself is quite good and if you can find an older 90’ turntable (non DCC), go for it. I have two of these…a 90’ and 130’ and they are just fine.
I had heard that Walthers pulled the remaing 90’ DCC turntables, but I am not sure. If you were considering purchasing the DCC 90’, don’t just pass on the deal…run like Hell and don’t look back!!!
The ‘kit’ turntable is also a problematic one. The pit many times is warped, and the main bearing is plastic.
I have the non-DCC 90’ one and it is still working after 5 years. Our club has a non-DCC 135’ one, and the auto centering is shot - it can ‘zero’, but will not program tracks. This one is 10 years old. It works fine using the ‘eyeball’ alignment method
I built the DC 90 foot kit version and motorized it. This was the version available widely in the early-mid 2000’s. As mentioned, the pit was out of round and the bearings were so sloppy that the bridge wobbled uselessly. I fiddled with mine and got it to work well enough that it was usable for an arc of about 45 degrees reliably.
Two years later, in 2006, I purchased the original built-up indexed version, the one since issued with DCC capability, and I loved that machine. I don’t have it mounted yet as I am between layouts, but I expect it will work as well as before once it is cleaned and installed.
I believe the kit version was re-tooled about five years ago or so, and that the problems have been corrected. If you find the bridge to pivot sloppily after a dry fit assembly, consider shimming behind the large washer highest on the pivot post. That’s how I got mine to pivot smoothly.
Dave if you’re just looking for a turntable that works look at the CMR site. I bought their 135’ kit about 15 years ago and mechanically its great. They are Acrylic laser cut kits and every part fits perfectly. It doesn’t come with indexing but they have a recommended indexing kit as an add-on.
I built my own indexing system using optical detection and the accuracy is about 1/64”. Mine came with a 12 volt Dayton .45 RPM gear motor that works great on 8 volts at about .3 RPM. The drive mechanism is engineered and built extremely good. It also has split rail for polarity reversing, I didn’t use that I made my own power delivery system.
The bridge is flat with hand rails that are not very impressive and I prefer a super structure anyway so I scratch built the super structure.
I did a post on my blog of the construction of my 135’ CMR turntable, here is a link to it.
This looks like an older kit. Definitely not DCC. I’m not worried about how sloppy the mechanism is. I can fix that. I’m also not concerned about indexing. Eyeballing it is fine with me. If the pit is warped that may present a challenge but not an insurmountable one.
For the price I think it would be worthwhile even if it only ends up being kit bash fodder. Nobody has said that they are extremely deficient structurally so I’m likely going to take the chance.
I just ordered the turntable. $39.99 plus $17.00 shipping to Canada (shipping to Canada is always a killer). Its coming from a reliable seller whom I have dealt with many times. There were a couple of others listed at slightly higher prices for the turntable but shipping was almost double thanks to the ripoff Global Shipping Program (it should be called the Global Shipping Scam).
After doing a search to see what the turntables were going for I realized that this one has the later artwork on the box. Hopefully that is a good sign.
I appreciate the quality of the CMR turntable but I couldn’t justify the price. Thanks for the recommendation.
The CMR 90’ turntable is about $360.00 USD including motor and delivery. That’s $480.00 Cdn. or about 4 times the price for the Walthers turntable and drive motor.
I admire your mechanical creativity. The slip ring system is very well done!
There has been a slight price increase since I bought mine back in 2000. I think I paid around $135 for mine to the door including the motor. About the only thing I remember is thinking a buck a foot isn’t too bad.
I didn’t check their site for the current price, I wouldn’t go that way at that price either.
One thing I do remember very well was if I had known about the Dayton motor I could have replaced the motor and drive system in my home brew scratch built 120’ turntable for less than $30. The Dayton 2L003 gear motor works fantastic as a turntable direct drive at .45 RPM! The very small 12 volt motor its self turns at a very high speed and coast for a long time. Because of it being a DC motor by shorting the motor leads it creates a dynamic brake stopping the motor instantly giving excellent track alignment.
The Dayton 2L003 is available from Zoro free S&H for $62.52, th
Mel, I am very interested in your slip ring techniques. I suspect I am not the only one. Do you have that documented somewhere? I looked through your blog but didn’t see it.
I thought I had some info on my Google Drive but if I did its gone. Did you look at my 135’ Turntable link above.
I can’t find any more info than in that post. I do remember building it up so if you need info from my brain ask away. One thing that would making a slip-ring assembly easier would be a lathe, not having one I used my Craftsman bench top drill press on it’s slowest speed which was too fast. I found the 5/16” copper and nylon washers at a local Nut & Bolt store. Bakersfield is in the middle of a huge oilfield (at least 40,000 oil wells) so there are several sources for a good variety hardware here.
I used Evergreen #230 tubing for the shaft and Super Glue for final assembly.
I drilled one steel 5/16” steel washer first as a template and then drilled 15 copper washers (I only needed 12 but I’m a Clutz). I went to Harbor Freight 1/16” drill bits because the bits would break easily drilling the soft copper washers. I experimented with the speed of my drill press and it didn’t nake much difference. The bits would hang up in the soft copper and break easily.
Thanks for the link to the other website thread. I’m not too pleased with the negative comments about the drive motor. I ordered one but I may try to cancel it. Obviously I shouldn’t get my hopes up that the TT will work properly right out of the box.
The other problems that were mentioned in that thread may or may not be relatively easy to solve. If the pit is warped that might be a challenge. I have a couple of ideas for replacing the bushings or even the pivot shaft system entirely if necessary. Opening up the motor housing to be able to view/adjust the gears would seem easy enough to do. The open housing could be reinforced if the structural integrity was compromised by removing parts of it. The only crucial function that I can see that the motor/gear housing serves is to position the bottom pivot point for the bridge.
When my kids were young they had a helicopter that ‘flew’ around in circles. The chopper blades were driven by a motor and they actually provided the lift. The thing got broken but I think I kept the contact system that fed power to the rotor motor. It was fairly robust IIRC. Now I will have to go digging!
Thanks for the reference to the .45 RPM drive motor. Some time ago I bought a box of about a dozen small motors on eBay. Included in the box were a couple of motors with reduction drives. I’ll have to dig those out too.
I built the 90’ kit, the motor drive sucked so I got Diamond one but by the time all was said and done the builtup I bought on e-bay for $50 was a much beter deal.
You can’t go wrong using the Dayton 2L003 gear motor, it will drive any model railroad turntable from N to G. If something binds up the bridge the gear motor isn’t going to be the thing that gives.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
I take it that the turntable’s rotation is at .45rpm…that seems quite a bit slower than the real ones which I’ve seen, but if it stops instantly, would make alignment pretty easy to achieve.
I had a look at the CMR on eBay. The price for the turntable is pretty good considering that it includes a motor. The killer for me is that the seller is using the Global Shipping Program. Shipping to Canada is almost $70.00 Cdn. That’s about what I paid for the Walthers 90’ turntable including shipping.
I will send them a message asking if they will ship First Class.
EDIT: Seller got right back to me. He will ship First Class unless the box is too big. If I get it I’m going to have turntables coming out my ears!
Second EDIT: The package is too big and too heavy to qualify for USPS First Class Mail. I rather suspected that would be the case. The seller tried to find a cheaper shipping method but websites he was using apparently wouldn’t give him exact quotes. That got us back to the Global Shipping Program price and I can’t justify the expense so I have to pass on the CMR turntable.
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