I am in the midst of assembling a Walthers 90’ Turntable Kit and am finding it to be a real challenge. Some of the instructions do not seem very clear so I am “winging” it a bit. I am motorizing the kit and did get that assembled correctly as it did work (rotate) when I applied power. The turntable will be a nice addition to my layout, but as mentioned the assembly is difficult - particularly for one who is not expert in such an endeavor.
I sure hope it works out for you. Quite a number of us who post here who tried that kit ended up being disappointed, including myself. The bridge would not sit in its bearing properly and that caused it to wobble too much. Also, my pit was out of round such that it caused the bridge to bind partway around. I eventually figured out that I had to sand the pit wall to get clearance, and I had to install a series of styrene flat shims between the bottom of the pit, on the underside, and that large metal washer they supply. That snugged up the works and I had a nicely operating turntable…except I could never get the pit sanded enough to get a full rotation. The nice part about it is that you can dial in low voltage from your DC posts if you have on older power source for DC, and it will operate quietly and slowly.
Oh, I also had a bit of a challenge getting the motor’s gear to mesh consistently with the large ring gear. I simply wedged cardboard between the motor and its grey housing to get it to lean a bit closer. That worked okay. Truth is, once I found a deal on the built-up indexed one, I jumped on it.
http://www.polyweb.com/dans_rr/blog/index.php/archives/4
This info might help.
So if not the Walthers, then what other 90 footer is a good turntable?
Jay,
The Walthers assembled one($300) works so much better - it is not the same as the ‘kit’ one. I found mine for $203(including shipping). I built the ‘kit’ one and spend about another $50 on bearings/drive to get it to work right. This is one time when being cheap did not pay off.
Jim