The question arouse on how I powered the Albion turntable. While NOT the ideal solution for a DDC system, this seemed like a simple solution and one that I find works well enough for my small layout operation. The idea for building the spider and powering the turntable originated from and article by Russ Watson in the 2010 On30 Annual.
I had to read the article VERY carefully and several times on how to set up the telescoping tubing. I think I did use slightly different sized tubing or a slightly different arrangement in the tubing.
Here is a picture of the spider I built. Only difference from the article is aluminum tubing and brass wheels.
Here is a video link to how it works and the associated momentary"short" that occurs. Not ideal but seems to work. May not be so good for system that uses a motor to turn the table. Two suggestions to stop the short would be: 1) a larger insulated gap between the split brass tubing and 20 smaller diameter wire. With Stay-Alive capacitors, I think a bigger gap would not cause a problem. One more thing to try........
Here is a video of the spider and tubing:
I hope this helps those who asked about it. For those who have a better solution, I'd love to hear about it, please leave a comment.
Brian,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for posting this. As I mentioned last night, I built a spider for one of my 2 turntables. I am going to look at this design and see if I can adapt it for one of my TT.
Your attention to detail and incorporating in your modeling is awesome.
Pete
Pete,
DeleteThanks for your kind words. I think Dave's comment below might be better. At the time, I wanted to copy someone else's design and not spend the money on a DCC reverser. I think his suggestion is a good one.
Brian, with DCC you do not need a gap at all. Use two solid independent contacts. So that one wire/contact connects to the same rail all the time. The add a DCC reverser. The Reverser should trip when the loco goes on/off the Turntable.
ReplyDeleteDave,
DeleteGood point. One for the to-do list......