electric turntable problem

[suandy]

Help please ....for two months now I have been trying to get this turntable to work.  Even two electricions are stumped.  If I am hooked up to the fourth rail ONLY, it works.  When I hook up any other rails to the layout it either kills the track completely or the train will get on the turntable track and not move.  We have tried putting in reverse polarities.  Last night I rebuilt the track completely and eveything worked until I set up additional tracks.  I am a Mom so I so confused over this.  Has anyone else ever encourtered this problem? 

[Jerrys HO]

suandy

Bachmann's turntable is designed for only one powered rail in the fourth track position. Any other trackage would have to be isolated and work with block control.

Jerry

[HO-TrainsRFun]

I am new to this my self and have just added the electric turntable to Tidmouth sheds - replacing the turntable that came with it.  I have not plugged it in yet as I am hooking up final pieces of track and do not have plastic joiners (have ordered and should arrive by next week) to isolate the track section leading up to the turntable (3 tracks). 

I am also interested in knowing if there will be issues but here is what I think you can try to isolate the issue - assuming you are using EZ Track with the Bachman powered turntable and are powering through DC (analog) and NOT DCC:

1.  Make sure that only one track is leading out/into your turntable (this can however be in addition to the fourth track with a dead end powered re-railiar attached - for power to the turntable).  This entry/exit track can be multiple pieces of track for some testing length.

2. Now make sure your entry/exit track is not connected to the rest of your layout.  This should effectively isolate the turntable.

3. Power up the turntable with the separate powered re-railiar.  The turn motor can be powered by a separate power pack or from an 16V a/c accessory port on your power pack.  If you can use separate power packs for test purposes, as the turntable comes with both type of cables (accessory and power pack) that would be better for testing purposes.

4. Now run a small engine that you know works on other tracks. 

Hopefully this will work.  If it does, then you know it is an isolation issue - get plastic joiners to connect any tracks leading into out of the turntable - connect close to where the lead tracks enter the main layout.  This way the trans will stop just past the plastic joiners giving you some lead track to the turntable.  And if you have the turntable power-pack powering the entry track and the turntable lined up to accept the incoming train, then the train should simply jerk a little and continue on towards the turntable (make sure you set the appropriate speed on the turntable power-pack). Now you can control speed past the plastic joiners with the second speed controller (power-pack).

Plan your isolation points carefully and you should not have any power/polarity issues.

Hopefully problem solved!  Best of luck!

[seanrail]

Help please ....for two months now I have been trying to get this turntable to work.  Even two electricions are stumped.  If I am hooked up to the fourth rail ONLY, it works.  When I hook up any other rails to the layout it either kills the track completely or the train will get on the turntable track and not move.  We have tried putting in reverse polarities.  Last night I rebuilt the track completely and eveything worked until I set up additional tracks.  I am a Mom so I so confused over this.  Has anyone else ever encourtered this problem? 

on my Tidmouth Sheds turntable, it stops working when the tracks get dirty or rusty. sand or track rubber it regularly.

[HO-TrainsRFun]

Is your turn table the manual turntable that came with Tidmouth Sheds?  I had power problems with the manual turntable because even if the tracks "Click" together, they really did not line up exactly unless you keep turning the crank past the click.  If the tracks lined up then the engine will run through, other wise even a slight movement of the turntable - no power.

What are you using to clean your turntable?

Thx!

[HO-TrainsRFun]

Hi all,

I hooked up my electric turntable and it would not even come on.  While I was on phone with tech support at Bachmann, they suggested I double check my connection underneath the control house.  They also suggested that I skip the switch that comes with it go directly to the controller and use the directional button on the controller itself and set the controller to around 40 - 50% power.

So I checked and re-wired it and sure enough - even though I thought the flat plug under the table/control house was fully connected, it was not - really have to line it up and push hard.

The turntable worked perfectly with the controller directly - although I did add the switch back in so I can extend the wiring to reach my controller to where I wanted to place it.

I did make a mistake in my last post... as I learned from Bachmann that the spare wire with the large flat plug and the horseshoe style connector is not for connecting the turntable to the A/C accessory port.   DO NOT connect it to that port.  Use the audio plug style connector to connect the switch to the controller to the 1 amp D/C port.  The turntable is D/C (direct current) and not A/C compatible.  The other cable with the horseshoe ends is for legacy style controllers that have a different screw in style port for D/C output.

So, I am now using two separate controllers to run the turntable - one dedicated to the turning of the table and the other to provide power to the tracks (connected to 4th track on the right - if you are looking at the control house from the middle of the turntable itself).

Hope you have had luck with your turntable.  And as per Bachmann support, the connector under the turntable/control house can easily get loose.  This happened to me again - no power - and sure enough after pushing on the plug under the turntable some more, back to power!  So always check that connection first.

Best of luck!

[mrrailroad]

so did you fix it?