TURNTABLE BACHMAN ELECTRICAL

[JOEV]

I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BACHMANN MOTORIZED TURNTABLE 46299. I PLAN TO OPERATE IT WITH DCC CONTROL. HOW DOES THE POWER GET TO EACH INDEX TRACK AND TURNTABLE? DOES ONLY ONE TRACK AT A TIME GET ENERGIZED? IF SO, HOW DO YOU REVERSE THE DIRECTION OF THE ENGINE ONTO A SIDING OR ROUNDHOUSE?

I PLAN TO USE STRAIGHT 9" SECTIONS OF E-Z TRACK TO ATTACH TO THE INDEX SECTIONS. I ASSUME THEY WILL BE ENERGIZED WHEN THE TURNTABLE REACHES EACH POSITION AND NO ADDITIONAL WIRING IS REQUIRED. IS THIS CORRECT?

WHAT DOES THE MOTOR SOUND LIKE? MY PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE WAS WITH A ATLAS TURNTABLE AND THIS WAS QUITE NOISY. IS THIS ANY QUIETER OR SMOTHER SOUNDING?

JOEV

[Jerrys HO]

joe

Power comes in on track #4. That track powers the bridge. As the bridge turns it powers each track individually. If you plan on connecting your sidings to a main track anywhere but the #4 track you must insulate them from the tt.
The tt is designed to reverse automatically, as it is not like the other brands with complicated wiring.
The motor is the same as far as noise ,maybe a tad quieter.I have found by putting it on a separate power pack instead of using the decoder that you can turn down the speed with the throttle and it looks more realistic turning rather than spinning like an old vinyl record. The added bonus to this is it makes the motor a little quieter also.

If you have any more questions please ask.

Jerry

[JOEV]

JERRY,
THANKS, VERY HELPFUL. IT APPEARS FROM YOUR COMMENTS THAT IF YOU LOAD THE TT HEAD ON, YOU CAN ONLY EXIT ONTO ANY OF THE INDEXED SIDINGS HEAD ON. IS THIS CORRECT? IF SO, THEN YOU CAN NEVER 'BACK OFF' ONTO ANY SIDING. CORRECT? ANY SUGGESTIONS OTHER THAN ORIGINALLY BACKING INTO THE TT ORIGINALLY?

PLEASE EXPLAIN FURTHER YOUR COMMENT ABOUT TT CHANGING ROTATION DIRECTION 'AUTOMATICALLY'. DID YOU MEAN IF YOUR REVERSE THE DCC COMMAND AS WITH AN ENGINE DIRECTION, IT WILL CHANGE THE TT ROTATION DIRECTION OR DOES THE TT AUTOMATICALLY REVERSE AT SOME POINT IN ITS ROTATION?

JOEV

[Jerrys HO]

JOE

THANKS, VERY HELPFUL. IT APPEARS FROM YOUR COMMENTS THAT IF YOU LOAD THE TT HEAD ON, YOU CAN ONLY EXIT ONTO ANY OF THE INDEXED SIDINGS HEAD ON. IS THIS CORRECT? IF SO, THEN YOU CAN NEVER 'BACK OFF' ONTO ANY SIDING. CORRECT? ANY SUGGESTIONS OTHER THAN ORIGINALLY BACKING INTO THE TT ORIGINALLY?

You can drive straight into the tt bridge. Once on the bridge you can point the loco in any direction you wish. Example of what I mean is drive onto the bridge and hold the switch and as it turns it pauses momentarily at each siding to keep the bridge lined up with the siding. Keep holding the switch until you reach the siding you wish to park in and stop. Turn up the throttle and off she goes into the siding. It actually depends on which direction you turn the switch whether it is facing in or backing in. Let's say you pull onto the bridge and the siding you want to rest your loco on is to the left of the loco, if you turn the bridge right you can stop it at that siding and back off. Now if you want to drive straight into that same siding you would turn the bridge left and when it line's up stop and pull forward. That's it nothing left to do.

PLEASE EXPLAIN FURTHER YOUR COMMENT ABOUT TT CHANGING ROTATION DIRECTION 'AUTOMATICALLY'. DID YOU MEAN IF YOUR REVERSE THE DCC COMMAND AS WITH AN ENGINE DIRECTION, IT WILL CHANGE THE TT ROTATION DIRECTION OR DOES THE TT AUTOMATICALLY REVERSE AT SOME POINT IN ITS ROTATION?

On the other brand tt's each siding had to be wired special to keep the polarity of the track correct. With the Bachmann tt there is no special wiring needs. As Bachmann's tt turns it actually sets the polarity to the siding it is turned to. No need to flip all them switches like the other tt's. With this in mind that is why you can only bring the main track feed into the #4 index. Any other connection's to the main track would have to be insulated.
You mentioned you wanted to control the tt through your command station. I prefer the separate controller to operate the tt that way I can control the loco and the speed of the tt without having to work all the button control's through the command station. I really have not tried the decoder but it does seem awkward to have to switch between the tt and loco on the hand set to control both.

Hope this helps
Jerry

[JOEV]

JERRY,
THANKS AGAIN. I WISH YOU WROTE THE PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS FOR BACHMANN. I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU TOLD ME BUT MY ENGINEERING BACKGROUND KEEPS ASKING ME TO TRY TO FIND OUT 'WHY' IT WORKS LIKE YOU SAY. RELATIVE TO GOING FORWARD OR BACKWARDS FROM THE BRIDGE TO A SIDING IT SEEMS LIKE THE BRIDGE CONNECTS TO 2 OPPOSITE SIDINGS AT EACH STOP SO THAT YOU CAN SEND THE ENGINE OFF IN EITHER DIRECTION. IS THIS RIGHT OR IS THERE SOME OTHER EXPLANATION?

RELATIVE TO THE TT MOTOR CONTROL, YOU HAVE A GOOD OPTION THAT I MAY TRY BUT DOES IT REQUIRE DISCONNECTING OR ISOLATING IT. SO THAT I CAN USE A SEPARATE POWER SOURCE?

JOEV

[Jerrys HO]

Joe

I have not pulled mine apart completely but how it appears to operate is the bridge gets it 's power from the #4 index. There are two wires connected to the outer small track on the tt that go to the bridge. When the tt operates the power from the #4 position is at the bridge no matter which way the bridge is aligned. When it stop's at a siding, yes both sides opposite of the bridge are powered by the bridge through contact points located at the edge of the tt and indexing tracks. So yes you can send the engine off in either direction.

The tracking get's it's power through the rails. The motor with a decoder installed uses rail power to operate the turning of the bridge. If you are going to use a separate power pack the only wiring there is is the red cable that come's with the ttis then hooked from the tt motor to the switch also supplied then connected to the power pack. Everything you need to run the way mine is included with the tt except for the power pack.
When usuing the decoder there are no connections except for the decoder, which cost close to the same as a  cheap controller. I used Bachmann's #44212 as in this link.
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?act=viewProd&productId=209

As I said before it let's you slow the tt action down to realistic operation.

Jerry

[JOEV]

JERRY,
THANKS AGAIN. YOU'VE MADE ME A HAPPYMAN. I PLACED MY ORDER TODAY AND SOMEDAY I HOPE TO BE ABLE TO GIVE YOU A REPORT BACK IF WE BOTH LIVE LONG ENOUGH. HOW DO I DO THAT SO THAT I CAN BE ASSURED TO REACH YOU? DO THE FORUM RULES PERMIT EXCHANGES OF EMAIL ADDRESSES?

JOEV

[Jerrys HO]

Yes they do and if you click on my name it will bring you to my profile where you will find my e-mail.
I enjoy mine and I am sure you will too.

Jerry

[grooless]

Thanks Jerry.

I am struggling to get my son's turntable operational. Your comment that the main track should only be accessed from spur #4 may explain why I was failing when I connected more than one spur.

I ordered a second power power pack and promptly blew it up, I forgot that USA uses 100volt and I turbo charged it on 220volts. Now I need to try to find a power pack using 220 volts - grrrr!

You say that if the main track (not just sidings) have to be "insulated" to be connected to any spur other than #4. Can you please explain in small words to me what you mean ?

Cheers
GC

[Jerrys HO]

grooless

The main track in to the tt does not get insulated. If you do you lose power to the tt rails.  All sidings off of tt other than the main do not have to be insulated unless any of those sidings are connected to the main track as in the same track as the one #4 is connected to.
I myself do not understand why this is but one day I may do a little experiment to find out. To me as long as I don't create another reverse loop it should work. One day I may be able to post my findings or someone else may beat me to it.

WoW  I hope you did not burn up the tt motor as well as the power pack. I believe Bachmann makes power packs for our friends overseas. I Think you can use any walwart also for this. ( like the one's you use to charge your cell phones, gaming devices,etc.) Just check the voltage before you hook it up as I do not know how they work over there.

Jerry

[Len]

Spurs other than #4 connecting to the main get insulated to prevent shorts if the turntable is rotated enough to reverse the polarity on the rails relative to the main line.

You'd probably need to install an automatice reversing module, e.g., Digitrax AR-1, between the spur and main to prevent problems if you actually ran a train through the connection.

Len

[Jhanecker2]

to JOEV: Writing in All Capital  Letters  on the Internet  signifies that you are Shouting .  This is a convention on the Internet .  If you are not shouting , please use upper and lower case letters as you would in conventional writing.  J2.  Do have a good day and welcome to the Forum.

[Jerrys HO]

That's OK Joe my wife yells at me all the time. I did not even notice you were yelling.

Jerry

[kpsdjs]

JOEV  I have that tt and know all it's ins & outs. I originaly had trouble because I had multiple "Powered" tracks at various indexes. Now remember, the tt's bridge is always powered from index #4, so as I rotated the tt, it's powered bridge rails would contact my "Other" powered rails and instantly short out, reseting my DCC every time. Hense the need to use isolating rail joiners for "Powered" tracks. EVEN THEN you MUST have polarity correct, as the "Bridges" polarity may be in conflict. The "Indexes" alternate how their polarity is expected. UNFORTUNATELY the documentation NEVER MENTIONS this.
   The polarities are (Starting at index #1, & rail closest to controll room building) #1 thru #4 are A-B, then #5 thru #13 are B-A, and #14 thru #16 are A-B polarity. (A & B being same +v/-v as as powered index #4.)
   Basically the indexes are ment for unpowered spurs, to park your engines on. When the bridge is rotated away, from said spur, It has no power, and is not effected by your controller.
   As far as backing in, or forwarding in, its all how you want. Just rotate until desired index is reached, and back in or forward in. Bridge rotates continually around!
   I also recommend a seperate Standard DC controller to run tt instead of DCC. You get to controll the rotation direction AND SPEED seperate from your DCC controller. I'm not sure you can controll speed of rotation w/DCC.

Sorry For Long Windedness,
Had Lots To Say I Guess,
Kelly

[grooless]

All,

Thanks for the tips. I found a link to AnyRail on another post, so I am trying to load up my current plans.

We got a 220volt Thomas boxed set to start with and have been expanding on it.

Ordered online for the extra bits, and Bachmann don't list 110 or 220 on their website so I never guessed it would be different to what we already had.

Don't suppose anyone knows a website in the UK selling the power packs (I don't think I need the speed controller) at 220 volts ?

GC