ho turn table

[Roy R Raleigh]

I am trying to hook up my turn table do U guys have any tips or hints

[rogertra]

What brand of turntable may help.

[CNE Runner]

Check out my post on Les' Turntable wiring further up the forum list. I have an Atlas surface-mounted unit. As was mentioned we really need to know which turntable you have; but I will confine my remarks to the Atlas unit.

The Atlas turntable has a built-in polarity reverser (remember when a turntable deck travels past roughly 90 degrees, the polarity of the deck needs to be changed). The Atlas (and most other turntables have this feature build in OR one has to reverse wire some of the lead in tracks. Assuming your truntable has the feature built in, and you are operating in DCC, wire all lead in tracks with the same polarity as the initial lead in track (the one that runs from the rest of the layout to the turntable itself). If you are running DCC, I strongly recommend that you power the turntable motor unit from a separate transformer (these can be had cheaply at train shows...any inexpensive, used unit will do) through something like a momentary contact switch or doorbell button. The separate transformer allows you to set the speed of the turntable deck. There are other methods of powering a turntable motor; I am giving you the simplest and probably most reliable way.

Again, we really need to know the brand of your turntable as some of these units are quite complicated (using a photoelectric cell to index the deck). Get back to us please.