Model Railroading > Homebrew turntable drive.

I'd be grateful for advice regarding making my own turntable drive.

I'm thinking of using a 12VDC gearmotor and 3/8" timing belt and
timing pulleys.

Looking for an honest merchant who sells rationally priced 3/8"
timing belts and pulleys. I do not deal with eBay.

Want a way to "index" the turntable (N-scale) and was thinking of
using an optical encoder to tell a small memory-computing device
where it was. Hope to program the memory-computing device such
that if I enter "4" the turntable will move to stall 4 and stop
with the rails aligned. I do not want to use a laptop or other
real computer.

Advance thanks.

Be Well,

Tim Colbert K3HX

As soon as I get my hand cranked TT smooth enough, I'm going to look into motorizing it and using a DCC decoder. Im not sure what I can find for a motor.
First time I've heard the term "homebrew" on a model RR forum. Ham radio term. I haven't done any hamming for years but keep my license current.

Check out www.micromark.com. Look under the heading of "robotics and animation". They have gear drives and chain and an assortment of gear motors. The chain is acetal and is priced per foot. There is an assortment of gears for the chain.

Ron Evans
Golden Valley, AZ

For other precision drive projects, I've had good luck with Stock Drive Products:
http://www.sdp-si.com

I got a bunch of gears, shafts and pulleys from a friend that repairs printers. Some are gear to gear and some are great to rubber cog belt.
Cam

This setup cost less than 20 bucks. I used a window opening 12 volt motor from ALL ELECTRONICS for the power. The large pulley wheel was removed from a garden clothes line reel I got at Lowes and the center was drilled 1/2 " to fit the shaft of the Wiseman Models turntable. I drilled and tapped a 2:56 screw to lock it to the shaft. The blue band is round hard rubber from a jump rope I found in the woods walking my dog! I knew it would come in handy, someday!!. I cut each end super smooth with a scalpel and used some of the super CA to join it. It's held for a year now. You need to use something that doesn't stretch but is flexible. At first I tried a large rubber band but that won't work because when it stretches the turntable doesn't move right away then does and stops and goes and stops. Looks like the second hand on a digital watch when it should look like a Rolex second hand-smooth.

I did not use an indexing system as I use an old power pack with the speed control and when I turn it down all the way it's pretty easy to stop it lined up. This is O scale so it's not at hard to do as N scale might be. I'll have to defer the indexing to someone else.

Thanks,

Peter

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Forgot to mention I use DCC so I used a frog juicer for polarity issues. It works the nuts!!

Peter