turning a turntable

[gregc]

i partially assembled an old cornerstone turntable and am wondering if there's any tried and true ways for operating it and aligning it with the desired track?

this one seems to have fairly low gearing so that when you shut off the power it stops right away. and i've read that the newer one has some sort of electronic indexing. but i assume there must be some simple techniques for getting the rails aligned close enough.

another question is how much of a gap is acceptable between the rails on the bridge and ground?

 

[Selector]

Yes, if you can get the bridge to turn smoothly around most or all of the full 360 degrees, the way I used mine was to give it minimal voltage to keep the motor and gear noise low and to allow fine alignment. I had no trouble...just reduce the voltage commensurate with the proximity of the two pairs of rail ends.

 

[Larry]

I run mine w/a cheap MRR transformer on DC. That way I can control the voltage & speed to the TT. I use the track hookup.

 

[RexHea]

You may not be DCC, but I use a cheap HO loco decoder. You can smoothly slow the speed down to a crawl and anyone's hand throttle can control it.

The gap is good when just close enough to clear. Too far and you will get a bump, potentially causing a derail.