bizmad Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 I have purchased an old Fleischmann 1780 turntable for use on my layout at the end of a fiddle yard, so I wasn't too bothered that it looks old. It has no wiring instructions with it, all I have is the turntable (with three terminals on the side coloured red, grey, yellow), a length of wire with the same 3 colours, and a rotary switch which has the same 3 coloured terminals plus two more, black and plain. There are wires going from each of the entry tracks to the middle of the turntable underneath to power the tracks on the bridge. Although my layout is DCC, I am going to operate the turntable motor itself from a DC controller which has 12V DC and 16V AC outputs. I'm not very good with electrics (that's an understatement to say the least) so could anyone please explain in basic terms how I should wire this up. Thanks for any help Keith Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 Not sure if this will help. I can't help with the specific one you have, but I suspect they are all fairly similar. http://members.ozema...nual_Wiring.jpg Looking at it, this diagram is for a three rail version. From the switch the white and black go to the 12-14vAC power supply and the red, grey, yellow go from the switch to the turntable motor control. The other two wires which would be the track feeds, would connect to the track circuit. As this is 3 rail, it shows two orange for the outer rail and a white for the centre. A simple meter test should allow you to buzz out the rail connections. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizmad Posted May 9, 2011 Author Share Posted May 9, 2011 Thanks Gordon, I'd found this by googling, unfortunately it doesn't mean a lot to me. I know the Marklin and Fleischmann turntables are the same, but what a Marklin K84 decoder is (or does) I haven't the faintest idea. The switch that came with the turntable is a very old design. I think I may have tracked down a newer one which has 5 wires attached, the same three I have plus two more for the power, so hopefully that will solve my problem. If anyone has any tips for wiring correctly for DCC I'd be very obliged. My initial thoughts are that all the entry tracks will be isolated so that, having driven onto the turntable, I can isolate the bridge whilst turning, then switch the power on again to exit. I'm not bothered about losing sound, it will be switched off anyway after entering the fiddle yard. Keith Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 I used mine on an earlier DCC layout so the wiring shown on the diagram in the link will work. The black and white wire should go to the 16AC supply on your controller. The red/grey/yellow wires on the rotary switch are connected to the red/grey/yellow wires from the turntable motor. Either solder them together or use a small choc block. That just leaves the track connection. From memory, the problem with the Fleischmann turntable is that it is designed to have a dead track bed during rotation and of course that will switch off the lights or sound on a DCC loco. To have a live track bed you either need to cut through the feed rings under the centre boss which I have done before and it does work, or use a reversing module. That way the lighting and sound stays on and either the ring mod or reversing module will prevent a short once the table has rotated 180 degrees. If you are not bothered about sound or lights, then it should work OK anyway. Edit: Having thought about that I'd like to check that out as it was some time ago I used mine on a layout and I can't recall if the bridge was fed from the adjacent track or from a direct wired connection. The wiring diagram would suggest it was hard wired. If that is so, then I think you will need the ring mod or reversing module. If it will help I will dig mine out tomorrow and connect it up to a DCC supply and test it for you...... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizmad Posted May 10, 2011 Author Share Posted May 10, 2011 Thanks Gordon. As I said, I'm not bothered about power to the bridge whilst turning, so my thoughts were to put isolated rail joiners on every approach road so that the turntable is electrically separate from the rest of the layout, and just power it with a switch when I need to drive on, switch off for turning, then switch on again to drive off. Slightly untidy I know, but it would save the need for a reversing module. Keith Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted May 10, 2011 Share Posted May 10, 2011 Right, some progress at last..... Apologies for the earlier information. I was doing it from memory and maybe it's not as good as it used to be... Got mine out this afternoon and wired it up. From the deck there is a five core flat cable. The two orange wires next to each other go to the track and then the red/grey/yellow (orange) go to the rotary switch. Black and white from the rotary switch go to the 16AC supply. The deck rails are completely isolated from the approach/exit rails and polarity is NOT reversed when the deck rotates 180 degrees. So the deck is continually live, but would have to be fed through a changeover switch to allow the correct polarity to drive on. If you are going straight across then no problem, but if you want full rotation and then to drive off, you would have to move the switch over to reverse the polarity and stop a short as the wheels bridged the gap between the deck and entry/exit roads. As I said earlier, I have two of the Fleischmann decks (don't ask... ) and I have taken one apart and split the rings similar to the Peco design. In terms of difficulty it was OK, but it is a risk. With the rings split, the deck reverses polarity automatically. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizmad Posted May 11, 2011 Author Share Posted May 11, 2011 Thanks for looking at yours for me Gordon. It sounds as if you have a slightly different model to mine, I don't have a five core flat cable for a start. Mine has an entry track which has one rail wired to a contact in the middle of the turntable. There are 6 exit tracks opposite, each of these has a wire from one rail to contacts also in the middle (6 separate contacts). If a loco is driving straight through, it would be the opposite rail to the one which is wired up on the entry track, so I assume these are the feeds for the bridge. It also has another two tracka which seem to be cross=-wired, but I won't be using these anyway so that's no problem, I won't even be using the normal entry track. As it will be at the end of the fiddle yard I shall only be using the six exit tracks. My other switch has arrived this morning and the turntable itself now turns correctly, so I shall have to connect it up properly to my DCC controller and play around to see what results I get, and short circuits (if any). Thanks again for your help. Keith Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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