Scratchbuilding a transfer table

[One of One-Sixty]

Since Walthers wont release their HO transfer table in N mainly because Heljan only released in HO. I am forced to scratchbuild one, has anybody had any luck building one?

Yes I know CC imported some back in the day, they are long gone since Brawa does not make them anymore.

[Philip H]

Sadly, no, I haven't ever done it - but man have I thought about it.  The pit itself shouldn't be too hard, and with rail now available in code 40 you should be able to get the table itself to run smoothly.  I bet you could reengineer a PDT or Flea to provide the drive unit, since it would be hidden by the bridge.

Only hurdle I see would be indexing  - but surely there's a dcc module somewhere that can od that too . . . .

[wm3798]

It would be a really expensive experiment, but I wonder if the Walther's turntable bridge couldn't be hacked up into transfer table...  It's got a very simple drive, the main trick would be getting power to the drive re-routed from the big hub in the middle... Perhaps that could be accomplished by using the outer guide rails for track power, and the inner guide rails for the table drive.  With a little work, the gear drive could be replaced with some wheels, and the optical sensor could be used to do the indexing....  The bridge itself should probably be narrower for a transfer table, but I think you could overlook that... or perhaps just remove the walkways as appropriate...

Lee

[JoeD]

I have a Marklin Z scale transfer table set and that can be modified into N scale with some work.  They are pretty expensive, so I guess you have to ask how badly you want one.  http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/mar/mar89941.htm.  The trick to making one of these from scratch is working out a way to keep the table from racking as it moves back and forth.  The easiest way is to use a rack and gear set up with a double ended motor in the table itself.  There are a number of small Coreless motors from Maxon and others that have gear heads to reduce the revolutions and enough torque to run it smoothly.  I did a larger version (about HO Scale) of this for a display at Disney and once I got the gears and rack lined up, it ran very well.

Joe

[Ian MacMillan]

I have a Marklin Z scale transfer table set and that can be modified into N scale with some work.  They are pretty expensive, so I guess you have to ask how badly you want one.  http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/mar/mar89941.htm.  The trick to making one of these from scratch is working out a way to keep the table from racking as it moves back and forth.  The easiest way is to use a rack and gear set up with a double ended motor in the table itself.  There are a number of small Coreless motors from Maxon and others that have gear heads to reduce the revolutions and enough torque to run it smoothly.  I did a larger version (about HO Scale) of this for a display at Disney and once I got the gears and rack lined up, it ran very well.

Joe

Reminds me of the old Walthers transfer table in HO. Had a rack and gear set up...it was a pretty good kit except the motor they used SUCKED. This is 1996ish

[wm3798]

Z and HO.  Once again, we're Monkey in the Middle....

Lee

[One of One-Sixty]

For the table itself, I was thinking of using 2 Kato Deck Plate Girder Bridge, and chopped it up as needed.  The pit can easily be fabricated using styrene. 

I am basing this off of SEPTA's Woodland Ave Trolley barn.

 I have been looking at pics of the Walthers/Heljan one as well as the PDF by Walthers/Heljan located on Walthers site to try to figure out how I will motorize it as well as indexing.

[wcfn100]

You coul look t motorizing it from under the table.  Transfer tables have multiple rails, you could 'fix' the center rail to the table and have it run back and forth.  That would give you a lot more options for slow speed operation and indexing.

If you did mount the mechanism under the table, you could use a stepper motor with a controller and you wouldn't need to make any sort of indexing.

Jason

[CoalPorter]

1. How stupid would it look to just use the HO version?

2. Couldn't you cut down the HO version to look okay for N scale?
(I've seen some people modify HO bridges for N and they look real good).