Turntable Indexing Help:

Search link to: O gauge turntable indexing systems

There are a lot of options. It might help if you narrow down what type of control system you'd like: ie. mechanical, electrical, electronic, microprocessor, etc?

Budget ball park?

@SteveH posted:

Search link to: O gauge turntable indexing systems

There are a lot of options. It might help if you narrow down what type of control system you'd like: ie. mechanical, electrical, electronic, microprocessor, etc?

Budget ball park?

Hi Steve, I appreciate the reply. here’s where I would like to end up. I built a vertical yard, an elevator that rises ten levels to store twenty six car Subways. The research I’ve done so far a turn table indexing system should work.

with that said, I’d like to raise and lower the elevator up and down via the DCS remote using a TIU as the interface. Watching the DTx indexing unit work on YouTube, the ease of lining up the levels looks like an easy task. Getting that to work with the DCS, hmm. What do you think? I’m not very concerned about budget.

Brian NY

Brian: What a great idea! From storage shelf to layout using vertical navigation. I like it a lot!

I’m searching the forums for some storage ideas and I happened across a link to this video…

https://ogrforum.com/...c/train-storage-idea

The video seems to be a few years old but maybe you can contact him and see how he set up his system.

@MCD4x4 posted:

...

... I’d like to raise and lower the elevator up and down via the DCS remote using a TIU as the interface. Watching the DTx indexing unit work on YouTube, the ease of lining up the levels looks like an easy task. Getting that to work with the DCS, hmm. What do you think? I’m not very concerned about budget.

.

To be clear, by DCS remote do you mean going thru a TIU AND an AIU?

The AIU in effect provides at least 10 remotely controllable momentary pushbuttons and 10 remotely controllable toggle switches.  I would be astonished if you can find a turntable indexing system that says "DCS compatible".

Instead, I believe one way to approach this is to focus on what buttons/controls your indexing system has.  As I see it, an indexing system will be either incremental or absolute.

Incremental means you push a button to go up (or CW) and you push a different button to go down (or CCW).  The system then rotates to the next position and stops.  It will "know" not to go below the 1st floor or above the 10th floor using sensors.  So this is a one-step-at-a-time control interface.

Absolute means you specify what floor you want to go to.  So no matter where you are to begin with, you specify you want to go to floor 7 (or whatever) and the system knows whether to go up or down and how many floors to travel before stopping.  The control might be a rotary switch with 10 positions; so dial the knob to 1-10 and the electronics takes over and knows what to do.

So.

Let's say you have an incremental system with 2 pushbuttons.  That would simply require 2 ports of an AIU.

Let's say you have an absolute system with a 10-position rotary switch.  That could be as "simple" as using 10 ports of an AIU with each port activating 1 position of the rotary switch.

Yes, there are some loose ends to clean up.  Again, this is just one way to approach the problem.  That is, look at what kind of user control you have on an indexing system and then map it to the available switching functionality of an AIU.

Brian: Certainly, Stan has answered how to tie your elevator to the DCS system. The AIU can handle switching between levels from your remote.

Now the trick is to have the elevator differentiate between the levels and stop at the proper location. I can see how the turntable technique came to mind as a solution for this. But I doubt that you'll find anything suitable off the shelf to do the job. So, what do you plan to do?

What you have done so far makes me think that you are capable of putting things together on your own. Are you comfortable with working on electronics (small parts, soldering, wire, microcontrollers, etc.) to create your own indexing system? If so, I think that the people on this Forum can lend a hand to get you there.

Brian: Here's a sketch for one idea. What do you think?

I was looking into building one of these about 5 years ago ... ended up purchasing steel drawer slides to guide the elevator and a 12v actuator 300 lb capacity to lift it.

I still have all the parts but ran out of space to install it ...

Thank you Stan and Leo. I went with a PLC (Programable Logic Controller) and proximity switches on the shelves. This approach gives you endless options and its easy to tie into the AIU. For example I want the lights on the elevator to stay on for thirty seconds after the train pulls off. I also want some cool flashing lights at each end like real vehicle elevators. I'll post a video when I'm done. Its the busy time of year at work so I work on it when I can.

Brian

@yamawho posted:

ended up purchasing steel drawer slides to guide the elevator

I made a rising section of the bench work with draw slides. Ya just hook the cable onto a well hidden U calm somewhere and go.  I occasionally need access to the upstairs shop support machines.