I finally got some time to work on the layout again. My Lionel 197 Radar Tower used a vibrating motor consisting of a coil, a rubber 'drive' washer with stubs on it that grabbed the base in 1 direction to cause the rotation, a medal washer, and the radar antenna. The drive mechanism was very noisy, and currently undependable. No matter what I did, I could not get to dependably rotate. I finally decided to re-motor it with a 12VDC 60 RPM Gear Motor. I planned to run it off a 3VDC adapter to get the required 12-15 RMP for the antenna. The problem is, my 3VDC adapter was actually putting out 3.5VDC, so I added 2 diodes in series to drop the voltage to 2.44, which ended up right at 15 RPM. Here are a couple before and after pictures.
Original Radar Tower
Parts removed from original Tower
12V 60 RPM Motor 25mm x 72mm w 4mm shaft ($4.99)
Created plastic mounting washers from medicine bottle
above and below the tower to hold motor.
Resulting smooth, quiet running tower
(with motor hanging way down).
