Information required on revolve controllers

I'm an electrician, but I don't know what is normally used to operate a revolve. I'll assume it's a motor with a speed controller, and some sort of friction, or geared drive, to the turntable. What type of motor operates the revolve - Single phase or three phase? Get as much info from the motor as you can. Being that old, I assume the controller is operated manually - you start and stop it by a switch, and select the direction?? Do you have any information on the controller - does it have a manufacturers label? Modern variable speed drives for three phase motors are readily available, , quite small and very cheap, but you need to suit a drive to suit your motor. They are quite simple to run from a remote panel, with the drive located near the motor. If you are more technically minded, you could fit an encoder to the revolve so that the drive knows where it is, which means you could program it to stop in at specific points. Most drives also have a comms input, usually RS485, which means it can be controlled over a network. There's people out there that know more about what is used in the theatre business than me, I'm sure. www.meltheco.org.au