Railmagic

[Junctionmad]

I also suspect the DCC is being modified to feed back position information rather like Zimo do with their HULU speed protocol , the issues with coupled track boosters would suggest that the issue as the signal is corrupted when fed through two boosters 

[Ron Ron Ron]

5 minutes ago, Junctionmad said:

I should add that precise geographical positioning solves many problems that conventional computer automation can’t easily solve 

 

the first problem is that automation software doesn’t know what’s actually happening , it’s “ modelling “ what’s happening , precise position feedback is actually relating what is really  happening 

 

precise position reporting is superior to point detection mechanisms and modelling profiles .  The issue is how the system can generate those precise positions and that the proposed solution works and can be handled by ordinary model railway users and compatible with existing systems. 

It’s a pity RailCom or RailCom Plus couldn’t be leveraged in some way to provide real-time positional data.

It already sends back loco ID, speed, motor load and direction.

There’s space for extra info to be sent back to the DCC system, for things like fuel and water etc.

 

I’ve no idea how you would be able to translate location identifier information, into a suitable DCC response data field for RailCom transmission, or how an onboard detector could feed that data into the decoder.

How costly would onboard detectors or readers be in the first place?

 

It would be one way of eradicating, or at the very least minimising, the need for trackside detectors, feedback wiring and costly extra electronic modules.

 

 

.

[Andymsa]

2 hours ago, Junctionmad said:

I should add that precise geographical positioning solves many problems that conventional computer automation can’t easily solve 

 

the first problem is that automation software doesn’t know what’s actually happening , it’s “ modelling “ what’s happening , precise position feedback is actually relating what is really  happening 

 

precise position reporting is superior to point detection mechanisms and modelling profiles .  The issue is how the system can generate those precise positions and that the proposed solution works and can be handled by ordinary model railway users and compatible with existing systems. 

 

Although technically you are correct that geographic positioning is better there are no systems that employ this method, both rail magic and existing systems are Identical in estimating from a fixed point so no advantage to be gained. Additionally railmagic requires an isolated section between power districts. I would say that even thought existing software is estimating the position of the train, it does a pretty good job of it.

[RFS]

6 minutes ago, Andymsa said:

 

Although technically you are correct that geographic positioning is better there are no systems that employ this method, both rail magic and existing systems are Identical in estimating from a fixed point so no advantage to be gained. Additionally railmagic requires an isolated section between power districts. I would say that even thought existing software is estimating the position of the train, it does a pretty good job of it.

 

Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg uses occupancy detectors and IRJs just like we do in Traincontroller and iTrain, so if it works for them it must be accurate enough which is certainly my experience.

 

It's not just about knowing where every train is, it's using that information however obtained to schedule the trains that's important. It's the software that does all the work really, and something Railmagic do not understand in the way they dismiss existing software products. And no, I don't wish to run my layout from a smartphone.....

[Andymsa]

Something I forgot to add, there is also the problem of shoe horning in a further decoder with railmagic, its bad enough in OO/HO but N gauge forget it.

[NIK]

4 hours ago, Andymsa said:

 

Although technically you are correct that geographic positioning is better there are no systems that employ this method, both rail magic and existing systems are Identical in estimating from a fixed point so no advantage to be gained. Additionally railmagic requires an isolated section between power districts. I would say that even thought existing software is estimating the position of the train, it does a pretty good job of it.

Hi,

 

However RailMagic seems to promise an accurate position at least once per second and with no need for position sensors on the layout.

Geographic positioning (X and Y) is not needed if the tracks are fixed, just the distance along the track. 

 

Regards

 

Nick

[Junctionmad]

5 hours ago, Andymsa said:

 

Although technically you are correct that geographic positioning is better there are no systems that employ this method, both rail magic and existing systems are Identical in estimating from a fixed point so no advantage to be gained. Additionally railmagic requires an isolated section between power districts. I would say that even thought existing software is estimating the position of the train, it does a pretty good job of it.

I understand railmagic triangulated from a series of magnetic sensors. Hence it should be capable of calculating its current position at snub time and does not need a single reference point. 

[Junctionmad]

4 hours ago, Andymsa said:

Something I forgot to add, there is also the problem of shoe horning in a further decoder with railmagic, its bad enough in OO/HO but N gauge forget it.

Oh I fully agree. Which is why railmagic now has to produce a full DCc decoder and of sound with no sound either. 

[Andymsa]

27 minutes ago, NIK said:

Hi,

 

However RailMagic seems to promise an accurate position at least once per second and with no need for position sensors on the layout.

Geographic positioning (X and Y) is not needed if the tracks are fixed, just the distance along the track. 

 

Regards

 

Nick

I have not seen any such claims about an accurate position once per second. The geographical positioning is exactly the same as current systems that a fixed point is passed and the systems works out how far to travel. 

[Junctionmad]

30 minutes ago, NIK said:

Hi,

 

However RailMagic seems to promise an accurate position at least once per second and with no need for position sensors on the layout.

Geographic positioning (X and Y) is not needed if the tracks are fixed, just the distance along the track. 

 

Regards

 

Nick

That means you need a computer tracking progress across the route. That means you need a full iTrain style system. 
 

no reason if railmagic can resolve in X that it can easily resolve in Y. All you then have to do is run a train over every track route and record a series of positions.  

[Junctionmad]

1 minute ago, Andymsa said:

I have not seen any such claims about an accurate position once per second. The geographical positioning is exactly the same as current systems that a fixed point is passed and the systems works out how far to travel. 

That doesn’t seem to make sense. It uses a series of reference magnetic fields to triangulate a position it doesn’t need to know “ how far to travel “ as it can Re compute position 

[Andymsa]

3 minutes ago, Junctionmad said:

I understand railmagic triangulated from a series of magnetic sensors. Hence it should be capable of calculating its current position at snub time and does not need a single reference point. 

 

 

5 minutes ago, Junctionmad said:

I understand railmagic triangulated from a series of magnetic sensors. Hence it should be capable of calculating its current position at snub time and does not need a single reference point. 

this triangulation method has not been mentioned anywhere as far as I can see, if this was the case why are two magnets used for locomotive calibration.

[Junctionmad]

5 hours ago, RFS said:

 

Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg uses occupancy detectors and IRJs just like we do in Traincontroller and iTrain, so if it works for them it must be accurate enough which is certainly my experience.

 

It's not just about knowing where every train is, it's using that information however obtained to schedule the trains that's important. It's the software that does all the work really, and something Railmagic do not understand in the way they dismiss existing software products. And no, I don't wish to run my layout from a smartphone.....

Not supporting railmagic but a workable system that can accurately determine geographic position has significant advantages over a known fixed point followed by dead reckoning  

[Junctionmad]

1 minute ago, Andymsa said:

 

 

this triangulation method has not been mentioned anywhere as far as I can see, if this was the case why are two magnets used for locomotive calibration.

From discussions I’ve seen elsewhere is is not that you position a series of reference magnets and the system uses  a magnetic field sensor to triangulate  

[Andymsa]

3 minutes ago, Junctionmad said:

That doesn’t seem to make sense. It uses a series of reference magnetic fields to triangulate a position it doesn’t need to know “ how far to travel “ as it can Re compute position 

according to the railmagic manual the magnets only have a range of 10cms so does this rule out triangulation. Else that’s a lot of magnets  

[Junctionmad]

Just now, Andymsa said:

according to the railmagic manual the magnets only have a range of 10cms so does this rule out triangulation. Else that’s a lot of magnets  

Ok so the magnet has a simple coding structure to let the loco know it’s at that point. But how does it deal with multiple parallel tracks. 

[Andymsa]

1 minute ago, Junctionmad said:

Ok so the magnet has a simple coding structure to let the loco know it’s at that point. But how does it deal with multiple parallel tracks. 

it’s covered in the manual.

[Junctionmad]

19 minutes ago, Andymsa said:

it’s covered in the manual.

I read the manual. 
 

the system uses magnetic field strengths to record a pattern of magnetic flux for each given location 

 

ok it doesn’t then compute position at all. 
 

in reality this is just another “ spot detector “ system. It’s the same as RFID except the decoder is mobile and the tags are fixed. 
 

disappointing really , nothing new to see here and a whole  heap of installation issues 

 

I can easily see why he has issues with booster track sections. 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Junctionmad

[Andymsa]

1 minute ago, Junctionmad said:

I read the manual. 
 

the system uses magnetic field strengths to record a pattern of magnetic flux for each given location 

 

ok it doesn’t then compute position at all. 
 

in reality this is just another “ spot detector “ system. It’s the same as RFID except the decoder is mobile and the tags are fixed. 
 

disappointing really , nothing new to see and a while heap of installation issues 

 

I can easily see why he has issues with booster track sections. 

so in reality it has no advantages over current systems, hence the claims of millimetre precision stopping should be viewed very carefully. 
 

your comparison of RFID is quite correct, I hadn’t looked at it that way.

[Junctionmad]

15 minutes ago, Andymsa said:

so in reality it has no advantages over current systems, hence the claims of millimetre precision stopping should be viewed very carefully. 
 

your comparison of RFID is quite correct, I hadn’t looked at it that way.

Any spot detection system can claim “ millimetre precision , after all the spot  detector is fixed. Once tripped further calculations rely on “ dead reckoning “ ie calibrated loco response to DCC speed  commands , which Railmagic  also needs. 
 

in one fell swoop he’s invented …..iTrain 

 

Only difference is track side spot detectors force the installation of wiring to each spot detector but the loco doesn’t require much of any modification

 

railmagic merely swops  that complexity of baseboard wiring for the issue of fitting another module in the loco and then modified the DCC signal to get the tag number ( in this case a magnetic pattern ID) back to its control station( which is why he currently needs a full train length of isolation between boosters ) 

Given the limit of 16 locos I suspect he’s modifying the DCc idle packets to return pattern ID info to his “ trainiac” ( this guy needs to get out more ! )  to many active locos would prevent him from getting enough idle times to transmit the ID info. 
 

Really he’s bending the DCC spec and that’s not good ( the same can be said of Zimos HULU protocol which modified the DCC preamble sequence ) 

 

other then curiosity value I don’t see any advantages and I see several disadvantages. 

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Junctionmad

[Andymsa]

4 minutes ago, Junctionmad said:

Any spot detection system can claim “ millimetre precision , after all the spot  detector is fixed. Once tripped further calculations rely on “ dead reckoning “ ie calibrated loco response to DCC speed  commands , which Railmagic  also needs. 
 

in one fell swoop he’s invented …..iTrain 

 

Only difference is track side spot detectors force the installation of wiring to each spot detector but the loco doesn’t require much of any modification

 

railmagic merely swops  that complexity of baseboard wiring for the issue of fitting another module in the loco and then modified the DCC signal to get the tag number ( in this case a magnetic pattern ID) back to its control station( which is why he currently needs a full train length of isolation between boosters ) 
 

 

as stated by another user not very innovative.  

[RFS]

25 minutes ago, Junctionmad said:

the system uses magnetic field strengths to record a pattern of magnetic flux for each given location 

 

ok it doesn’t then compute position at all. 

 

 

 

We're still very much in the dark as to exactly how it works. But we do know it also relies on Back-EMF data from the motor, hence why the tracker has to be connected to the motor terminals.  This is to give Railmagic an estimate of how far the loco has travelled, presumably between magnets, data that is then fed back to the Trainiac. Given that he has also revealed he has had problems with inaccurate data from Back-EMF, and therefore is going to design his own decoder with tracker built in, we have to wait and see how accurate this positioning is.

 

Traincontroller and iTrain tracking is extremely accurate using "dead reckoning" so I think Railmagic will have a challenge to match that. 

Edited August 29, 2021 by RFS

[Junctionmad]

By the way. The reason he has issues with multiple boosters is he must intercept the DCC signal between the track and the booster not only to inject commands ( using a reserved loco long  address ) he must also receive the communications from the loco mounted Railmagic “ tracker “. Hence of the loco shorts two boosters he suddenly has a loco sending pattern IDs to two listeners. 
 

I suspect this system doesn’t scale well at all. ( It’s unclear how it handle say a 4 track main line or a  complex station throat 

[Junctionmad]

12 minutes ago, RFS said:

 

We're still very much in the dark as to exactly how it works. But we do know it also relies on Back-EMF data from the motor, hence why the tracker has to be connected to the motor terminals.  This is to give Railmagic an estimate of how far the loco has travelled, presumably between magnets, data that is then fed back to the Trainiac. Given that he has also revealed he has had problems with inaccurate data from Back-EMF, and therefore is going to design his own decoder with tracker built in, we have to wait and see how accurate this positioning is.

 

Traincontroller and iTrain tracking is extremely accurate using "dead reckoning" so I think Railmagic will have a challenge to match that. 

As I said it’s a spot detector followed by dead reckoning , this is exactly what TrainController , iTrain do. In these cases they can’t sense BEMF so they use a predetermined speed profile but the end result remains a dead reckoning system. 
 

using BEMF is fraught  with issues, ie gradients between magnets , friction slowdowns. Heavy versus light loaded trains , wheel slip 

 

It’s a complicated spot detection system that’s all 

 

i think on reflection its fairly easy to understand the basic principles given what’s written in Railmagics manual. 
 

the advantage of Railmagic is you can implement multiple spot detectors without baseboard wiring but this is balanced by having to retrofit all locos with an additional module and the imposition of limits on the DCC configuration 

 

I think I end up with the baseboard wiring !! 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Junctionmad

[WIMorrison]

10 minutes ago, Junctionmad said:

…
 

I suspect this system doesn’t scale well at all. ( It’s unclear how it handle say a 4 track main line or a  complex station throat 

Which would also suggest that the costs that he quoted (then corrected by me a few posts ago) are fanciful because Railmagic isn’t going to scale the large layout where it potentially becomes financially attractive over the existing solutions.

 

There is no financial case for what I would consider as the actual target market, namely Railmaster and similar systems that do not have any feedback solutions available.

Edited August 29, 2021 by WIMorrison
Autocorrection by apple gone wrong again!