Robin2

I've just come across this now. Fabulous. I'm curious to know where you got the little gear and the worm for the back axle? Perhaps you made them yourself? ...R

In case of misunderstanding I use one of the deltino devices as the master (or transmitter) - in my case connected to my PC, but could also be used with an RPi ...R

Are you using the resistor between the signal wire and 5v? I have used a pull-down resistor (from signal to GND) for the same purpose. In your picture there seems to be a wire from the Arduino 5v pin. I hope that is not being used to power the servos - that will lead to frustrating problems if not actual damage to your Arduino. Give the servos a separate power supply with servo GND connected to Arduino GND. ...R

I haven't figured out how to do that yet. ...R

Simply because what I was referring to was written as sneering criticism of us folk who like BPR/C and was not a request for information. I am quite comfortable with my own credentials in the BPR/C field ...R

In my opinion it was a silly comment precisely because of what you say. He knew perfectly well that those of us who like BPR/C were not suggesting that that sort of train should be converted to batteries. ...R

This is a silly comment. ...R

My system is a bit like that. I feed a regulated DC voltage to a fiddle-yard track - below the upper level for a LiPo cell (after allowing for the rectifier voltage drop) My locos have a rectifier (because I can't be sure which way the loco will be facing while charging and to prevent one loco from charging another) If I drive the loco into the fiddle yard it starts charging - but at a low charge rate. ...R

That's what I am doing. ...R

The Deltang units that I have can measure the battery voltage. I have them programmed to transmit that to my PC. Also, it is my understanding that with a suitably low charge voltage a single LiPo (which is all I have room for) won't overcharge within a reasonable period (obviously I wouldn't leave it on charge for 24 hrs or while unattended). ...R

How much smaller do you want it? Earlier posts here have shown that N-Gauge BPR/C is perfectly feasible now. But let's not dismiss the whole concept just because there are occasional misguided expectations. That sort of statement is an opportunity for you to explain things to the poster. ...R

Maybe I misunderstood but I thought you were using this argument (in Reply #336) to disagree with my doubts about the economics of real electric trains in Reply #335. I interpreted your comment to mean that where mains electricity is available it should be used. And, by the way, I was not talking about battery powered real trains. ...R

This is a facile analogy. But I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it is part of the justification used by the industries that promote electric railway traction. ...R

That's very useful and encouraging. And you can schedule "real" visits to the depot to add fuel @Andy Reichert, I would need a lot of convincing that the savings with real electric trains fully offset the huge costs of building and maintaining the Overhead Line system, the connections to the power stations and the extra generating capacity. I suspect the whole affair is being subsidized at the expense of small electricity consumers and/or the taxpayer. If it made economic sense the train operating companies would cover the entire cost AND be able to reduce fares for consumers. ...R

Some of the Deltang receivers can manage 3 amps ...R

Just one small point that I don't see mentioned in any of the follow up replies Servos (using the normal servo library) will work on any of the Arduino I/O outputs - they don't need to be connected to the PWM capable pins. Note, however that using the servo library prevents the use of some of the PWM pins for use with the Arduino analogWrite() instruction. For example, the Arduino Mega can control 48 servos but only has 16 PWM-capable pins. The PWM which is used to control the position of a servo is different from the PWM that is produced by analogWrite() and which is used to control the speed of DC motors or the brightness of LEDs. Also ... The servos should not draw power from the Arduino 5v pin as they are likely to overload the Arduino voltage regulator with all sorts of strange consequences and possible damage to the Arduino. This is one of the commonest problems on the Arduino Forum. ...R

When I look at these comments I can't help feeling @Switcher102 is taking some trouble to belittle the contributions of various contributors here. The sense I get is that he feels that what he calls "toy" behaviour isn't worth the trouble. As far as I can tell from his comments @Switcher102 hasn't made any R/C trains (or road vehicles) himself. I don't think anyone here considers his products to be anywhere near perfect and I'm sure everyone is delighted to see examples of other achievements. But it is easy to show a video of a good model and say "I wish I could make one like this" or "I wish I could buy one like this" without needing to pass adverse comments on achievements that others are pleased with. Railway modelling is a hobby that can be enjoyed at many different levels and no good will come from making dismissive comments about others. My own preference is in the ability to mix my interest in computer programming with my interest in model railways. I will never be a railway rivet counter and neither will I be a super computer guru. If I am honest I will probably never finish my model railway layout - but I like having it there to think about and tinker with from time to time. ...R

Radio control in N-Gauge is definitely still at the very early stages and I was just trying to demonstrate that it is possible. And, whatever you may think of its quality at this stage, it is (for me) a lot more useable than track powered N-Gauge. I experimented a bit with inertia but I found it unuseable on my very short end-to-end layout - I just crashed into the ends. Maybe this reflects the fact that I'm not sufficiently interested in actually running trains to get enough practice. As @StuartM says, we will all be delighted to view your system and benefit from your ideas and improvements. ...R

If (like me) you like computer programming you can use a PC connected to one Deltang unit (they are actually transceivers - i.e can be bi-directional) to control many locos in almost any way you want. How many do you want moving at the same time? How big is your fleet? The Deltang Rx6x uses the same Atmel Atmega328 microprocessor as is used in the Arduino Uno. I can provide more info if you are interested. ...R

I can't remember, but I guess you have code to work out the number of steps to get from (say) C to F. All that would seem necessay would be calculate the number from C to F in both directions and use the smaller number and its direction. It may even be as simple as deciding if there are fewer track positions (counting clockwise) between C and F or between F and C. ...R

I have been admiring the diagram in Reply #130 and it occurred to me that it would be nice if you could select the roads by touching the diagram. Quite by coincidence I discovered the existence of these Nintendo DS touch screens as spare parts that can work with an Arduino. By another of those strange coincidences I realized I already had a similar device (though larger, 7inch diagonal) that I bought a few years ago for another abortive project. (Never throw anything away !) These are just passive touch-sensitive glass panels. All that is necessary is to put them on top of a suitable drawing or picture (such as a picture of a keypad, or the turntable diagram) and program the Arduino to associate different regions with different actions. I roughly drew an 8x8 grid on a piece of paper representing 64 "buttons" and it looks like it would easily distinguish between them. And the really nice thing is that it just requires connection to 4 of the Arduino analog pins. It then returns the X and Y positions as values between 0 and 1023. The Nintendo screens are probably too small for the turntable diagram, but they should certainly be OK for a 5x4 button array. And larger screens seem to available on Ebay. You could place the screen over a panel with LEDs if you wanted to have visual feedback - for example for point or signal controls. ...R

I suspect any small servo could be used as a brake if you put a piece of friction material (rubber?) on the end of the servo arm. Cost about £5 or less. Programming would be trivial. ...R

If you are uploading a revised sketch between each move that could account for the jerks. Until you can run several positions within the same sketch I doubt if there is any value trying to resolve the issue. It should be easy to add some code to the sketch to take a character (0-9) from the Arduino IDE to select the different movements. Something like the following. I'm assuming tableMove is a global variable that is the value used in the statements that select the movement. Substitute your own variable name. byte tableMove = 0; void getValueFromIDE() { if (Serial.available > 0) { byte inByte = Serial.read(); inByte = inByte - '0'; // converts a number character to a number if (inByte >= 0 && inByte <= 9) { tableMove = inByte; { } } ...R

You have convinced me. A 699:1 gearbox in that space is little short of magic. Also, I have edited my earlier post about gear hobbing. I had suggested using a bolt as a hob when I meant to say a tap - as in the YouTube videos. Hope I haven't confused anyone. ...R

I couldn't see that in the pictures on the German website. But my German is almost nil. The worm drive must have a reduction ration in the region of 10:1 to 20:1 which would make 250:1 or 500:1 along with a 25:1 planetary gear. Possible but unlikely is my suspicion. And a planetary gear train that small would have VERY small components. ...R