NorthHighlander

Hello Dave...

Our apologies.... the website was down earlier, and it's back up and running again.

We had a DNS problem,  now resolved.

..back to the coalface to maintain momentum on our new developments.

Best regards

Tony Hagon

Director

Acc+Ess Ltd

protocab.com

May I please be permitted the privilege to respond to the interesting and very welcome recent comments about Acc+Ess Protocab, welcome because we need to know what modellers are looking for and what you think about our products and plans? I hope that this response, while being detailed, is not too lengthy, and I apologise if it is.
Firstly, responding to forest2807's comment: before I do, I'll refer to Mike Storey's note on 5 Mar 16 in which he asks for a wealth of 'how I did it' examples, and I want to thank publicly the Protocab Owners who have written articles for our Club Protocab newsletters including a host of detailed photos, and given their permission to add them to our website. Help! I have the material for at least ten videos to edit based on the installations we have carried out for customers.... but since the last video, I haven't had a chance to edit the photos, and upload them. I WILL, I promise!
Now to answer forest 2807... great minds, eh? You posted at 14.03 on Saturday, and at that time we were putting the final touches to the announcement which we sent out a day later! I hope that we have covered at least some of the points and suggestions that you made.
The important point made is the effort required to convert locos to Protocab operation.

When we first launched demos of Protocab in April 2012, we envisaged that our market would be scratch or kit build modellers, who would design, in the loco, room for the battery, LCU and, crucially, the Plug Charging Unit. Also, they would not have to contend with the large chassis block typical in ready-to-run models to provide adhesive weigh, which led us to believe that we would not appeal to modellers with RTR locos. How wrong we were! Over 90% of our modellers have told us that they have installed Acc+Ess Protocab in RTR locos, and, inevitably, some 'surgery' is necessary, as simple as, e.g. normally having to remove the holding spigots in loco tenders because they get in the way of the space for the battery and charging unit. As we speak, I am finishing off a conversion of a Hornby Fowler 2-4-6T for a customer, and the only way I could get the battery, LCU and charging point into the loco and not be obtrusive into the cab, or overly-harming the fabric of the loco body was to lop off the extension of the chassis block above the trailing bogie. It requires an alternative chassis fixing.
50% of all sales enquiries we receive ask if we can fit Protocab for them, hence our announcement that we will be offering what has hitherto been an ad hoc service, namely providing a fitting service at what we hope will be seen as a reasonable charge. Our problem, and a nice one to have, is that demand so far is causing us to appeal for modellers and others who might be able to assist us with additional resource.
The long term solution is for RTR manufacturers to make provision for Protocab fitments, but I have been disappointed so far by the response to our appeal to a number of manufacturers for Acc+Ess to buy their locos for us to convert and resell.
There are four aspects to conversion which we hope the new announcements will simplify:
1. remove the need for a solid installation of the plug charging unit, which typically limits where it can be installed not only to accommodate the plug, but to be unobtrusive. The plug needs some force to ensure a safe and secure attachment and modellers understandably prefer not to have to hold the loco. The solution ultimately is full wireless induction charging, and we have announced the first product range for delivery later this year. Meanwhile, the interim solution is the 9610 Contact Charging Unit, where modellers are commenting on a range of ways that they intend to use it, mainly retaining wheel pickups, but including e.g. insulated buffers!
2. remove the need for a Locoswitch, where the copper pad is inserted inside the loco as a touch pad and a suitable location found. The location of the Locoswitch and the LCU to which it is attached is limited to the available space in the loco. With the new announcement, the loco can now be switched on from the new 0241 Touch Controller. (the LCU still switches the loco off automatically after a time of inactivity).
3. the shape of the battery: we introduced prismatic flat form in 2015 always with the intention of introducing cylindrical form to fit into boiler/smokeboxes. The issue we have addressed is finding high quality, reliable batteries which are UL62133 certified and fitted with an effective protection circuit at bulk purchase volumes which are reasonable both for us and the suppliers.
4. many modellers have told us that they are not adept at soldering, which is understandable, and the need to solder the two wires from the LCU to the motor is a concern for them. We have therefore announced support for an adaptor which can be plugged into the DCC ready socket, the two wires from the pickup going to the new charging unit, two wires from the LCU going to the motor pins of the DCC socket both of which have suitable connected at the Protocab end (and a future release will cater for the existing loco lighting). This will genuinely mean no soldering at all.
So, forest2807, don't be ashamed to say that the effort required to convert has put you off, it's up to us to provide you with a satisfactory solution and we hope that manufacturers will help as well.
May I now please answer Richard Lee and Mike Storey's notes, both very welcome members of Club Protocab! Yes, Richard, you are right, you can use the wheels and a charging track, but because I, as a modeller, HATE pickups, and I am modelling Brighton in P4 as it was in 1959/60, I aim to use this method to collect power current from the third rail.
You are also right in describing 'free running', letting one (or more) locos run on their own while shunting under control with another. I am sorry that you could not complete your visit to the website, however, we haven't yet updated it with all the new features. If you do encounter a problem with the website in future, we'd love to hear from you so that we can correct it.
We are moving in incremental steps, and we hope that even now we are providing value for money. We always specify the highest tolerance components for reliability and I won't alter this policy. We also have direct contact with our suppliers in the UK, including the PCB assemblers and test houses we use and with whom we have continuous dialogue to help us to use their experience in many other industries to improve our designs and bills of materials.
We are updating the website regularly as the new products take shape, and we thrive on your comments and suggestions.
Thanks for this opportunity to respond.

Best regards

Tony Hagon
Director
Acc+Ess Ltd

Thank you Ben and Jim for your comments.. and good to see you at Scalefour North, Jim.

As you can imagine, it's been somewhat hectic since we announced prices and opened the 'shop' for preorders. We took back a strong message that the 1902-703048 battery is fine, but only for the larger 4mm and small to medium 7mm locos and the 4mm modellers need a smaller battery. Did you see the 240mAh one we had on the stand? We're currently assessing it and getting some positive results so we'll be making a decision on whether to add it to the range as soon as possible.

Hope you enjoyed the front cover of the update! The weather hasn't been as good since!

Best regards

Tony Hagon

Acc+Ess Ltd

(Protocab)

Bowermadden

Scotland

....(just putting a little hand gingerly into the air to say that we are still here..... and have just got our first pre-orders in having announced our prices last week at Scalefour North.)

Of course it's up to anyone to put up a patent application if they want to and hope that it will get approved. We first announced publicly in 2009 and demonstrated proof of concept at Scalefour North in 2012 so we have bags of prior art to claim for every part of the application apart from the Bluetooth aspect. We decided early on not to put in a patent application because it would be very expensive not only to apply but to defend it when, inevitably, other systems would challenge it.

We welcome the competition that is now appearing in the model railway world as it provides confidence to the market. It's up to us to be the best and there is only one group of people who will determine that - our customers. We try to listen to what modellers tell us and where we can incorporate their recommendations. I hope you like our Pilot Series.

(..putting hand down again....)

Best regards

Tony Hagon

Acc+Ess Ltd

(Protocab)

Bowermadden, Scotland

The great thing about hobbies in general, and model railways are no exception, is that no one is compelled to do anything they don't want to. We have plenty of modellers visiting the stand at exhibitions who tell us that they are quite content with power through the tracks. We also have a big and growing list of modellers that want to adopt battery power. It's whatever the individual wants and feels comfortable with. Acc+Ess Protocab and the other systems that base the power on batteries are not replacements, they are alternatives. I personally want battery power. Many of my modeller friends don't. We've based Protocab on my wants and desires as a modeller and if other modellers migrate from track power to battery then great, if not, then equally great. The important thing is that everyone enjoys and gets the most out of the hobby. What I think is true is that whether you go for track power or battery power, we are truly living in a golden age of modelling, as a friend of ours who lives nearby has commented.

Tony Hagon

Director

Acc+Ess Ltd

,,,,here's the handheld controller referred to in my last post. Nine locos can be allocated, one per button. Switch on the loco using the LocoSwitch (touch pad inside the body of the loco attached to the Protocab LCU) and the button lights green. Press the button to select the loco (button turns red) and turn the centre-off knob whichever way you want the loco to go.

There is a 'simulation' mode, which means that the control knob becomes an accelerator... return the knob to zero and the loco coasts, move the knob the opposite direction to apply the brakes (i.e. if the loco is coasting in the  forward direction, turning the knob to zero lets the loco coast, turn it to reverse and the brakes are applied).

Locos are allocated to the buttons by attaching the controller through its charging port (the battery inside the controller is rechargeable) to a computer running MS Windows (other operating systems are available and will be catered for eventually!) and running a free program.

The range between the controller and the loco is pretty good, several tens of metres. Due to the possible supply problems with the previous antenna we were using, we have now switched to a new one and will be testing range in the coming days.

BTW... those who have been following Acc+Ess Protocab progress will be asking about the Concentrator and whether you need one with the handheld controller. The answer is no, you don't, the handheld communicates directly with the loco. However, the Concentrator is very much in development for the more complex and advanced functions that we are developing.

Best regards

Tony Hagon

Director

Acc+Ess Ltd

Bowermadden

Scotland

Hello again battery control/wireless friends..!

You know what it's like when you go swimming and stay underwater as long as possible and then have to come to the surface for air? Well, our being quiet is a bit like that. We're still beavering away on tests and more tests. We're getting some excellent results from the latest iteration of the Loco Control Unit and we have managed to get over four hours intermittent running from a 1Ah battery in our test BR Class 5 from Bachmann (by intermittent I mean running a few laps of the test track, stopping for a chat, running again and so on - this test done at Scaleforum). On the second day (which closes earlier) we still had life left around 4p.m. so we put all nine coaches behind the Class 5 and whilst it didn't have any problem pulling them, it ran out of battery just before the end of the show.

It was a pleasure to meet Simon and all our other friends from this forum at Scaleforum and ExpoEM North. We had a very useful chat and had some great feedback on our new handheld controller.

From our last Club newsletter we now have all the beta testers ready for the final tests before product availability.

Prices look like being £108 for the controller and around £100 for all the components inside the loco (i.e. battery, Loco Control Unit and Plug Charging Unit).

We are now putting the final touches to a new website which will have significantly more information than the current one. I'll let you know here when it's up and running.

Best regards

Tony Hagon

Director

Acc+EssLtd

Bowermadden

Scotland

A brilliant set of high quality photos! My aunt moved to the (then) new Elson Park estate in Ellesmere in 1985 and we lived at the time in Rossett, so drove to see her along the route shown in the photos. We often wondered what the journey would have been like by train.. now we know!

Like so much else, an evocation of a much nicer time... hey ho

Regards and thanks

Tony Hagon

Hi to everyone on ths forum...

Switch02(Rich) has kindly referenced Acc+Ess Protocab as a potential for controlling this marvellous system. Firstly, congratulations on coming up with a very impressive piece of modelling.

As indicated by a number of respondents, the Protocab system has not yet launched and we are now in final testing. Also as  mentioned it is initially planned for railway locomotives. However, we have planned the architecture to provide binary and controlled functions which could well include steering via servo mechanisms. This would be some way off yet, as we want to consolidate our initial products and develop from there. Having said that, we will keep a close eye on developments of the mechanical technology and if we can bring our system to benefit this development, we'd be more than happy to look at it early on.

Best regards

Tony Hagon

Director

Acc+Ess Ltd

Caithness, Scotland

www.protocab.com

It's good to see that battery powered/radio control is developing in all sorts of ways, and I'm writing this to let members who have asked how we are getting on know that we are very near finishing all our testing and our products will be available in the very near future. Exact dates will depend on the results of EMC testing which will be happening later this month.
RM Web members who have asked when we are exhibiting Protocab, we are at ExpoEM North on 14/15 September and at Scaleforum on 28/29 September.
We have just issued a newsletter to Club Protocab members, so if you would like a copy and would like to be kept informed of progress, please email club@protocab.com.
Our new website, www.protocab.com should be up and running just before ExpoEM North.

Best regards
Tony Hagon
Director
Acc+Ess Ltd
 

Hi Pete..Yes, we're in discussions with a potential distributor State-side...

Tony Hagon

Acc+Ess Ltd

protocab.com

Hello Robin

I'm sorry that the Acc+Ess name has caused a search problem. I think that the name is now too well established but we'll certainly consider what you have said for the future and continue to review how much of a problem for us it might be.

We're keen to release products as soon as possible, Robin, but we won't release anything until they have undertaken full testing to our satisfaction. The Protocab system is very detailed and each part of the system has to be tested by itself and in use with other components. Whenever we introduce a design enhancement or fix, we undergo detailed regression testing which is where we are currently. However, the light is getting bigger at the end of the tunnel, but, as they say, I hope it isn't another train going the other way!

Meanwhile we're very interested in your experiences reported on here.

Best regards

Tony

Hello again Stuart and others on the forum

To answer specific questions re Acc+Ess Protocab made here:

We have selected the Android (version 4.0 and later) to run on smartphones and tablets to provide us with the sort of functions that provide for a range of driving capabilities from speed and direction through to full cab simulation. Version 4.0 provides for a number of networking features that simplifies set up/installation and security.

The initial Locomotive Control Unit (0501) has been designed for a medium to large 4mm loco or small 7mm loco with a 1amp current limit driving a motor to the full 12volts. Although we've managed to take around 30% out of the footprint during development this would still be too large for 2mm, hence my apologies for posting here in error.

The initial Protocab products will support speed and direction, with developments following to support lighting, sound and other auxiliary functions. The reduced power demands of 2mm over 4mm and certainly 7mm enables us to use a different set of components with a smaller footprint which we want to develop as soon as we can.

The Acc+Ess Protocab architecture provides for up and down scaling (both in terms of the range of scales that we will support and upscaling in the number of locos that can be controlled) from our starting position. At the other end of the scale we also have the garden railway fans asking for a solution for their 10amps and more locomotives!

At the moment we are testing the system to ensure reliability, electromagnetic compatibility (required for a commercial radio transmitting equipment) and robustness. We will be updating the website as we approach product availability, and this will cover all these development as well as the range of products and supporting products such as the component interconnections system so do please visit soon or let me know if you'd like us to email you with progress updates.

Best regards

Tony Hagon

Acc+Ess Ltd

Hi everyone..

We've just come back from a very successful ExpoEM - our first time at that show and the response from the visitors to Acc+Ess Protocab was great. We were showing 1 x O gauge 'Terrier' (on and off hauling a wagon with a half kilogram weight in it!), a Hornby Dublo 3 rail 'Duchess' hauling 4 very rusty three rail coaches, a Mainline 'Warship' hauling four Mainline BR Mk1 coaches, a Heljan 'Hymek' and 'Crompton' both converted to P4, all operated without any wiring to the track and from three independent controllers. A number of young kiddies with their parents were taking the controls!

All the locos ran for the whole day on each day with the exception of the Duchess which, with its beefy motor tended to drain the battery after around 90 minutes of constant running.

The only calamity was that a length of rail on one of the Hornby Setrack circuits had come adrift in transit to Bracknell (it's a long way from Caithness!). Apart from that nothing untoward except at least two visitors begging us to have the system available for sale! Well, our answer had to be it won't be long, but we won't release anything until fully tested and emc compatible which is our next step. We're just in the throes of finalising and testing the security routines to make sure that one loco can't be controlled from an unauthorised controller and making some design changes to the LCU Interface Unit to simplify charging and on/off switching. There are still some throughput problems to iron out but they won't be too hard.

We had quite a few new members to Club Protocab, so there is lots of interest out there. Next newsletter coming out in a couple of weeks. Also the new website should be up and running before the end of the month.

Best regards

Tony Hagon

Acc+Ess Ltd

Developers of the Protocab wireless model railway control system

protocab.com

Hi everyone...

We're demonstrating at Scalefour North on 20 April.

Currently finalising the various components prior to getting conformance testing.

We'll be updating the website in the next few weeks, and we're always grateful for comments.

Best regards

Tony Hagon

Acc+Ess Ltd

protocab.com