Loco detection

[Dylans_Grandad]

Is there any more information regarding this?. I have just been reading back replies and found (to my astonishment) that the Velleman 8055 was mentioned. I bought one of these kits a couple of years ago soon after completing my first track layout. I fitted

magnets under locos and reed switches under the tracks at the station. I wrote programmes in Visual Basic to input e.g. a number of circuits before swiching off power to the track section at the station. Various other additions followed including timers to

control power off and 2 of the inputs were connected to Infra-Red recievers positioned on the lower levels and appropriate calculations used to display the scale speeds of a variety of locos/trains. I had quite a lot of fun with this at the time. I moved on

from this to buid a few microprocessor circuits for level crossing gates/lights&bell, Pelican crossing in the Town and controlling a Landrover in the Farm. I have also incorporated memory wire to operate things such as gates, a signal and the level crossing

gates. I have been wondering how to incorporate loco detection into Railmaster since setting up only recently. Any info on what is being proposed would be appreciated. Thanks

[hosh]

So here we are in August and.......................

[Gregd99]

I have heard some rumours of announcements later in the year and would guess that the location detectors might be included. this is speculation....

good on you for having a go at some micro controller projects. do you have a background in this stuff

or did you take it up as part of model rail?

I use uCs as well but my background is in electronics engineering. I am interested to understand whether others find uCs and easy way to do things?

[Montywb]

Within the second tab in System Settings you can specify additional options for
loco detection (available late 2012/early 2013) and PC networking.


The above copied from page 21 of the Railmaster manual.

[Mike_G]

Hi

The PC networking in implimented
problem is you need a complete registered copy of Railmaster to use it
I was gong to use this option to allow to persons to run my layout using
2 laptops ,,,, but not possible without buying another copy

of Railmaster
Pity but thats it and i am not going to fork out the cash to do this !!!!!

as for the detection of on track locos/rolling stock
i wait with bated breath
my layout is getting to the point i want to start ballasting,, but before

that i need to know what they intend to do and how it will be fitted to the layout

have spent a lot of cash and time seting this layout up ( using mainly hornby items )
Track/points/locos/controller/Railmaster
various types of loco detection

exist, and the software side ( Railmaster ) is in place ( so they say )
so they must know what the intend to do to on this front and how
so why cant they let us know what to allow for

Mike

[stevecamden]

As I said in the other post, you can use an evaluation copy for the 2nd/3rd PC - 2 loco's and four points.

[stevecamden]

As I said in the other post, you can use an evaluation copy for the 2nd/3rd PC - 2 loco's and four points.

[Mike_G]

Maybe
but thats not very realistic
to have it working for any purpose both terminals need full control
otherwise theres no point

Mike

[Dylans_Grandad]

Gregd99 said:

I have heard some rumours of announcements later in the year and would guess that the location detectors might be included. this is speculation....

good on you for having a go at some micro controller projects. do you

have a background in this stuff or did you take it up as part of model rail?

I use uCs as well but my background is in electronics engineering. I am interested to understand whether others find uCs and easy way to do things?

[Dylans_Grandad]

Sorry I haven't replied till now. We have just returned from a monthlong trip in a time capsule thanks to BT. Somewhere in the 'Dark ages' I think. My background is in analytical Chemistry (Inorganic) but have always been interested in electricity and

later on electronics. My first job was at Bolton's Copper Works at Froghall (early 1960s) and occasionally travelled to work on what is now the Churnet Valley Railway. Since retiring on ill health I have taken up my earlier interest in model railways so having

come through the emergence of computers into just about all walks of life - starting with the Commador 16 at home and 286s then 386s and so on at work, writing programmes mainly in Basic and Visual Basic. Before Railmaster I revisited electronics to find Microcontrollers.

It seemed then that I could combine my 2 main hobbies. Where I used to assemble kits using Valves the 'White spot and Red spot' transistors came along followed by logic chips and I couldn't get to grips with those. I bought the Velleman 8048 and really enjoy

being able to programme the microcontrollers to do just about anything. I have a 12F675 controlling a Pelican crossing in my 'Town area', a 16F676 controlling a Landrover up and down a slope from a Metcalfe Barn, a 16F627-04 controlling level crossing barriers,

lights and bell (solenoid hitting a cycle bell) the barriers are lowered using memory wire powered though a relay on the circuitboard. I also have 2 other projects on the go but they are Greenhouse related one is for another 12F675 and the other a 16F872.

I use MPASM programming as supplied with the 8048 and so far only used 8 bit devices. I used to get told off for writing long reports in work so I'd better stop now.

[Gregd99]

Thanks for the informative reply and good on you for having a go at micro controllers after you retired. Some see them as a bit mysterious but with a little work they provide a flexible means of doing some complicated control tasks.... without too much

analogue component needed.

You get bonus points for taking on the challenges of PICs! I use the AVRs and programme in C or C++. Asm makes my brain hurt a bit:-)

[Dylans_Grandad]

Hi Greg, I hadn't heard of AVRs till your reply so I did a bit of 'research'. I only came across PICs through the range of Velleman kits of which I have built many over the years. I saw the PIC programmer and got interested. I bought a book - didn't understand

a thing and dropped the idea. Then along came the electrically erasable and reprogrammable PICs, bought a more up to date book, the Velleman kit and enjoyed many hours of learning a new (to me) programming language. Where I worked till 1997 they used Allen

Bradley PLCs to control copper and nickel plating plants. I used to spend quite a fair bit of time following the ladder programme on the monitor on night shifts and what was happening at various stages of process. Easy then to reposition transporters when

they went astray. My most recent project using a 16F627 and a SY-CR102 reflective IR sensor set in the track to 'read' a home-made barcode under a loco. It sucessfully detects and displays up to a scale speed of 40 MPH. Attempts to use one of the PICs timers

to calculate speed have been unsucessful. I'm planning a second detector with appropriate programme to time between 2 points.

[Gregd99]

we are way off topic now but still interesting to chat.....

keep having a look at the AVRs - lots of info @ http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=index - they are very flexible and well suited to high level languages. I have an avr

that implements 16 x IR detectors. with this calculating speed is easy as it is just the delta between detections on adjacent sensors.

anyway.... have fun.

[PJ_model_trains]

Loco Detection

I have been away for several months, just got totally fed up with Hornby, I called in to see what has changed.

New Forum working after a period of total cock ups

Loco Detection hasn't moved forward... we are still testing Hornby probably says. 

Like I said earlier in the year, trade in lots of hobbies, model trains inclusive fall in to three periods in the year. January to Easter moderate sales following on from Christmas and tail end of winter months, low level sales Easter to a couple of weeks after school summer holidays then peak season October to December, increasing month on month. It is in this last period I believe we will see some action and products coming available. Why because there is more interest in this period and Hornby will have a bigger audience sale wise.

Trouble is many members are probably as fed up as myself, I have done without loco detection and have other priorities now. I still have my trains but am doing other things so TTS sound and loco detection are no longer a priority.

It is a strange situation, when products are hot or imminent we want them, if delays like loco detection are on going we learn they are not the priority we thought. Although I wish Hornby well, and after a frustrating year believe they will be relying on sales in the busiest time of year, I do not believe they will get the sales they could have got but, time will tell.

Hi to all the guys I used to speak with, some good guys on here but, looking at some searches and browsing it looks like some of you are doing a lot less on here. Sad really, enjoy your trains guys. 

[idlemarvel]

Hi PJ, a lot of us are still here, just in "summer hibernation" while we wait for the next release!  It'll be here before Xmas (2014!) if you're still interested.

[PJ_model_trains]

Hi idlemarvel

Summer Hibernation, is it a club, did you see Hornby there LOL

I have had a few health issues, quite complicated and not yet sorted. I need relaxation for my body and since retiring have managed to find a few  places to fish again, not easy finding disabled pegs or pegs I could park my car up next to but I found a small number that allow me to wet the line again. Fishing always was my first hobby, I even put a fishing lake with large carp in the layout if you remember.

I believe Hornby will do everything they can to pull out the stops in the busiest period which picks every month, month on month to mid December or even Chrstmas. But will it be enough for them I don't know, I m just glad I am not a shareholder. 

I am still interested but am also looking around, I am at present doing bits with my layout as I have it up ended for the installation of wiring for lighting bus, street lights, cars with lights, buffers, etc. Wiring will be laid in for stations and houses doing everything under the boards and slotting wires through straws so they are in to the houses or under station platforms ready to go further when the layout is put back down again.  A little bit of work on a couple of points and decoders to set and then I am ready.

I hope to test later this week and if points and decoders are all working fine I can test lighting from above. It has been a bit of a challenge, wiring and soldering such fine wires. Also putting in to practice, wiring in parallel, which is ok on my drawing but when the live feed goes to the switches and 15 feed come from the switch board it took a bit of time getting my head round it. Hopefully they will be right first time, we'll see.

I can't wait to get things laid out and run the trains again.

[RB51]

Good to see you back PJ - look forward to hearing how the layout performs. R-

[Fishmanoz]

and again good to see you back PJ. 

Did you get that loco acceleration/deceleration problem fixed?

And if you really want to get back to discussing loco detection, the definitive thread is https://www.hornby.com/forum/loco-detection/?p=1

[St1ngr4y]

That's page 1 of this thread, fishy!

Ray

[RDS]

Good to see your post PJ.

[Graskie]

Great to hear from you again, PJ. Very sorry about your continuing health problems. I used to love coarse fishing but daren't indulge in that anymore, especially on my own. Enjoy it and your admirable model railway perseverance as much as possible. I wonder if you are a better fisherman that Fishy is at keeping up with things on this forum (lol)?

[PJ_model_trains]

Hi Roger

Will get the wiring and points ad decoders done then will call back with an update  ;-)

[PJ_model_trains]

Thanks Fishy

Look I pop my head in for a few words and your off topic already  ;-)

[PJ_model_trains]

I like it Ray I am laughing already

He meant well  ;-)

[PJ_model_trains]

Thanks RDS