Loco Positioning

[daveyplod]

Hi,

 I am building a new, small, 1800mm x 1200mm layout combining “00” and “009”. The base board is mounted on a trolley with castors and has a tilt mechanism of + or - 80 deg. The trolley is sized to fit through an internal door with ease. The tilt enables me to work on the underside without kneeling, crouching or lying on the floor. A great bonus for us senior citizens. More about the trolley at another time maybe.

 My aim is to develop auto loco running using scheduled programmes. The difficulty, of course, is that the programmes are time based, not location based, so with the variances of individual loco performance, the locos rarely stop in the same place twice. Yes, they can be run against buffers but an inline solution is necessary.

 

See the attachment for more details

Bollard story for forums.docx

[96RAF]

18 minutes ago, daveyplod said:

.... My aim is to develop auto loco running using scheduled programmes. The difficulty, of course, is that the programmes are time based, not location based, so with the variances of individual loco performance, the locos rarely stop in the same place twice. Yes, they can be run against buffers but an inline solution is .....

TGG works like RM on programmed events but uses track mounted sensors to tell the app when to allow the next event rather than the RM times method as corrected by buffer crashing resets.

Go to the TGG album in Galleries and see various sensor triggered scenarios in action.

[ntpntpntp]

I'm not a fan of time-based automation.  Other detection/sensing methods are out there such as reed and magnet, IR, RFID tags, RailCom.  So it depends on the automation hardware and software as to which method(s) are supported. 

[daveyplod]

Hi 96RAF. Is TGG available to the general public or just the few you mention in the Gallery?

[96RAF]

2 hours ago, daveyplod said:

Hi 96RAF. Is TGG available to the general public or just the few you mention in the Gallery?

DM @St1ngr4y with your basic knowledge of RM, and what you want auto-ops to achieve. He will consider inviting you into the group which is running around an optimum max number of members for good control and support. If happy you will get a link to the download area and access to a Teams chat area.

In the meantime have a look here where you will find a link to the TGG user manual and info about associated advanced sensor kit, although TGG works with a basic sensor installation.

 

[daveyplod]

Thanks 96RAF.

Have recived the link from Ray Dawson and will study the pdf avidly.

[Goathland]

You could use an ABC section on your layout to bring the loco to a halt at a particular spot whilst the timer runs out (so have the timer a little bit longer than needed). An accessory decoder can be linked to the ABC section to switch the ABC in and out as needed if you want the train to run through.