At 13:05 2005-07-01 -0600, Robert Scheffler wrote:
Not sure if you are interested in DC control. Keeping all the warnings Mark
has described about mixing DC and DCC on the track level in mind. This
system will only work with DC:
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It has up to 8 station sensors (for me Hall-Effect sensors) that simply
'close' when the Trolley is over them. You put a small magnet on the bottom
of your Trolley and the controller can start and stop at any station. It can
change position of up to 4 twin-coil switch machines, or 4 slow-motion
switch machines.
I have one setup on my layout with 4 switch tracks and 8 station sensors. It
drives from any point to any point using a scripting-like table of events.
You just say "Drive East at 40%", "Wait For Station A", "Stop for 5
seconds", "Throw Turnout 2", "Drive West at 50%", "Wait for Station B",
"Stop for 25 Seconds", etc... This would be considered a "ROUTE". You can
create many "ROUTES" and then build them up into a "SCHEDULE" so that the
movements are not just a "BUMP AND REVERSE" type of controller.
Having an automatic line is actually pretty cool because it really does run
itself. It doesn't use a computer once you have the "ROUTES" set. When you
power it on, it just starts the "SCHEDULE" you have stored. The programming
of the "ROUTES" is done with a PC, but after that, no PC needed.
This is my product, so sorry for the plug, since you didn't get any better
answers, I though you might appreciate this.
No problem. I've added it to the solutions worth considering ;-) Do your
system feature slow starts and stops?
Your homepage say you're considering a DCC version. As we're using a Lenz
system, using Loconet is a non-starter.
/Jan
