Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad
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The smaller the railroad, the smaller the rails. Z Scale is the lightest, but their rails are like the size of paperclip wire. Not much magnetic potential in something so small. And their wheels are like specs.
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Also remember that wheels have a single point of contact. It's not a flat bottom with loads of contact surface.
Have you ever seen anything like this anywhere? Like, I can't even imagine an example of something similar that would make you feel like such a thing was physically possible.
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Also, think about train motors. They struggle with even a 3% grade. But going on a wall would mean hitting 100% grades all of the time. Even if you could tackle the magic of getting it cling to the wall, you'd also have to tackle the motor problem. You'd need at least 10x the motors of current model trains to pull even a tiny train up the wall.
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LOL - It could be done, but you'd have to change the whole thing.. instead of the motor being in the train, you could have a single moving track down the middle of the tracks. That track would be powered by a motor in the board/landscape. That single central track could have pins sticking out of it with magnets that would attach to the bottom of the cars. It would completely change the drivetrain, but it should be possible.
not sure you could get any track switching to happen though...
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Yeah I'm sure I'm wrong. Just an idea. Would be cool if you could pull it off somehow
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@Dashrender said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
LOL - It could be done, but you'd have to change the whole thing.. instead of the motor being in the train, you could have a single moving track down the middle of the tracks. That track would be powered by a motor in the board/landscape. That single central track could have pins sticking out of it with magnets that would attach to the bottom of the cars. It would completely change the drivetrain, but it should be possible.
not sure you could get any track switching to happen though...
You could do it, but not with realistic tracks. You'd need something attached to the wall that held the train. You'd not have it really looking like a train when it was all done.
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@wirestyle22 said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
Yeah I'm sure I'm wrong. Just an idea. Would be cool if you could pull it off somehow
You could do it with a monorail
They grip the center rail. -
You could wall mount a scene, but not with moving trains.
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Funny you mention this, I was just thinking about it the other day. When I was a kid my dad built a train set on a table (about 8' x 6'). N-scale I believe. All electric that went back to levers and buttons to control switches, train speed, etc.... The legs detached so it could be easily rested up on it's side and stored.
You could rig up something like that to a raspberry pi?
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@TAHIN said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
Funny you mention this, I was just thinking about it the other day. When I was a kid my dad built a train set on a table (about 8' x 6'). N-scale I believe. All electric that went back to levers and buttons to control switches, train speed, etc.... The legs detached so it could be easily rested up on it's side and stored.
You could rig up something like that to a raspberry pi?
In theory, yeah. There are very few good projects around this. My dad did HO and I did N all through my childhood. I have a lot of N stuff now, too. I'd love to get into it with my kids, but I hate operating them. I like the modeling and making scenes and having it come to life.
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Here is a pic of the table I had about ten or fifteen years ago.
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It would definitely take some creative thinking and a lot of motors! Ideas are endless though, you could script out an entire episode of Thomas and Friends ha
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Actually it could be done,.. but you would need special tracks and trucks (wheels). The trucks would have dual sets of wheels,.. upper and lower...
T\rying to find an image, ... but haven't yet.
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@gjacobse said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
Actually it could be done,.. but you would need special tracks and trucks (wheels). The trucks would have dual sets of wheels,.. upper and lower...
T\rying to find an image, ... but haven't yet.
Ah - Roller Coaster trucks..
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@TAHIN said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
Funny you mention this, I was just thinking about it the other day. When I was a kid my dad built a train set on a table (about 8' x 6'). N-scale I believe. All electric that went back to levers and buttons to control switches, train speed, etc.... The legs detached so it could be easily rested up on it's side and stored.
You could rig up something like that to a raspberry pi?
I'd want an Arduino to actually run everything. A Raspberry Pi could run a human interface for it. The big difference in this case is what happens when a power loss or unexpected reboot happens? The Arduino (ATmega328) is going to be back up and running in a second or two, whereas the Pi is going to take a minute or more to boot. Guess which one is going save the set more reliably after that dreaded unexpected reboot
The relays needed to control everything should be industry standard items, so should be very doable.
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@TAHIN said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
It would definitely take some creative thinking and a lot of motors! Ideas are endless though, you could script out an entire episode of Thomas and Friends ha
Yeah, that kind of stuff. With synchronized lighting and sound so that you can have scenes happen. Like a live story telling system.
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@gjacobse said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
Actually it could be done,.. but you would need special tracks and trucks (wheels). The trucks would have dual sets of wheels,.. upper and lower...
T\rying to find an image, ... but haven't yet.
Of course and then it wouldn't be like a train, that's the problem. Roller coasters don't look like trains.
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@travisdh1 said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@TAHIN said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
Funny you mention this, I was just thinking about it the other day. When I was a kid my dad built a train set on a table (about 8' x 6'). N-scale I believe. All electric that went back to levers and buttons to control switches, train speed, etc.... The legs detached so it could be easily rested up on it's side and stored.
You could rig up something like that to a raspberry pi?
I'd want an Arduino to actually run everything. A Raspberry Pi could run a human interface for it. The big difference in this case is what happens when a power loss or unexpected reboot happens? The Arduino (ATmega328) is going to be back up and running in a second or two, whereas the Pi is going to take a minute or more to boot. Guess which one is going save the set more reliably after that dreaded unexpected reboot
The relays needed to control everything should be industry standard items, so should be very doable.
What makes an RP take so long to boot? Sounds more like a storage problem than a boot problem. An RP should be able to boot in seconds as well.
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@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@gjacobse said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
Actually it could be done,.. but you would need special tracks and trucks (wheels). The trucks would have dual sets of wheels,.. upper and lower...
T\rying to find an image, ... but haven't yet.
Of course and then it wouldn't be like a train, that's the problem. Roller coasters don't look like trains.
The goal I would think would be to just use the trucks... not the 'cars'. Cars can be whatever you want them to be.
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@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@travisdh1 said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@TAHIN said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
Funny you mention this, I was just thinking about it the other day. When I was a kid my dad built a train set on a table (about 8' x 6'). N-scale I believe. All electric that went back to levers and buttons to control switches, train speed, etc.... The legs detached so it could be easily rested up on it's side and stored.
You could rig up something like that to a raspberry pi?
I'd want an Arduino to actually run everything. A Raspberry Pi could run a human interface for it. The big difference in this case is what happens when a power loss or unexpected reboot happens? The Arduino (ATmega328) is going to be back up and running in a second or two, whereas the Pi is going to take a minute or more to boot. Guess which one is going save the set more reliably after that dreaded unexpected reboot
The relays needed to control everything should be industry standard items, so should be very doable.
What makes an RP take so long to boot? Sounds more like a storage problem than a boot problem. An RP should be able to boot in seconds as well.
It's the storage media's horrible throughput. Should they boot in seconds, yes. Do they boot in seconds, no. At least not compared to an Arduino. Remember, and Arduino doesn't "boot", as soon as power comes up it's running.
