Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad
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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.
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@gjacobse said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@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.
I understand, but those won't grip railroad tracks.
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@travisdh1 said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@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.
Doesn't the RP have the same capability? What lets the Arduino do that and not the RP?
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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:
@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.
Doesn't the RP have the same capability? What lets the Arduino do that and not the RP?
The Arduinos are really just an ATmega328 chip. All the memory and storage (what little they have) are on that ATmega328. Everything, on that one chip. You write the C program on a computer, and the precompiled code gets loaded into the firmware on the chip. The RP will always have something to load other than firmware.
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@travisdh1 No way to write to firmware on the RP?
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@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@travisdh1 No way to write to firmware on the RP?
Not quickly and easily that I know of, while the Arduinos are built on the principle. It's like comparing a PIC to an x86.
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@travisdh1 said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@travisdh1 No way to write to firmware on the RP?
Not quickly and easily that I know of, while the Arduinos are built on the principle. It's like comparing a PIC to an x86.
Yeah, but you can make an x86 boot in seconds
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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:
@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@travisdh1 No way to write to firmware on the RP?
Not quickly and easily that I know of, while the Arduinos are built on the principle. It's like comparing a PIC to an x86.
Yeah, but you can make an x86 boot in seconds
How?
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@Dashrender said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@travisdh1 said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@travisdh1 No way to write to firmware on the RP?
Not quickly and easily that I know of, while the Arduinos are built on the principle. It's like comparing a PIC to an x86.
Yeah, but you can make an x86 boot in seconds
How?
Even Windows can get to just a few seconds to boot. But booting is much faster if you are not booting a full environment like a GUI. Look at a VM boot time, for example, that's the OS going from zero to fully booted. If you boot a memory image and keep it small, it can boot in a second or two easily.
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PCs only seem to boot slowly because they tend to boot enormous GUIs, from slow disks and don't use a memory image.
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I agree with using Arduino + RP for machine application. Arduino is a great single-threaded "doer" while RP is a multitasking "thinker". I'm planning to start a program to manage my Christmas lights for next year. Nice simple project for a beginner.
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@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
PCs only seem to boot slowly because they tend to boot enormous GUIs, from slow disks and don't use a memory image.
Still, you're comparing two platforms meant for two different tasks. One is always nearly instantly up and running while the other could possibly be made somewhat close through a LOT of effort.
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@travisdh1 said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
PCs only seem to boot slowly because they tend to boot enormous GUIs, from slow disks and don't use a memory image.
Still, you're comparing two platforms meant for two different tasks. One is always nearly instantly up and running while the other could possibly be made somewhat close through a LOT of effort.
Not a lot of effort. Just seems that way because people assume other setups.
Now for RP I've never looked so not sure much much it would take.
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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:
@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Built a Computer Controlled Model Railroad:
PCs only seem to boot slowly because they tend to boot enormous GUIs, from slow disks and don't use a memory image.
Still, you're comparing two platforms meant for two different tasks. One is always nearly instantly up and running while the other could possibly be made somewhat close through a LOT of effort.
Not a lot of effort. Just seems that way because people assume other setups.
Now for RP I've never looked so not sure much much it would take.
sighWell, if someone around here figures it out let me know. My collection of RP2 and 3 will thank you.
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In my old house I was working on putting in H0 scale all along the walls in the basement, going through the walls as tunnels, etc, even through the bathroom. I wanted to add in a bunch of stuff to control with a computer, but I never got around to it, simply not enough time. I did manage to have nearly 250 meters of HO scale track
I only like H0 scale, I hate anything bigger. I especially hate that S scale garbage Lionel puts (used to put, mostly) out, it's huge, overpriced, and essentially is best for some boring circular setup. 00 scale is OK too.
I really like H0 scale because you can order it from America for cheaper than similar sizes from Germany, and with far, far more selection. This used to be more true, less true now. I remember going to Toys R Us on 6th Ave in NYC and getting each new/different H0 scale starter kit, because they always had strange box cars and so forth you couldn't really find in hobby shops, and they were cheap as hell by comparison.
The most expensive car I ever bought was the Hershey's one, which did indeed smell like chocolate, it was awesome.
I mostly sold all of my stuff on eBay after 9/11, but I had 67 different HO scale cars, I have pictures some place I'll look for.
Some kits I got multiple of because they were on sale and I wanted the parts and it was cheaper than hobby shops, those were typically:
This one back when it had pin rails instead of this snap together garbage:
From time to time they'd come out though with different cars, but be in the same box, and in fact I think the latter one I saw more than any other, but with varying cars.
In some cases in order to get more realism, if you cannot find the cars independently, you gotta buy like 4 or 5 of the same kit. This is especially true with passenger trains:
I do remember when I first got into this after arriving in America, Toys R Us had individual cars for sale, but that seemed to disappear by 2000 for some reason.
