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 Organizations / United States / MichLUG / 1723
1722  |  1724
Subject: 
Re: Automated monorail stop (was Re: Automated points)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.org.us.michlug
Date: 
Wed, 25 Jul 2001 15:20:03 GMT
Viewed: 
663 times
  
I put a terrible photo up at

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=5808

Remember that the only digital camera I have is a Lego cam, so the photo is
poor.  Just a quickie to give people an idea of what I did.  (Tony: I'm
talking about a stop, not a switch).  Basically, the mini motor has three
3:1 (24:8, that is) gear reductions to provide enough torque.  I couldn't
get it without the third reduction.  I'm sure there are other ways; I didn't
want to use pulleys or a bigger gear for space reasons.

Because there's so much torque, it rips itself apart pretty nicely if it's
kept running after the stop is all the way in one direction or another.

Larry, what did you mean by automatically reversing--mechanically changing
direction?  Because of the gear ratios that might be a little tough.

Another thought is that, it we use Mindstorms and stop every train at the
station, we could have a switch just past the station and alternate where
the train goes when it leaves, flipping it one way or the other while the
train is stopped.  Driving a switch with a motor is perfectly doable, as
Tony's link shows.  That could be neat.  And really, sensing when the train
arrives is not a big problem, just requires some trial and error.

This could add some nice complexity to the monorail display.

What do people think?  The biggest constraint, I would expect, is placing
this in the layout--so the building looks right and the baseplates and
monorail track align with the rest of the setup.

Peter



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Automated monorail stop (was Re: Automated points)
 
(...) Sorry, Tony, didn't look carefully enough at the link you sent and thought it was about a point kind of switch, not what I call a stop. My design uses the stop without modification. Automating the monorail point should still not be difficult. (...) (23 years ago, 25-Jul-01, to lugnet.org.us.michlug)
  Re: Automated monorail stop (was Re: Automated points)
 
(...) Nope. Just leave a heavily geared down drive turning the knob of one of these monorail reversing tracks running constantly... that is constantly rotating (very slowly due to the torque needed) the control plate knob. Depending on where the (...) (23 years ago, 25-Jul-01, to lugnet.org.us.michlug)

Message is in Reply To:
  Automated monorail stop (was Re: Automated points)
 
This is a little off-topic, but hey, you knew that when you saw who wrote it. At the show this weekend, I started thinking, "Wouldn't it be neat to have a mindstorms monorail station that stopped each train for about 20 seconds, made the ding-dong (...) (23 years ago, 25-Jul-01, to lugnet.org.us.michlug)

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