Subject:
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Re: motorized cars?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.town
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Date:
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Thu, 5 Aug 2004 20:31:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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1097 times
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In lugnet.town, James Trobaugh wrote:
> I think the MichLTC folks had a car that ran around with a magnet under the
> road attached to a train engine on a loop. Seemed like a very cool and simple
> solution to making cars move.
Cool? Yes (there was certainly a lot of excited chatter on the MichLUG list
after Steve posted a video of the cars "driving" past each other). Simple?
Sure, on paper, maybe, but in practical application its a bit more complicated.
There are a lot of things that need to be properly set up underneath the road
plates for it to work, and even understanding the basic principles involved I'd
still have to experiment a bit before I could recreate it without some form of
instructions to work from. You're also restricted to whatever Train layout you
can cram underneath and match to a table-top road layout above, so unless you
want to go whole-hog with Mindstorms-directed switching, you're pretty much
restricted to "basic" loops (though you can disguise this fact by making
twisty-shaped loops), so if one car turns at an intersection, every car turns at
that intersection. I think there is a possibility that a track/RCX system could
be devised that would allow for merging and splitting drive loops, but there's
got to be a point at which you'd risk tipping the train motors off the tracks
unless you ballast them like you would for a boat keel. RCX involvement could
also give you the option of having cars stop at stop signs and stop lights,
which would be really cool.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: motorized cars?
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| (...) I think the MichLTC folks had a car that ran around with a magnet under the road attached to a train engine on a loop. Seemed like a very cool and simple solution to making cars move. jt (20 years ago, 5-Aug-04, to lugnet.town)
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