Subject:
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Re: A brief reflexion on power sources
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 25 Jul 2003 18:39:13 GMT
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Viewed:
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967 times
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In lugnet.trains, Pedro Silva wrote:
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In lugnet.trains, Mark Riley wrote:
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“Pedro Silva” wrote:
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Plus, under this line of thinking, the introduction of DCC by LEGO would
become a much natural step for the consumer - “I now have too many trains to
control, so now I must get myself a new control-system”... ;-)
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What would be really nice is if Lego built train motors that
accepted the plug-in style DCC decoders. The motors would
ship with a dummy plug that merely routed power from the track
to the motor and headlight connector. When you want to
upgrade to DCC, all you do is remove the plug and drop in the
decoder of your choice.
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So, if I understand you correctly, the “new” motor would consist of two parts:
-Part A, motor and headlight connector (already attached to wheels?)
-Interchangable parts B and C, one being that dummy plug you mention (default
in every purchased motor?) and the other being the decoder (*).
That sounds nice. It even would allow for a “part D”, where instead of a dummy
plug we’d have a connector to a batterybox. Come to think of it... the only
mod to the current outside design would be something like “cutting out” a part
of the box (two plates thick, 2x4 in surface?) and have that portion
transformed in brick A, B or C.
This of course raises the possibility of other customizable options, one of
which being triple-wheeled motors (again),
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Note that, with the actual train motor design, it’s impossible to DRIVE on 6
wheels, only on 4 wheels and 2 free running wheels.
another one being “non-engine” motors
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to perform acessory actions, DCC controlled (a maintenance crane, perhaps?)...
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Note that any 9V motor (exept train motor) can be used with a DCC decoder
without modification!
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Very clever idea, indeed.
Pedro
(*) - I take it that LEGO would not accept a non-LEGO decoder?
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Why not? Why should they re-invent the wheel? Any development of a new system
cost money, so the obvious way is to chose an existing system at a REASONABLE
PRICE. Why should a decoder with sound implementation cost over 150 Euro? If you
want to be successfull, you’ll need low prices for it and reliability. Most of
the people doesnt want to use DCC (NMRA or MAERKLIN or whatever system) because
of the cost. And if you want it completely automated, you need feedback to the
processer (or PC) and in this case you end up with a bunch of wires, and then
you lose the ease of transportation to different events. Hooking up all those
wires ....
A view of wires ONLY to operate the points with a PC.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=276456
Kind of overview on the station. Note the wires on the station building, where i
use white LED’s for internal lighting.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=276965
Here you see the wires and pcb’s used to operate a signal post at the left side
of the track.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=276964
DCC is nice, but there are also some witdraws. I have large problems with single
motor trains at low speed, especialy on points. Most of the time they stop
because of an open cirquit (left track to left wheel to left wheel spring bar to
DCC connector to decoder to DCC connector to right wheel spring bar to right
wheel to right track). Thats why i use double motors on my trains, witch results
in a higher price (2 motors instead of 1). Also the motor on itself is a verry
simple thing. It can’t stack energy at low speed, because there’s no flywheel
atached on the motor shaft, something model trains have and also react better at
low speed. There’s still a lot of work to do if you want to have a single motor
train (shunter) running reliable on a track at low speed. As long as you only
want to operate the trains with DCC, then you don’t have a lot of wires, but
once you are used to it, you want more, and then start the ‘trouble’ with the
wires.
See my DCC page (MAERKLIN compatible system) at:
http://www.geocities.com/ludosoete/
Regards,
Ludo
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: A brief reflexion on power sources
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| (...) Oh, I know that. I meant with the same design in size and outer shape. The interior of the motor would have to suffer adaptations, but hopefully none of these would mean the new design would require the modification of the older trains to fit (...) (21 years ago, 26-Jul-03, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: A brief reflexion on power sources
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| (...) So, if I understand you correctly, the "new" motor would consist of two parts: -Part A, motor and headlight connector (already attached to wheels?) -Interchangable parts B and C, one being that dummy plug you mention (default in every (...) (21 years ago, 24-Jul-03, to lugnet.trains)
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