Subject:
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Re: combining LDCC and NQC style automation?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics.rcx, lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 14 Jan 2005 01:46:09 GMT
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Reply-To:
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CJMASI@*NOGARBAGEPLEASEstopspam*RCN.COM
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Viewed:
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561 times
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Steven Barile wrote:
> Chris,
> Thanks for asking these questions. I think this has been discussed before, but
> it is always good to rehash this at least for the .trainheads! I think that
> remote train operation and LDCC etc is very exciting but perhaps only for the
> strong willed. I dabbled with it and have a ping pong also running.
Ah, so you have dabbled with LDCC? Gave up? Not enough fun for the
amount of effort? Or will you be going back to it?
> I think your on to something here. In order to get signals to the "cab" of the
> trolley (or any other engine) there needs to be DCC involved. I believe on the
> "standard" DCC decoders (the part you put in the LEGO Motor) there are 2 extra
> channels; one for lights and one for sound. I'm not sure if each channel has an
> encoding scheme or not. It seems like it ought to, so the lights can be white or
> red based on train direction. And it seems to make sense that you might be able
> to control which sound is played; various chug rates, bells, horns...
Oh, I was just expecting to send power out the top of the motor to light
the light, and have a small technic motor inside with a decoder built
into it or next to it or something. Using those built in channels might
require more work than its worth. I am assuming that the user would have
to run the special decoder outputs out of the train motor to use them.
> > I don't recall the final summery on DCC track side sensors with a data
> back-channel. I do recall reading that the was someone working on the "reading"
> the engine "DCC address". It looked a bit funny that the output of the RCX was
> simply jumpered to the input, but it makes sense. What is really exciting about
> this scheme is that logically you should be able to hook up 2^n (where n > ~8)
n > (greater than) 8 or n < (less than) 8?
> number of sensors to the track and have them all report back thru a single input
> via an addressable scheme.
>
> I have been a HUGE "nay sayer" about DCC for layouts at train shows. Nothing
> bores people more then watching model trains running at scale speeds
Oh man! at the last train show we did I went around to see some stuff.
One group had a pretty cool N-scale layout, but the tiny train was
ccrraaaawwwling. I felt like the fat kid from Harry Potter (Move, MOVE.
Why doesn't it move?)
with the
> proto pickup/delivery schedules... not that we (L-Gaugers) do much of this...
> but put more then one train on one loop and you get a crash unless you are 100%
> focused, which at a show I would argue that you're focusing on the wrong thing!
> (of course IMHO) :)
Yeah, you shouldn't focus that hard on running the trains. Afterall an
occaisional crash is what the crowd lives for! But I suspect that isn't
what you meant, is it ;?)
> [However] is LDCC offered the ability of having large numbers of inexpensive
> track connected sensors, sign me up!!!!
That would be cool, and with a combination of sensors and DCC controlled
trains, you could block control the trains. Though I don't know if
anyone really has a layout big enough to do that.
I received an e-mail that suggested I give BrickOS a look. The person
thought that the DCC part of LDCC had been worked into BrickOS. I'll let
you know what happens.
Chris
>
> SteveB
>
> In lugnet.robotics.rcx, Christopher Masi wrote:
>
> > OK, so I made a trolley go back and forth using NQC and my RCX. My
> > wife's response to this was, "I that why you wanted a Mindstorms set?"
> > Her tone implied that while whe thought it was cool, she also thought
> > that I had just reached a new level of nuts. Anyway, the real reason for
> > getting an RCX was not just to make a point to point trolley but also to
> > dabble in LDCC. Truthfully, LDCC scars me a bit. MY trains are big, and
> > I don't want to burn out my RCX, but I digress.
> >
> > I would like to improve my trolley. First, I would like the lights to
> > stay on at the stations. Sencond, I would like to put my trolley poles
> > back on. Since the trolley reverses direction, I took the trolley poles
> > off because at least half of the time, the wrong pole would be in the up
> > position. My thinking is that LDCC would allow the lights to stay on,
> > and I could, theoretically, use a motor to raise and lower the trolley
> > poles. Because I would like the trolley to remain automated, my big
> > question is whether I can use LDCC and NQC at the same time. Since NQC
> > and LDCC require different firmware on the RCX my initial thought is no,
> > I cannot do that. I thought that Mark Riley said that the input ports
> > are still active on an LDCC RCX, so I wonder how I could use those ports
> > to control an LDCC'ed trolley.
> >
> > Thanks for anythoughts you might have on the matter!
> > Chris
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