Subject:
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Re: Thoughts on Battery-powered IR-controlled trains
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains, lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:54:21 GMT
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Viewed:
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7919 times
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In lugnet.trains, Brian Davis wrote:
> In lugnet.trains, Ross Crawford wrote:
>
> > The problem you're gonna find is that the RCX can only point in
> > 1 direction at once.
>
> Actualy, so can a remote. The IR signal from the RCX is fairly "bright"
> (i.e.- you don't need the RCX pointed right into the Manas IR receive units to
> function, it can be bounced off other objects).
Plus a remote is usually in the hands of the controller, so can be re-targetted
as necessary - whereas an RCX controller would most likely be fixed to the
layout somewhere, and disguised as an object of some kind on the layout.
Otherwise you lose the advantage of mains power.
> > if the trains continue running when they lose their IR signal
> > (we don't know that yet)
>
> We don't, although I suspect strongly they do.
Me too.
I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it isn't as easy as it might sound.
For instance, I would probably work out a few critical points on the layout, and
place an RCX at each, making sure it gets good coverage of all trains going past
(assuming "blind" running is possible). It would also allow time "gaps" where
I'm not directly talking to trains, so I can use IR to talk to other RCXs, but
it may not be easy to place them for best train coverage and still be able to
communicate with each other. I'm sure these problems are not insurmountable, but
it's gonna take some dedication to get it to work right in a show situation. I
would also need sensors to tell me when a train was going past, and logic to
know when there *should* be one - now I'm running multiple trains, my "network"
needs to know when there's been a derailment, otherwise my emergency rescue figs
are gonna start complaining of overwork ;)
ROSCO
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