Subject:
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Holidays, WHISTLES, new train accessory needed (was - Re: 8 Wide Train Pics)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Thu, 23 Dec 1999 23:18:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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1161 times
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Well, I've gotten MOST of my trains I ordered. But my 4532/4539s from DYA didn't
show up today, so I most likely won't have them for Xmas :-/ I REALLY hope they
show tomorrow, Emmanuel shipped them on the 7th. I hope my 4537/4547/4549s show
up before the end of the year, I might set up a train at work for Y2K weekend
stress relief.
Hey, you know, there's something we are missing in trains - WHISTLES! Anyone
want to make up an electronic one, that uses the variable voltage of the 9V rails
to change how often it goes off? Anyone? It would need to hook to a 9V
wire/plug, of course, and have an off switch for when you want quiet running, and
run off of a variable voltage. If anyone seriously starts working on such an
item, a bonus would be a rotary switch to change to different pitches/types of
whistles. I don't know how large it would end up being (would it need a small
step-up xformer?), but hopefully it would be not much larger than a 2x4 brick.
If it were larger, I suppose it could be fed by another thing needed from
TLC....an empty train motor shell - metal wheels feeding the track power up to
the top, to power such a whistle, or other items.
Hey, for that matter, the whistle could be built into the motor shell! And if
the electronics were built right, they could output constant voltage to feed
lights. Hmmmm, waitaminit - RCXes can power trains using their PWM - couldn't
you pull the motor out of a motor shell, and put a capacitor in there, so that
the output on top of the shell was constant no matter what PWM the RCX was
putting out? Hmmmm........then the variable PWM could program the timing of the
whistle, while the capacitor could power lights or motors. You could then use
this "driver" wheel setup on any car...they could sell one "driver" with a
whistle built in, and one driver with just the capacitor, so you wouldn't have
competing whistles or have to worry about turning all but one of them off.
Seems to me like this is something TLC should look into along with the
SuperBrick/RCX+ (if an RCX+ were sold, it would be nice if it had a higher
amperage rating than the current RCX, so you could easily drive several trains
with it, and drive different sections of track with different PWM).
John Gerlach wrote:
> Hey all you Train fanatics - Happy Holidays! I hope you receive LOTS of cool
> train stuff this year!
>
> JohnG, GMLTC
> (axe the '.nospam' to reply)
--
| Tom Stangl, Technical Support Netscape Communications Corp
| Please do not associate my personal views with my employer
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: 8 Wide Train Pics
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| (...) Cutting bricks - I've turned to 'the dark side'... :-O Speaking of 'dark side', how's that PC, John? (For those of you who don't know, John and I are Macintosh fans from waaaay back! Of course, I work on a PC all day, so I suppose I shouldn't (...) (25 years ago, 23-Dec-99, to lugnet.trains)
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