NP Lester WA T-Trak Z Module Set Project

For sound, I have several seconds worth of arc welding, that can be stopped and restarted at any time. I just need to have soundfile 0001.mp3 playing when the white and blue LED's are flickering, and the very second that the red afterglow LED comes on, starts a 3-5 second delay then soundfiles 0002 through 0004.mp3 play. When the random welding starts back up, sound should immediately jump to .0001.mp3 again.

The sound files are all one type of sound, 0001 is arc welding, 0002 is slag chipping, 0003 is wire brushing, and 0004 is grinding. The MP3 files need to be in the root folder of the micro SD card and named in this naming convention of 0000.mp3-9999.mp3 so they can be called up and played by an integer from the arduino.

Once I get this coding down, I'll add a random yellow glow for the grinder sound.

The arc welding will be triggered by a proximity sensor, that someone got their head over the roundhouse to look at it.

When nobody is around, I will have the player play track 0005.mp3 which will be a long recording loop of oldtime radio from the 1930's. At the same time as that's happening, I can have a couple guys warming their hands in front of a 55 gallon drum with a fire glow inside.

These are the kinds of things you can have a $3 Arduino Mini, a $1.5 DFplayer MP3 module, a Micro SD card, a few LED's, resistors, and a small speaker do for you. All in for under $10 you can have a reasonable well animated scene, and not break the bank.

 

Heads up, this post is train related and on topic, "at the bottom of this post", but in order to get there I needed to share how I did it.

OK, I'm back, And I needed a vacation so bad. Being couped up on Coronavirus lockdown had me a bit twitchy, I could not think straight, and all I wanted was to get outside, go camping, maybe some fishing, campfire, beer, you know, have some fun! So I did.

Instead of heading up towards Idaho City, we decided to hit an old favorite Elk Camp near Council ID. Guaranteed no crowds, or infected people, with a population under 900 throughout the hills up there:


It's mostly cowboys and 4 wheel drives up here, we head past town up in the hills:


Once we get through the clouds we are in the Payette National Forest:


We head up to the snow line, nobody up there for sure:


We arrive at the famous Elk Camp site that family members have been using the past few decades, called "Aloha". Here my Granddaughter Edith is riding a horse for the first time, a week before her 9th birthday, and she is doing good!:


Here I am with Edith and my son in law Arlin:


After some liquid courage, Arlin gave horse riding a try for the first time in his life, and my daughter Brandie is laughing at him:


And later that night Brandie BBQ up some burgers on the Cowboy Wok, the most amazing burgers ever, and everyone else went inside their tents or campers because it was raining and cold. I sat warm and dry, drinking hot coffee and enjoying a burger, under a rain shelter by the fire and enjoyed my evening, as we were heading out the next day:


SO, as I promised, back on topic, I got home last night, and much to my surprise, Ben ("thewag" Trainboard Z Scale Member Name), who had messaged me that he had some luck with Arduino code, had sorted through the mess I was trying to do, and managed to get me back on track with his second update to the Arduino code I needed.

Well, he had sight unseen, fixed the code enough for me to cobble together enough features for my Lester Roundhouse Animation. Attached is the code for those who want to examine it.

Here is a youtube video of how it operates:

 

Looks like you had fun!

 

I did! I love to be with family in the outdoors. You know how long winters are in Idaho, so to have this Coronavirus lockdown come just when spring hits made it seem all the longer. We usually have a March rally to Mann's Creek Reservoir to take out the pontoon, and ride sleds up the hills, but we missed that trip due to the "Pandemic Panic" that the TV news spun on us.

Now I am searching for superbright SMD LED's to use for my welder and grinder.

 

I know all too well about long winters and the onset of this lockdown, being in North Dakota and all...

 

I love to ride mountain bike trails, and the parks are opening tomorrow. Yoohooo!

 

Just remember, when hospital staff are afraid, you should be too.

 

It’s Florida, and it’s flat. I am not a trill seeker, and only ride the trails I can handle.

 

I broke T3-6 , 4 ribs and 3 fingers (one fall) on a Mountain Bike, be smart and safe

 

Got it, thanks.

 

Yikes! I don't mountain bike trails around here, way too steep. I do the paved greenbelt along the river where it's smooth, wide, and safe.

 

I am not sure I can upload the sound files, because of copywrite infringement. I recorded them from YouTube videos using Audacity.

I got the welding clip, slag chipping clip, and wire brushing clip starting at around the 7 minute mark from this video for files 0001-0003.mp3:


And I got the grinding clip starting near 5min 30sec from this video for files 0004.mp3:


And last, I got the old time radio music from this video for file 0005.mp3:


Alternately, you can use any sound files you want, and the code is easy to modify. The welding and grinding sound will trigger a replay of those sound files if the random timer continues past the MP3 file length, so don't record any silence at the beginning or end of those tracks.

 

Nice job with those RGB LED's Svein-Martin. The effect looks so good, just like real welding going on in your factory!