Why didn't wireless DC throttles ever catch on? Or did they, and I missed it? I haven't been able to locate anything like what I'm envisioning after performing numerous searches on the topic.
Train Engineer made them. I have several and they are great. Sadly, the Company went out of business and they are no longer made. Some Company needs to pick this up and start making them
Aristo was the actual manufacturer.....train engineer was the name of the product. Aristo went out of business about 10 years ago. Most of the models were pretty basic.....pretty much the same controls you would have on a power pack.......forward,reverse, faster/slower, and and a stop button. Our club still uses them for DC operation, but they get a lot of use and as they die, replacements are getting hard to find.
I bought six of the Aristo train Engineers, they work great for me. A little difficult for me to set parameters, but thats just me, I can barely run a TV remote. With 9 cabs total, 4 Aristo wireless are for road trains, 4 are tethered, (but can be moved station to station around the MRR) for switchers and locals, 1 is tethered dedicated for hump operations. As Dave says, they are getting hard to find.
We would have to find an engineer that still uses a dial phone. Would those operate a specific wired control? All with different frequencies?
I looked for it but couldn't find it but ...... saw that they have DCC++EX working so that when one block is set to DC you can use the EngineDriver app on a phone to have a wireless phone throttle controlling a DC engine In that DC block. Also EngineDriver has options where you can have a physical throttle attached as... http://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/DCC/page-3.html ... shown above with the volume knob beneath the phone. Also other physical controls for speed and such as shown ( HERE ) are available with EngineDriver's Android phone app. Not sure if they have all the bugs out of it yet but when they do it will be a nice way for using a wireless throttle with a DC loco for practically no cost, Sumner
I've been hearing about this. It it actual wired DC to that separate block, or is it Engine 0 DC control like that offered by DCC systems? Engine 0 control works but seems to be very hard on the DC engines actually picking up that AC from the tracks.
I would never run a DC engine on a DCC layout. I have tried my DCC engines on DC and that didn't work either. They are both suppose to work on either.
It is my understanding that the command station is producing PWM DC for the block the DC engine is running in but I can't find a for sure explanation how it works. I've seen comments that suggest the DC control equals or is better than most DC throttles so it will be interesting to see how this all works out. I've also seen comments that this might be officially available in the next version (5.0?) of DCC++EX. I did find one long thread on the Discord channel ( HERE -- look on the left for #dc-district ) where they are talking about it. Too long and a lot of it over my head so didn't read it all. Sumner
That sounds like the basic principle of what I'm working on. It uses an Arduino Uno to watch a variable voltage adjusted by a potentiometer and converts that into PWM DC on the track through a Motor Driver controlled by the Arduino. That same Motor Driver is used to control polarity. Phase 1 of the project is a conventional wired throttle. With that I can refine and debug the hardware and the Arduino firmware. Phase 2 adds a USB link to control it from a computer - and to debug the control software for the next step. I might just do that software in QT so it can be used on any supported OS. QT makes nice interfaces too. Phase 3 will exchange the USB cable for a wireless Bluetooth link (range is not a problem - it's just a spare bedroom). What's interesting about this is that I could convert this into a DCC system with a simple firmware change. There's no timeline as I'm just doing this as a fun project with no particular rollout date.
Sounds interesting. Have you looked at their Discord group ( HERE ). You might be able to help or gain info there. I'm kind of a lone wolf myself and like to work on my own thing but like to get all the info I can from any place else when I can also. If you are similar you could continue working on your project as it is different than theirs. I think at this point you are trying to mainly address DC wireless operation but sounds like you might be able to help them on the DC aspect of their project. Pretty cool if they can output DCC on one of the motor shields outputs and DCC on the other using an Arduino to do it all. I know there are a couple different ways to make an Arduino do more than one thing at at time but they are above me. Since they are so cheap on my turntable project where I needed two different processes running at the same time I added a second Arduino. Pretty cool that you guys can get an Arduino to do so much , Sumner
Arduinos are pretty cool microcontrollers. What's really great is that say, PWM outputs, just need to be programmed once and they hold their configuration until the next time it's set. Same goes for digital outputs - put a 1 in there and it will stay 1 until you put a 0 in it. Using this info, the simplest way to get an Arduino to at least look like it's doing more than one thing at a time - on a human time scale - is a simple polling loop. Check the inputs for any changes and make a quick side trip to set whatever needs setting, and go to the next input to be read, etc. until the last input is read and then loop back to the first. It's plenty fast since it's responding to human physical input (turning knobs, flipping switches). The fun is that I can combine both my electronics experience and my computer programming experience in this project. Plus having fun with trains.
Yep, great hobby with many aspects, the reason I knew I'd come back to it when more physical pursuits were harder to pull off . Are you referring to using the millis()? I also looked at this... https://hackaday.com/2021/03/17/running-57-threads-at-once-on-the-arduino-uno/ ....and bought the second Arduino. I was self-taught on programming in Basic and some machine language in the 80's and even taught it but didn't use it again to recently with the Arduino's. Will use it some more but now it is get something done as quick as possible so I can move on to as much as possible. So I borrow others code when I can and modify it or do what I have to do. No Arduino projects in the near future but do have some things I'd like to do yet with them and programming. Sumner
