Hi Gauger's:
I have a new job at Carlex Glass in Venore, Tennessee. They temper glass for Nissan, Toyota, and the Hummer. They use alot of robots on the assembly line. To make these robots work properly, they use optical senors on the lines. They "see" the glass coming down the line. This enables the robot to pick it up and move it. What does this has to do with model railroading and daydreamin'?
Lets look at out layout. The tracks can be our convayor. The locomotives, rolling stock, etc is our "glass". Lets use the easiest type of train to work with, the passenger train. They get people to point A to point B. They make stops at stations to unload and load passengers. So lets take out assembly line into the picture. We use an optical senors at Station A. That senor, lets say, is on a 5 minute timer. So when the train arrives at the station, it trips the senor. The senor is connected to a timer. The train stops for 5 mins. The signal light is also connect to the senor. When the train is ready to go, the light will turn green. The train leaves. Lets say you want to slowly increase speed of the train. You will use optical senors to sense the train. The senors will be contected to a relay to increase voltage and amps to the locomotive. Now the train is going faster. As the train is appoaching point B station. Use the same process to decrease the voltage. Plus the senor also trips the yellow light to tell the train to slow down. When the train arrives at staion B, it stops. There's an optical senor "sensing" the train.
With a frieght train, there's many possiblities. Such as if the track is hidden and occupied. Controling the train's speed. Signal light control. Even switch your track!
You do not have to buy $300 industrail senors. There are model companies out there you can buy from. Take a look at August 2005 issue page 81 of Railroad Model Craftman Magazine. By the way, you can replace those LED's with a 5 volt mini relay from Radio Shack to switch higher voltages and current.
I hope this gives you some ideas. I love an automated layout. It makes things look so real. Next project will be connecting everything to a computer. I am going to have to relearn BASIC programming again!
Andy
I have a new job at Carlex Glass in Venore, Tennessee. They temper glass for Nissan, Toyota, and the Hummer. They use alot of robots on the assembly line. To make these robots work properly, they use optical senors on the lines. They "see" the glass coming down the line. This enables the robot to pick it up and move it. What does this has to do with model railroading and daydreamin'?
Lets look at out layout. The tracks can be our convayor. The locomotives, rolling stock, etc is our "glass". Lets use the easiest type of train to work with, the passenger train. They get people to point A to point B. They make stops at stations to unload and load passengers. So lets take out assembly line into the picture. We use an optical senors at Station A. That senor, lets say, is on a 5 minute timer. So when the train arrives at the station, it trips the senor. The senor is connected to a timer. The train stops for 5 mins. The signal light is also connect to the senor. When the train is ready to go, the light will turn green. The train leaves. Lets say you want to slowly increase speed of the train. You will use optical senors to sense the train. The senors will be contected to a relay to increase voltage and amps to the locomotive. Now the train is going faster. As the train is appoaching point B station. Use the same process to decrease the voltage. Plus the senor also trips the yellow light to tell the train to slow down. When the train arrives at staion B, it stops. There's an optical senor "sensing" the train.
With a frieght train, there's many possiblities. Such as if the track is hidden and occupied. Controling the train's speed. Signal light control. Even switch your track!
You do not have to buy $300 industrail senors. There are model companies out there you can buy from. Take a look at August 2005 issue page 81 of Railroad Model Craftman Magazine. By the way, you can replace those LED's with a 5 volt mini relay from Radio Shack to switch higher voltages and current.
I hope this gives you some ideas. I love an automated layout. It makes things look so real. Next project will be connecting everything to a computer. I am going to have to relearn BASIC programming again!
Andy