In a previous thread we talk about some leftover momentary push buttons and where I could use them.
Now I want you to think out of the box. My layout has highly detailed scenes. The layout is a HO 10' x 16'
The one I needed a switch for a scene of lighting and thunder over a mountain ridge. The lighting was created with see through lighting bolts with LED's set behind gray painted plexiglass and a sound bar under the layout for the thunder. I only bring this up so you can picture the type of scenses.
I now have discovered a bunch of under the table Atlas snap switches before they became tortoises.
Nothing is to far out. I am thinking of this combo (Momentary switch and Snap switch) to move a Fork Lift on the ice building platform back and forth.
Lets get Creative.
Stay Safe
Harold
The Atlas switch machines, like any other twin coil switch machines, such as Peco, the old Tenshodo, TruScale, and so on, are 1) momentary contact activated or they quickly burn out and 2) are really fast. They don't call it snap track for nothin'! Faster than any fork truck I've seen.
So if we are to find a creative new use for them it must fit those paramaters: fast action, and momentary in nature. It should be possible to create a circuit so that they are activated repeatedly but with a slight pause in between. So what moves with that rapidity? hmm. A frog's tongue (for the live steam crowd that wants to model a trackside toad or frog?). Maybe a piledriver (although the "up" stage of a pile driver is slower than the downward pounding). Someone hammering, like a blacksmith or a trackworker spiking rail. Someone (I am too politically correct to say "housewife") beating on a carpet to get the dust out? Mike Tyson boxing? A band director at a park concert? Someone trying to "rock" their car out of a snowdrift or deep mud puddle? The vibrators that are used to help unload ore cars or coal cars?
Other ideas might involve a sequence that would be started where a daisy chain of switch machines would do their magic. Could a forest of trees be made to seem to be swaying in a breeze with a sequence of small branches being lifted up and down within that forest?
Those are the challenges - the speed (and I suppose the limited throw of the Atlas switch machine) and the need for momentary current to avoid a burnout. But there is a third challenge that stands in the way of the highly speculative ideas I have listed: Atlas switch machines are NOISY. That forest seeming to sway in the breeze would still sound like a bunch of relays becuse that is exactly what it would be.
Hmm. A model of an old fashioned telephone exhange building where nothing moves, but those switch machines are used to make the noise that the old phone exhange buildings did? (admittedly you'd mainly hear the noise when you were inside, not outside).
Dave Nelson
I agree, the Atlas switch machiens are way too fast to be a fork truck. But a lot of the other uses are possible. The only problem is, the Atlas machines will quickly burn out if the button is held, plus you need a way to make them return to the other position - it's possible, by altering the mechanism a bit so that the arm isn't in an over-center track, and then a spring could pull it back to the normal position. But you still have the issue of repeatedly triggering it and not holding the button down.
The mains source of noise with the Atlas machines is the mechanism slamming against the plastic bits, that might be attentuated a bit if the Z shaped channel was changesd to more of a simple diagonal (killing the over-center latching action - so a spring return could pull it back).
The 'modern' way to do such animations is with small RC servos, controlled with an Arduino. A pushbutton can be the trigger, such as when the button is pressed, operate the servo back and forth for 30 seconds or some other time, and then stop, so it's not constantly going. The 'old' way of doing this was to use a small motor, and a plywood disk with a notch to trigger a microswitch running on the same motor shaft. The pushbutton shorted the mcriswitch contacts, which allowed the motor to start, the lever of the microswitch would ride up on the plywood disk and keep the contacts closed even when the button was released, until it came around again and dropped in the slot, cutting off the motor.
Look up Geoff Bunza, lots of ideas on Arduinos and servos for animating things on a model railroad - his more extreme projects include fully animating a railroad crane, like the classic Tyco model. But there are plenty of simple projects that would work for a figure beating rugs (a chore often assigned as a punishment, so you can use a kid figure) or such things. Sorry, can't post a direct link as many of his articles are hosted on an alternative magazine's site.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Put 'em in a box and look at it again in 20 years. Give them to someone who is using snap switches.
Seriously, most of us have scrap boxes full of castoff and extra parts. We replace things with something better, or have to buy packs of five items to get just one. We never use everything.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Just a friendly sidebar here...
Please be a little more descriptive in your thread titles. Cryptic may seem cute, but it really can be annoying.
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
PruittPlease be a little more descriptive in your thread titles. Cryptic may seem cute, but it really can be annoying.
I think you get better answers, because people who had the same issue, whatever the issue is, want to tell you what they did or what they know.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Punkin' chunkin' contest? Society for Creative Anachronism having a faire with recruiting for the 'artillery'? Kids rolling a house for fun?
OvermodPunkin' chunkin' contest? Society for Creative Anachronism having a faire with recruiting for the 'artillery'? Kids rolling a house for fun?
Bartender I'll have whatever he is drinking.
I looked up the Arduino. Have you used it for the railroad? How complicated is it really?
My whole layout DEPENDS on them - or rather further evolution of the concept, as I saw no point in just having an Arduino plug in to my system as-is, which includes a whole bunch of extra stuff not needed for the actual operation of the circuit. I design and test using Arduinos though.
Easy? Well, the whole ecosystem was designed for artists to add electronics to art projects. So pretty easy if you follow the initial tutorials, but like anything, you have to develop a greater understanding to truly see the possibilities, and implement them. Some people have a nack for the logical thinking required to write code, some do not. Just the way it is. There are plenty of published projects now that you can just copy, instead of designing your own thing. That's not much different than assembling a kit - just follow the steps, do exactly as the article says in regards to hooking everything up, and it will work.
I use servos for my turnouts. Tortoises got too expensive, and snap machines are just not what I want. Servos are cheap. Commercial devices to run them make it cost as much as a Tortoise in total. So I designed my own, that does exactly what I want. I designed a PCB and had some made, and wrote the program, and it all works, complete with a frog power relay so I can power all my frogs. The only truly expensive (and that's relative - talking under $3 here) part are the lighted pushbuttons to trigger them. If I could find cheaper buttons I would - I could build my own with the button and LED as separate devices and that coule be cheap because I could use fairly cheap buttons. But I like having the button itself light up to indicate the selection.
I haven’t used the Arduino for model railroad operations but they work great for operating accessories. I have a total of 13 in use on my layout and more to come. Eight are used for structure lighting controllers, three are used for vehicle emergency lighting and tower lighting and two for signaling.From Wikipedia, “The Arduino project started in 2005 as a tool for students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Ivrea, Italy, aiming to provide a low-cost and easy way for novices and professionals to create devices that interact with their environment using sensors and actuators. Common examples of such devices intended for beginner hobbyists include simple robots, thermostats and motion detectors.”Here are some links to my Blog.https://melvineperry.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_27.html
https://melvineperry.blogspot.com/2019/01/january-21-2019-arduino-nano-tower.html
https://melvineperry.blogspot.com/2019/01/january-16-2019-arduino-multasking.html
https://melvineperry.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_97.htmlhttps://melvineperry.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_49.html
Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
OK You guys sold me. I am heading to Amazon to buy it. I am going to purchase a starter set which looks to be good for me to start. Am I correct to think I will be able to do several of my projects for the railroad from the same board?