They make an ap for that!
NP01Mike, push in and get the JMRI done. Your excellent layout deserves some signalling and automation. (ok depending upon goals costs add up). NP.
Nah, no signals, please. My narrowgauge is modern, but I just don't want to go there. Might work on the standard gauge, but it's a secondary main that is relatively lightly traveled so not too plausible. I'm more interested in JMRI for Decorder Pro, car forwarding, etc. If I ever get the itch to signal, I do have an expert on signals to consult with, though. He works with my wife at the big U and teaches the class on signals in the RR engineering program.
The animation thing could be interesting. I sure wouldn't mind have the computer run the passenger trains, while I get to run a way freight dodging them. I'll have to think about that.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I was thinking of those 3.5" LCD TFT displays and running an SVGA cable to them from JMRI. I could find $15 displays, but with an analog AV connector.
Mike, push in and get the JMRI done. Your excellent layout deserves some signalling and automation. (ok depending upon goals costs add up).
NP.
Thanks, but BTDT. The 555 clock mods are obsolescent, plus I found very little on where people had made successful hacks from start to finish.
This one was attractive, but as I noted, doesn't really become competitive with the Rail Logic clocks until you need more than 3. Even then, by the time you include build time for the system it is still not attarctive until you need about half a dozen.
http://fastclock.mdodd.com/
Take a look below.
http://tinyurl.com/lw9ftz6
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
As I believe I mentioned above, if your install is for three clocks or fewer on a NCE system, the Logic Rails Technologies FCR-N is cost-effective versus a stand-alone system. It's certainly easy to install. Here's how the two that I installed looked, one at either end of the main layout room, then a close-up. I mounted them in the recommended Raido Shack 270-1805 project box.
I plan to add one more in the next room where the Cascade Branch and the dispatacher reside. I'll also tidy up the too taut wiring at the second clock once I get another patch block and extend it a little.
I just edited my last post.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
Elmer,
Thanks, just what I needed to know.
mlehman Elmer, Not necessarily looking for something more than the NCE system-compatible clocks. I actually wasn't specifically aware that these were readily available and at a pretty reasonable cost before posting this. The good thing about them is that I already have the clock drive built into the system, it's just that the displays are a little pricier than I'd like. BTW, how does your NCE clock hook up? Can I just run a splitter off the control bus or does it need to be daisy chained in like the UTP panels? Adding more cables will increase the cost over just buying the displays, so I'm trying to figure out if there are any costs beyond the displays so I can get a good total number to run by the Finance Dept.
Not necessarily looking for something more than the NCE system-compatible clocks. I actually wasn't specifically aware that these were readily available and at a pretty reasonable cost before posting this. The good thing about them is that I already have the clock drive built into the system, it's just that the displays are a little pricier than I'd like.
BTW, how does your NCE clock hook up? Can I just run a splitter off the control bus or does it need to be daisy chained in like the UTP panels? Adding more cables will increase the cost over just buying the displays, so I'm trying to figure out if there are any costs beyond the displays so I can get a good total number to run by the Finance Dept.
The clock is dasy chained into the control bus. However, You should be able to use a splitter also. I have one splitter that I am using on my layout where the control bus comes from the command station and then splits off in two directions going around the layout in two legs, one in each direction. It works fine.
I am using the Logic Rail Technologies NCE clock. It is a repeater for the NCE fast clock that is built into the NCE system. The clock can be powered from the control bus, but I opted to get their walwart to power it.
http://www.logicrailtech.com/index.htm
Randy,
It's red, so guess it was LED most likely. It's sitting here right behind me, but not used much, because there's a digital clock readout right on front of me in my browser window...
I hope NCE isn't the notroiuosly inaccurate one if I go that route. My operators are so slow there will likely be few high priority tasks ahead of time, though... I eventually plan to embrace JMRI, but that's still a "next year" project as it has been for the last several. I have three hammerheads and 3 POTs (plain old throttles). Generally less havoc ensues if I can keep operators on the simple throttles. They can probably handle adding time to their task list, but I'm not so sure about the fancy throttle to display it on. Thus the need for wall clocks.
If it was red, it was almost certainly LED. There were some green LED 7 segment displays available, slightly later than red. If it's bluish, like a VCR or stereo display, it's a vacuum flourescent display.
I do remember when LEDs first became affordable, they popped up EVERYWHERE. Everything just had to have a digital display or it was old-fashioned. Remember LED watches? Push the button, digits lit up for a couple of seconds to read the time, because the LEDs drew so much power they couldn;t keep them on all the time or the battery would be dead in a day or two. Quickly replaced with LCD when LCDs became available a few years later.
Hmm, wonder if you could make one of those flip digit clocks a fast clock - dunno if the number tabs would fall fast enough, I remember getting an old one of those from my grandparents to take apart, the seconds on it was a rotating wheel, only the hour and minutes had the flip digits. The alarm was a plain clock face arrangement, good luck setting an exact time, you could make it 'around' 7. But no one needed to be that precise in those days - a regular wind up alarm clock was no more accurate in setting the alarm. Only with modern digital clocks have we taken to setting alarms for exactly 7:03
It's a tough call. Those battery powered replica Regulator clocks are very railroady, for a wide range of eras. But where to put them amongst the scenery, fascia, and valence? If you have stations for TT&TO operation, a miniature one might be fitted to the panel, but indeed, a small digital display may be better suited to keep roaming operators informed of the time. Some DCC system,s have them built in, but they are notroiously inaccurate as they are based on timing loops in the microcontroller in the command station, and updating the clock is not a high priority task. With Digitrax and JMRI you can set the computer to be the authoritative time source instead of the command station, which makes for a more accurate clock, but also it means all operators must have fancy DT40x throttles, the UT4's don;t have displays to even see the time.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Bayfield Transfer Railway Mike Dodd's stuff is also very attractive to those of us modeling an era where digital clocks are totally inappropriate.
Mike Dodd's stuff is also very attractive to those of us modeling an era where digital clocks are totally inappropriate.
Very true and that's still most of it. Digital before 1970 is almost completely anachronistic, as it was all flipping cards. Once various displays/LEDs came in in the early 70s, then you start seeing digital time in many more places. I've still got the digital alarm clock my parents gave me when I went to college and it was "special" just because it was one of those big 7-segment displays (was that even LEDs, or some other ancient technology?)
On the other hand, I would find big clocks floating above my scenery distracting. So that's another factor to consider. A discrete digital install may not be exactly prototypical for your era, but it still might be a better choice.
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
I also have NCE. I use the fast clock that is displayed on the throttles, plus I did bite the bullet and bought one larger stand alone fast clock repeater display that hooks in to the throttle bus. I have three Hammerheads and one Cab04P.
So I am curious as to why you are lookig for something more. Just trying to understand your needs.
Mark,
I was given a module built off of Keiths design. It worked but was actually pretty bulky and digital didn't fill the bill as far as the look I was going for in the layout room. I bought one of Mike's Ds controllers and a couple of the clock movement kits. I converted cheap plastic clocks (they look more railroady to my eye than digtal) all for under $100.00 . That was several years ago.
other alternative - Joe Fugate has a free fast clock program that runs on a lap top.
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
Guy,
Thanks for that tip. Mike's stuff is now definitely on my radar. If I needed more than 3 clocks, it would definitely be the most cost effective solution. As it is, it looks like if I need 3 or fewer clocks, then going with some implementation of the NCE clock may be my first choice. But I do like Mike's FCC4 for a whole lot of reasons.
trainnut1250 Mike, I have built cheap fast clocks - I know where you are coming from on this. Google Mike Dodd - fast clock. Mike is a great guy and sold me the parts for very little cash. E mail me off forum for more details. Guy
Mike,
I have built cheap fast clocks - I know where you are coming from on this. Google Mike Dodd - fast clock. Mike is a great guy and sold me the parts for very little cash. E mail me off forum for more details.
As nice as those analog clocks are, I'd still prefer the compact size of a digital display ....
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
OK, so a few years old Could be that I only just recently hit that year when reading through the DVD collection - I started with Vol 1 Issue 1 back when I got it and I've read almost all of them, in order. Those were also years I hng out at Radio Shack a lot and they had lots of cool bits to work with. They had those TI sound synthesizer chips too - I recently found an old Radio Shack bag where I had been collecting parts to build the ultimate circuit shown in the data sheets for that chip, DOZENS of potentiometers and tons of switches to select every option for every part of the chip. Probably would have been disappointed due to the poor quality (even then) of Radio Shack's potentiometers. A lesson I still didn;t heed years later when I built a jump throttle for my Zephyr and wondered why the train wouldn;t move until I had the knob past 1/3 speed (a loco that would creep on speedd step 1). I was in a hurry and didn;t want to wait a few days for a good one from Mouser or the like, and indeed, teh Shack one was junk as promised.
Randy - That article by Keith Gutierrez goes back to January 1982 ! I wanted to build one of those myself, but those Radio Shack digital clock modules were long obsolete by the time I got around to actually wanted to do it - and I couldn't find anything else comparable.
It was a pretty simple conversion too.
That 555 option was to replace the 60Hz oscillator that drove a battery-powered electric clock. That should still work - especially if you want a period analog clock instead of digital. Most battery clocks still look the same - if this is the 555 circuit I'm thinking of, it directly connects to the two motor wires, bypassing anything else that might be in the clock electronics.
You used to be able to do a similar thing with a digital clock - Radio Shack sold a couple of clock modules which were just the chip and LEDs, you supplied a case, buttons, and power supply. It also came with documentation including a pinout of the chip, so it wasn;t too hard to figure out where to feed a clock pulse some something like a 555 circuit at other than 60Hz.
The PIC/Aurdino method is what I think that one commercial product uses - not the Logic Rail one that connects to Loconet, there's a standalone one that handles multiple slave clocks and offers options like using big 5" tall LED digits and so forth.
Also I seem to recall there was an article in MR not all that long ago (4-5 years maybe? Could be more) on building such a thing, I think by Keith from CVP. Depending on how old it is, the parts may be available still.
Then there is the old expedient of making a 12:1 clock by removing the hour hand and using the minute and second hands. But if there is a lot of yard operation needed, that's usuall way too fast a ratio. Might be great to make that 5 minute run from one town to the next take 5 hours, but then switching moves have to be carried out at warp speed so simply splitting a cut of cars into two tracks doesn;t end up taking 4 fast hours.
Yeah, with everything integrated into a singel chip these days, there's limited space for hacking into clocks now. I guess that's why the 555 hack I noted above refers back to old, non-digital technology, even though it uses a digital circuit to drive it. The parts should be easy enough to come up with, which is why I was surprised to find so little evidence of anyone actually implementing it. I suspect the circuit has "issues" that cause it to stumble.
I did see several instances where people did suggest using an Arduino. But I was hoping for bone-simple technology, didn't really want to implement a network or tweak software. I do have some in-house expertise available (wife has an EE and is a mainframe programmer), but prefer to do things I understand and that are hardware based, versus software based.
Besides, by the time I put together an Arduino, multiple displays, and network to drive the displays, I'm almost back to the cost of commerical systems -- plus I have to figure everything out. That's when those $60 NCE-driven displays start to look more attractive, as they would save a whole lot of work.
On the other hand, it's just a #*^)$#@# clock!?!
To me, it seems like there just must be a $30 solution -- as in 3 hacked displays for a total of $30 -- or definotely no more than the cost of a single commerical display. If not, then I guess I'll start saving for commerical implementations.
LION,
I like the pause button idea, but it's also one of the features on commerical units I'm willing to give up.
Otherwise, not running a subway, so need something a little more flexible for TT&TO implementation.
LION uses 1:1 clock. Him not really runs on a timetable, but rather dispatches trains every five minutes form the 242nd Street Terminal.
What LION does do is him has red emergency buttos all around the layout, so him can stop the action when something kneads to be fixed. This will stop all track power, it will stop the station timer, and it will stop the "Railroad Clock", so it in effect "pauses" the railroad... to be picked up again at the moment that it was shut down. Him can shut down for the night, and when him returns, the railroad time picks up from where it left off.
LION has a dispatch book which him fills out as trains arrive and depart 242nds Street, book also marks what trains need to enter or leave the holding pockets around the layout, thus thinning out the herd at night time, reducing operations to a 15 or 20 minute headway. This allows the work trains to come out and play.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Old original digital clocks often used an external circuit to generate the actual clock frequency, they were easy to modify to run at different speeds just by adjusting the RC circuit, or substituting a 555 circuit to generate the clock pulses to the actual clock circuit that drove the displays. Nowdays, with everything encapsulated and no longer using 'standard' clock module circuits, the problem is figuring out where to tap in.
I'm thinking a PIC or Aurdino, with a drive circuit to run the 7-segment displays, would be an easy way to do it. The code would be similar to one I write in BASIC many many years ago to use the PC as a fast clock, with a giant on-screen display. I released it as shareware back in the day, I think I had one person send me $5.
I need 3 or more fast clocks for my layout. Lots of good options in RTR, but I'm on a budget. I do use NCE, so have a decent clock available there, but everything starts above $50/display and that's just a bit too much right now.
I found a 555 timer circuit online in several places, but no real insight by people actually applying i: http://www.555-timer-circuits.com/model-railway-time.html
Ideally, I'm looking for something like taking a $10 clock, throw $5 worth of parts at it and I'm in business. Realistically, I can maybe afford a bit more, but I'm wondering what others have done on the cheap to get fast clocks?