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animated crossing gates

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31 replies
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  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 918 posts
Posted by Kyle on Monday, September 23, 2013 3:24 AM
I think that this would be a great question to ask on Cody's office, just leave the question in the latest one. You could also submit a question under the contact page of the Model Railroader site.

By the way, even if something only cost $20 in parts, the company has to pay the employees, the infrastructure (buildings, machines to make the things, etc.), the development for new products, the transportation of the product to stores, advertisement, etc. plus any successful business has to make a reasonable profit. That is how the price goes up.
  • Member since
    September 2013
  • From: Near Fort Wayne, Indiana
  • 12 posts
Posted by Rich_R on Monday, September 23, 2013 7:24 AM

Hi Kyle and all;

Hey!  I'm serious about the $20!  I've done a lot of shopping around for the best parts price and bought in pretty large quantities the put together a package that I can easily sell for that price.  Actually, I don't intend to be in business selling parts.  I really don't intend to be in business at all nor am I interested in earning a few dollars here and there.  I started out just to prove a point to my partner that $100 for a RR crossing flasher was ridiculous and we thought we share this with others.

I put some hard work and used all my expertise in micro's to make a decent flasher that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg.  Most of you guys have no background in micro-computers and couldn't do this, even if I posted the software very few would be able to burn it into the micro.  I can't just give away pre-programmed micros so I have to charge for it.  While I'm at it I put together my choice in parts that I can pass along to anyone that's interested for a very small markup.  The basic flasher/track detector is on my web-page right now.  We're installing version #1 of the turnout motors on Hugh's layout right now.  The crossing gates are almost ready, but I still have a couple of bugs to take care of.

Yeah, I could raise the price way up by shelling out for a pc board and screw terminals, but from the reception I've been getting I don't really thing anyone would want to bother building the IR track sensors and stuff, they seem to be only interested in something they can plug together and run.  I'm not going any further with this project.

Yes, I'll toss in a piece of perf-board, you can build it anyway you want.  I show you how I built it.  You can build it my way above board and easily hide it.  You can use about any kind of crossbucks and gates you want, I used the cheap ones.  The turnout motor and the crossing gate circuit are more complex and I built it on the perf-board and even went so far as to include plugs and connectors. (I've tried some of the screw connectors and they don't work very well with the 30AWG wire.)

For the guy that said $12 for a pair of six position terminal blocks was a good deal, I'm sure that he considers his time to be so valuable that he can't spend a few hours building this stuff.  My time is valuable too, I'm really getting discouraged.  I'd just post the software as a freebie, but I just know that somebody would have it on the market for $200 in no time.

Rich

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