My ProtoThrottle Demo -

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

SeeYou190

 

 

Doughless

Go outdoors with the G.

 

 

When I had my landscape curbing installed (20 years ago), the design was intended to include a G scale layout inside the curbed area. The radiuses (radii?) of the curbing were designed around the proposed layout.

Here we are, two decades later, and I still do not own a single piece of G scale equipment. Also, I have lost all desire for outdoor railroading.

 

 

Doughless

I assume your neighborhood has a noise ordinance?  LOL.

 

 

This is a sore subject. A few years ago, Cape Coral did away with the neighborhood noise ordinances. You can imagine the results.

They just passed a new, and much weaker ordinance, but the police say they cannot enforce it, and code enforcement says they do not have the capacity.

-Kevin

 

Just one of the many reasons I own enough land to not be "that" close to my neighbors.

2 acres is a nice buffer from the other humans......

Sheldon

[gmpullman]

wrench567

There's no way to shut off chuffs. As long as the wheels are turning the pistons and valve gear are still engaged. There will be noise associated with that movement.

There is the "Drive Hold" function of the ESU decoders which can give the operator a little more control over sound intensity vs. speed or power output. This effectively allows you to select weather the encoder or throttle input is affecting the motor output OR the sound output. I like to play with it especially on diesels where I can mimic starting a heavy train and have the engines working very hard but the speed of the train at a crawl.

Other decoders will increase sound intensity by sensing the BEMF of the motor (or by current draw) and, generally, they will have a feature to manually increase or decrease the "load" weather it be a diesel engine sound or cylinder exhaust sound.

Regards, Ed

[Bayfield Transfer Railway]

I had a chance to use one of those throttles a couple of years ago.  If I could afford it, I'd get ten of them.

My primary interest is operations, and they add an incredible amount to the experience.  As a pleasant bonus, they make road trains take longer in their run, which helps keep the yard from getting buried.

 

[Overmod]

wrench567

Looks cool. But I'm a steam guy. They have a Johnson bar version? ;)

No; but then again modern locomotives haven't used Johnson bars for many years.  While there are power reverses that use levers rather than screws (Franklin Precision, for example, made both) the lever in these controls a valve, and there is not the tremendous load and back-and-forth jerking in a Johnson-bar setup.  (Yes, you could model this with force feedback, but the actual number of users might be small, and the ones willing to pay for it smaller still.

I argued for many years that one of the nonprototypical things about model steam is the fixed toylike representation of valve gear on supposedly operating steam locomotives.  Even a solenoid that jerked the block from one end of the link to the other when reversing would be better than nothing; a good model would use a proportional drive to position the cutoff and then use that along with BEMF and other factors to determine the 'chuff characteristics'... and the power the engine 'produces' to accelerate and move a consist.  Apparently we now have at least one system (described here a few months ago) that actually does this.

It would be nominally simple to provide 'one more lever' on the device pictured that would control simulated cutoff.  It might also be possible to use a rotary encoder or screw pot to simulate the action of a wheel reverser, with an appropriate display (perhaps a needle on a scale or a segmented LCD meter) that would show the amount of forward or reverse cutoff, and perhaps a digital % that would allow setting the fixed cutoff and contribution of starting or slot ports, or Herdner valves, as part of configuration.

If anyone wants a discussion of what steam valve gear does, start one over on the Prototype forum.

[Nevin Wilson]

I have one and absolutely love it.  it is like a lot of MR electronics, once you use it, it is hard to go back.  It was worth every penny.  

 

[Doughless]

Bayfield Transfer Railway

My primary interest is operations, and they add an incredible amount to the experience.  As a pleasant bonus, they make road trains take longer in their run, which helps keep the yard from getting buried.

I'm curious, does it do anything that a normal throttle can't do, if a person knows how to operate a normal throttle and set up some basic CVs into the loco?

What I see is a horn lever that looks like the real tooter, and a notching lever that looks like the real notcher, and their placements relative to each other being accurate.  I'm just wondering what the throttle does that is actually different/easier than a normal throttle.

[mbinsewi]

richhotrain

Pretty cool, I guess, if you are really into playing engineer with the time and patience to continually operate the throttle. This guy spends a whole lot of time with his fingers pressing buttons and moving levers.

Same here.  The cost makes me run away.

Mike.

[IC_Tom]

Doughless

 

 

Bayfield Transfer Railway

My primary interest is operations, and they add an incredible amount to the experience.  As a pleasant bonus, they make road trains take longer in their run, which helps keep the yard from getting buried.

 

 

I'm curious, does it do anything that a normal throttle can't do, if a person knows how to operate a normal throttle and set up some basic CVs into the loco?

What I see is a horn lever that looks like the real tooter, and a notching lever that looks like the real notcher, and their placements relative to each other being accurate.  I'm just wondering what the throttle does that is actually different/easier than a normal throttle.

 

 

You have to look at it from the other direction: how do you get a realistic-looking locomotive throttle control to function with everything that a DDC throttle can do?  What you're paying for as a result are the electronics to make those levers and buttons interface to "normal" DCC controls.  In addition, the machined, silk-screened and anodized metal casework, high-quality knobs and levers, are at least 50% of the cost, I'd estimate - maybe more. 

I'd like to have one, just as a working monument in a layout room.  As for using it all the time, no - I'm with Richhotrain on that one.

Still, one should recognize that it's a major achievement as an add-on product for model railroading.  I'm certain that those that want it and can afford it are purchasing them.  Maybe they'll come out with a more affordable mini-proto throttle eventually. 

[gregc]

mbinsewi

The cost makes me run away.

what if you could build your own, similar to TAT-V?   would the features of the ProtoThrottle be that enticing to be worth the effort?

there are inexpensive systems on chip (e.g. esp32) that can easily be programmed with just a USB cable that also support WiFi.   a few extra components: oled display, levers (?), switches and buttons.   firmware could be downloaded from the web.

if not, what are the ProtoThrottle shortcomings?

[thomas81z]

SeeYou190

 

 

Doughless

BTW, what's stopping you.  If that's what you really want.

 

 

 

I have already carefully collected everything for my dream layout, and built the entire Fleet Of Nonsense. There is no switching pathways now, I am locked in on a target.

. I know I am happy with HO.

-Kevin

 

kevin

totally agree since i collected 30 big boys & a  few other articulteds

its to late now lol