[Coco] Model Railroading with a CoCo... WAS I'm grilling in January in shorts and no shirt.....

[John Donaldson]

   If you look at Digitrax's DCC system, this is exactly what they do. 
IMHO, the best way to use a COCO for model railroading is the use the 
serial port interface on a DCC system. Use the COCO as programmable 
Throttle. You can sense track detectors and such, talk to muti-engines, 
switchs, and etc. Thus you put the layout on the screen, sense the 
engines, and plot them on the screen as they move. There are open source 
C programs that you can get, that will speed things along. Why re-invent 
the wheel, unless that is what you want to do and if so, they by all 
means go for it.

John Donaldson



George Ramsower wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Banerjee"
> <snip>
>
>> I was wondering if anyone had ever worked with pulse encoders -- like 
>> the kind pulse telephones use.  I'm working on finding new and unique 
>> ways to connect a coco to a model railroad...
>>
>>                   - Aaron
>
>
> Aaron,
>
>  I've pondered and studied using a Coco to run a model railroad for 
> years. Studied the internet and even have a small N-Scale layout just 
> for testing some ideas.
>  I wanted a way to identify the location of two locomotives on the 
> layout so I could make them operate on the same track without 
> colliding. The problem is identifying which loco is which when they 
> cross over detectors. There are devices today that can do that and 
> report back to the computer the info.
>  I can't imagine how a dial pulse could help with this, unless you are 
> thinking of using pulses to control speed and direction. If this is 
> your intent, then you may be on the right track. Today, Pulse Width 
> Modulation (PWM) is the way to go.
> To control speed and direction with PWM, you can make a loco go so 
> slow, you can't even see it moving. It's speed is almost always 
> constant regardless of the load as PWM uses the full voltage potential 
> with each pulse. The longer pulse on time and shorter off times makes 
> the loco go faster. The high voltage pulses will burn through poor 
> connections on the wheels that make the electical connections and 
> result in a more reliable drive over not so perfect rails.
> I started playing with PWM back in the seventies and I loved it. Would 
> never go back to variable voltage DC again.
> What was you original thinking on this subject?
>
>  George
>
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