Master!! Master!!! That is what I am going to start calling you!!!! Wow!!! This station Animation project is looking Super Hi Tech!!!! I look forward to the end results!!!! Great job Kim!!!! Puts what I am hoping to accomplish in animation to shame!!!!! I do know who to come to for Help though!!!! Hobo Tim :teeth:
Argh! He's doing it again! Using super expensive Kapton Tape for general use like door hinges. I caught Kim using Kapton to tape a shipping box shut before! And the rest of us pay through the nose to get a 3" strip from Tony's to insulate our decoders from the loco frame! Great job Kim!
Go for it, Kim! Must admit, though, it's really frustrating that I barely have the time on any given day to answer my email and check a few message boards, and only get to watch others who have a surfeit of spare time and spare capital...
Upps, he did it again. Kim, you have more servo's inside the station, than you would need to fly heli :teeth: I would like to see the Cray behind to manage all this, just crazy, and great.
Thanks guys, I get a lot of motivation from this forum and ideas from what what you folks post. That is one of the reasons I am posting details as I am building this to get someone else motivated and get their project jump started. Tim, You will be surprised how simple it is to program a microchips to control your devices. I'll help you any time, just email. Kim
Rob, I was at Halted once and they had Kapton tape for $.25, I thought it was $25 and was not sure so I picked up one and went to the counter and it did ring up as $.25 (Quarter) so I ran back and picked up the box full of Kapton tapes (~8 of them) and checked out for $2. That was cheaper than packing tape...... Kim
David, I hate to disappoint you, spare time and capital is scarce to most on this forum. Atleast for me. If I have a lot of spare time I get nothing done. When I am most busy I get a lot of things done in my hobby. It is just the motivation, that gets things done. Capital....? I am cheap... I get the $1.50 chips for free as samples. For kicks, the cost of the electronics in this is under $5. The servos are the most expensive parts at $7.95 each, which is cheap when compared to a geared motor. You can get them cheaper on ebay if one really wants. It is easier said than done but do whatever it takes to get motivated and let the frustrations go. Kim
Armand, The Cray behind this is a $1 microchip 12F675 (one of the low end chips). I hope more folks get addicted to microchips because it came out to get rid of 555 at the same price. But can do almost anything you can think of, here is some info on these chips and programming. http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1335&dDocName=en010114 http://www.best-microcontroller-projects.com/12F675.html If you are nor comfortable programming in assembly language or C there is even a basic compiler for it http://www.picbasic.org/ The free version of this compiler will work for this chip. you can get the chips at www.mouser.com for $.87 in qty of 25. Imagine you can get all your signal lights controlled by a single chip and change anything you want any time and also talk to DCC all from the comfort of your home (computer) and under $5. Kim
Hi Kim, They have up to 6 I/O connections, could it be that you use here 2 of them and synchronize them both over one of this I/O ? Just because you have 2 times 8 leg bug on the board...
Armand, I used one chip to control the speed of the spinning belt changing randomly. In the second chip, of the 6 I/O's one is input only and the other 5 can be programed as input or outputs. I used the one input as an interrupt to save all the servo position on power failure, so next time it powers on it continues where it stopped. The other 5 I/O are programmed as outputs to control the servos. Kim
The belt drive is very much in, the others are added extras. I spent too much time on making the belt drive to work without slipping and maintaining its position.
Thanks Kim, Problem is that physical laws always try to keep their order, if you want random operation, you open the box of pandora. (But I think they have no railway station in this ohio village :teeth I am also always planning about my amusement park, for some movement it is possible to choose magnets, but they must be dampen by oil, what could create nice pipi's on the track.
Finished programming and setting all the limits of operation for the servos... http://kimsartshop.com/tmp/Stn/Serv2.MPG http://kimsartshop.com/tmp/Stn/Serv1K.MPG http://kimsartshop.com/tmp/Stn/Serv3.MPG http://kimsartshop.com/tmp/Stn/ServSlide.MPG Next would be to start painting and assemble of the station... Kim
Chris, I thought about this but the people should have a base to stand and would be free to fall when moved around.. Kim
Servo Speeds! Kim, Do those servos work in one speed only or does the programmable circuit allow you to control the servo speeds? I watched the videos and the speed looked a bit excessive, but I could be wrong!!! Just a question!!! Other than that, the mechaniZm looks and works great!!!! Look forward to the end result!!!! Hobo Tim
Tim, The servos can be programmed to move at different speeds, I was cycling it fast for a day to get all the initial failures out. One link actually broke, I had my doubts on it too, I changed things a little bit in the mechanism and let it continue to cycle again. I have been painting and gluing parts, will post pictures tonight. Kim
Armand, There is a book by Paul Newitt called: "A beginner's guide to creative effects for your model railroad". ISBN 0-9760864-0-9. Like Kim's multi servo, he uses a single motor attached to a wheel/disc. The disk rotates only 30-45 degrees. Attached to the disk, at various diameters, he connects linkgages to moving objects. They too can have differing leverage. This allows for some objects to move faster or over a larger area than others, although they will all be synchronously moving. He uses a similar desing only with gears. Placed at different locations and with remote gears having different ratios, a similar effect can be had. There are a lot of other ways too. Check out Tamiya. They have a lot of motors, gears, linkages.
