Question Occupancy detection

I was wondering how people were doing occupancy detection in Z? I have read that track current detection may be a bit iffy based on locomotive current. Personally not a big fan of optical systems I've seen.

Mark

 

Have you looked into using magnets and field effect transistors for occupancy detection?



The video shows a compressed length with track showing 4 red/yellow/green LEDs connected to Armand Marx's 3 light occupancy signaling. What I used to active the circuitry is field effect transistors placed before and after each signal LED. A tiny rare earth magnet is placed under the loco's front coupler and one under the boxcar rear coupler. One magnet field is reverse of the other. The front magnet activates the forward occupancy block while the rear magnet deactivates the previous occupancy block. What I should have done was use two occupancy circuits and just the loco so I could put 8 sets of LEDs.

If you look at the video and pause it at 4 seconds you will see that the closest LED changed from Red to Yellow as soon as the boxcar passed the second LED. Also notice that the blocks the loco and boxcar are in are two and both of those LEDs are RED. As soon as the loco passed the third LED the fourth LED came on and turned Green. Once the front coupler reaches the fourth LED it turns RED. As the boxcar passes the third LED the closest LED turns OFF!

Just watch the video.

The coolest thing about all of this is everything is hidden.

I have not played with it since 2008, but I do still have all schematics.

Tim

 

Please take a look at the topic called US Signals. In the 6 pages you will find a lot of good information on lighting your signals.

I have an update to the above message. The item I mentioned above using to detect the train consist is called the Hall Effect Magnetic Sensor. I placed them in parallel under the tracks in each block to activate Armand Marx's circuitry. I got my Hall Effect Magnetic Sensors from Electronic Goldmine as they include a simple circuitry schematic on how to use it. http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G1994 or you should be able to Google them. I was able to build the circuit and tie it to Armand's circuit to activate it. Works superbly!

Hobo Tim

 

Thanks for the input. I posted here because my main interest is how people are detecting trains in Z beyond the Märklin 8589.