Category: Gadgets

Broad parent category for anything electronics related, e.g. motor control, passenger car lighting, etc.

Latest Acquisitions – Part III

barkmannLeave a comment
Charging Port Behind Ladder
Charging Port Behind Ladder

Back at it again! This time it’s just a tender all by itself. I normally wouldn’t buy just the tender, but for this eBay auction, the pictures showed some unique features. The first thing that caught my eye was the toggle switch protruding from the bottom of the tender floor. Next was what looked like a reed switch, presumably to sense speed from one of the axles for a sound system.

Another feature was what looked like a charging port on the rear bulkhead, which would imply some sort of battery power scheme. Unfortunately at the time, there was no separate engine listed without the tender that may have matched up to it. Hoping there was to piece together the mystery of what lies within. Oh well, for the “Buy It Now” price, it’s worth the gamble.

The hope is there’s another Phoenix sound system inside at the very least. Battery power would be an unexpected bonus. Although this is likely all very old technology, it’s new to me. And what better way to learn about these older, no longer manufactured locomotives than to buy a few, investigate, and experiment with them?

Evidence Of Sound System
Evidence Of Sound System

Surprise!

When it finally arrived, the initial inspection revealed it was dirty. Just like the other items, it looked like it was placed in the box, straight off the rails. Not like it just sat on a shelf long enough to gather dust, this is last run outside and left to sit stored there, like part of an estate sale score or something. Could very well be. And like the other tenders, the shell came off and got a good scrub.

But not until finding a few surprises! The first is the weight. This thing is HEAVY! Next, the toggle switch isn’t the momentary on, center off, momentary on style expected, but rather just a standard, two position toggle! Hmmm… Guess that means I didn’t get the Phoenix sound system I was expecting. Not sure what to expect now. Time to get that shell of and see what’s really inside there.

Where to start? There’s a LOT more packed inside here than what I expected. First is a large, HEAVY, NiMH battery pack from Cordless Renovations. That’s connected to a small circuit board with that toggle switch on it. That’s also connected to what looks to be a three terminal voltage regulator on a substantial heat sink. Guessing this is the power supply and that toggle selects between charge and run.

Packed Full Of Goodies
Packed Full Of Goodies

Score!

From there, the power supply feeds what looks like a large interface “breakout” board with four slide switches labelled track/battery, on/off, smoke on/off, and lamp on/off. There are numerous connectors, some with something plugged in and others empty. There are a few pads labelled but not populated with any connectors at all. We’ll get into more detail in a bit.

The biggest thing of note is the daughter card, piggybacked on the interface card, labelled with a 2.4GHz FCC ID and a short, straight wire antenna. This has wireless remote control! Another big surprise is what looks like a sound card. It has the expected momentary toggle switch pigtailed to it. Could it be the volume control switch for another Phoenix sound card?

This is exciting! For the cost of a sound system or a wireless remote system or a battery pack or even just a tender alone, we them ALL! It’s going to take more sleuthing to figure out what we have exactly, but this was more of a score than I ever expected. Is this another one of those seller didn’t know what they had items? Or knew what they had but also knew it didn’t work?

Whatzit?
Whatzit?

Many Questions

I feel like a kid in a candy shop! But now it’s time to answer some questions. My recent success with Google’s search by image feature prompted another try for that wireless remote control. It’s a 2.4 GHz Revolution Train Engineer receiver with sound! Wow. Now all we need is the transmitter. And the programming software. And Crest or Aristocraft to still be in business to get them.

The transmitters can be had on eBay, and even some online dealers still list them, albeit as back ordered or out of stock. The good news is they can be had for a price, somewhere between $150 and $200. As for the programmer and the software, that may prove to be difficult to find, let alone acquire. Unfortunately it’s one of those need one to reverse engineer one situations.

The next question to answer is what sounds system is this? For the first time the search by image has let me down. Time to take a different tack… Searching for Phoenix together with the patent ID labelled on the card turns up a link to a Big Sound 2K2, like the one I already have. But this one doesn’t look like it, It’s smaller and has a different configuration. Thankfully the link also has others listed.

Phoenix Whatzit?
Phoenix Whatzit?

The Search Continues

The next in line is the P5 model. This appears to have the same pinouts, but the picture doesn’t quite match the configuration of the components. It’s difficult to know for sure since the entire card is protected by a large piece of heat shrink tube covering everything except the connectors on either end. And there’s a piece of sticky backed velcro stuck to that, together with its mate holding it to the tender floor.

Next up is the P8 and what looks to be the perfect match. Same pinouts as the P5, except this one warns that without some connection to the speed sensing input, which there aren’t, there won’t be any sound. Bummer. But it also says that it should provide background steam sounds or diesel startup sounds when idle. So which is it. Idle sounds or no sounds? Guess we’ll see when bench testing.

Looked up the battery too. That particular model is no longer available, but other styles are, so all is not lost. A more more modern lithium style battery would be preferrable to the older NiMH technology, but beggars and all that…

Bench Testing

Now to find out if it’s worth the money spent. Since the run/charge switch position isn’t labelled, it seems prudent to remove the battery leads from the circuit card and deal with it separately. Thankfully the connections are all screw terminals, labelled even. I don’t have any charging equipment for that multi-cell style battery pack, just single cell chargers, usually four cells at once.

Using the bench supply and closely monitoring the voltage and current should provide a good enough indication of charge rate and completion. The label says 18V, but it requires more like 22V before any appreciable current begins to flow. We’re talking an amp or more vs. tens of milliamps. The charging current continues to fall as the battery voltage increases. The supply voltage must be increased to compensate.

The goal is to keep the current above an amp without requiring excessive voltage. Charging is complete once the current falls to less than 100 milliamps at full charge voltage, which in this case appears to be ~22V. Without doing the math to add up cell voltages in series, we’ll call that good enough. It’s taken several hours already and should provide enough power to do some testing.

Bummer

Flipping the switch causes the battery voltage to drop from ~22V to ~2V? What is going on here? Did I somehow create a short when I broke the charging connector trying to remove it from the tender shell? Well shoot! Is it that 5V regulator? Is there something else going on with the sound card? Is the battery pack weak? Without jumping in and disconnecting and testing everything individually, who knows?

A first pass through everything looks like the charging connector is shorting the battery when switched to the apparent charging position. With that connector disconnected, the battery voltage remains the same with the switch in both positions. Maybe it just expects the charger to be plugged in before switching to charging? Dunno. Guess I’ll need to fashion a charging plug for the bench supply to find out.

Time to totally eliminate that little power distribution circuit card from the equation. The charging port is now disconnected as well as the battery leads. That leaves just the power feed connections to the Phoenix sound card and the wireless remote interface card. Thankfully they’re screw terminals as well. Time to isolate the sound card and remove those power leads too.

A Sound Success

As a precaution, even the miniature JST connector is unplugged, presumably feeding all the external triggers to the sound card from the wireless remote control. The bench supply is set to 12V. As the test leads are connected to the power wires of the P8, it hisses to life! It’s the steam startup sequence. Another working sound system. It looks to be more modern and smaller than the Big Sound 2K2 unit in the Mikado.

Rather than just jump in and try to power the wireless remote card, it seems prudent to reverse engineer that small run/charge switch card. Time to draw the schematic and hopefully get a better idea how it interacts with the charging socket. It’s the 2.5mm variety and doesn’t need the 2.1mm adapter. It does rely on the charging connector to complete the circuit when no plug is inserted.

Time to check the health of the 5V three terminal regulator. At this point, if that’s not the problem, then that leaves the wireless remote control card. Nope. Not the 5V regulator. Just briefly touching the bench supply to the battery input leads causes the voltage to drop and current limiting to engage at 10A! It almost welds the wire to the test lead clip!

Running Out Of Options

Switching to track power doesn’t seem to have any effect. That is to say, regardless of where the test leads are connected, the power doesn’t seem to get past the wheels. It seems to have pickups that connect through the wheel bearings, but with one wheel isolated from the axle, it amounts to just four wheel pickup, not eight.

A bit more fiddling reveals that the short is polarity dependent. There should be an assumed bridge rectifier to convert to the proper polarity but seems to be expecting the correct DC polarity. Turns out the track inputs do the same thing. Nothing for one polarity, dead short for the other. Guess I just managed to find the correct polarity the first time around.

Buzzed out the diodes on the interface card and they all act like diodes, none conduct in both directions. Removing the wireless card cures the short. Well, that’s that. Something’s wrong with the wireless remote card. Bummer. Glad I didn’t already spring for that transmitter! One thing left to check, the underside of the interface card, in case it’s double sided. Nope.

Fresh Fried Circuits

Throwing in the towel this time. The plug in wireless remote control card is fried. Unfortunately, it also has the motor control drivers on it, eight power transistors under a heat sink. Without it, about the only thing battery powered is the sound system. It’s a little disappointing, but I put enough of it back together to be able to do just that, battery power the sound system by flipping a switch.

It’s a good jumping off point though. This will allow experimenting with the different motor controller setups we have, only this time they’ll be built into the engine itself. Going to need some sort of full wave bridge if running track power though. Next steps would be charging from track power. That’s something I’d like to add to the passenger car lighting and the old style 9V powered cabeese marker lights.

 

Latest Acquisitions – Part II

barkmannLeave a comment

It had been nearly a year since we added to our equipment roster, until our recent addition of a Mikado, described in our first installment. This time around, it’s an Aristocraft Pacific. It’s as good a deal as could be found. Not as good as the Mikado, but close. It’s a little more expensive and a little less impressive, but only because it’s the early version with plastic side rods and such.

It does have the original sound system in the tender, and it still works. It’s missing the whistle and the bell, but the bell harp is still there. It does have the “cow catcher”, unlike the Mikado. The one big feature it sports is it’s in the B&O Royal Blue livery. And like its ten wheeler predecessor, it’s a bit on the wobbly and unreliable side. But there’s hope for it. It should be fine after a much needed tune up.

Being the early version, it still has the “glowing firebox” feature, no longer present on the more recent Mikado. Best I can tell, the Pacific is pre 2003 and the Mikado 2003 or later. The difference is the Mikado has an added Battery vs. Track Power switch stacked with the Motor On/Off switch in place of the glowing firebox door in the Pacific.

The Pacific has Motor On/Off on the cab floor, along with the Lighting On/Off switch, also on the floor of the Mikado. The Pacific placed the Smoke On/Off switch at the front of the engine on the pilot frame. The Mikado has its Smoke On/Off switch on the cab floor, opposite the Lighting switch.

B&O Royal Blue Pacific
B&O Royal Blue Pacific

Initial Findings

I did manage to find the manual and more information on various large scale sites. It appears to match the “Old Pacific” manual. And now my searches are turning up the ART-5400 PWM controller for use with it. Still haven’t found the “magic words” for the search to find the waveforms. But then again, that was probably a closely guarded bit of secret information (read intellectual property) when they were still in business.

I won’t go into all the details of our foray into PWM motor controllers here. It’s pretty much covered elsewhere. The long and short of PWM, for me anyway, is the annoying buzz at anything in the audible frequency range, and the lack of response from any built in constant lighting circuitry at any frequency greater than a few kilohertz.

Considering this locomotive also sports its own track powered sound system, not sure how Aristocraft managed to get the PWM concept to work, let alone together with it. It does require a fair amount of voltage before anything works. IIRC, the wheels didn’t even start turning until around 8V.

Original Aristocraft Sound Card
Original Aristocraft Sound Card

We Have Sound

It took some doing to figure out how this sound board works. When I first opened the hatch on the tender looking for a battery, not only did I not find one, I didn’t even see the 9V battery clip laying inside there on the very bottom. It became very apparent when I removed the tender shell to get a look at what was going on inside.

At first glance I can tell this is old technology, likely from the ’90s judging by all the discrete components surrounding four Dual Inline Package (DIP) style integrated circuits. One’s a quad comparator op amp, one’s a decade (÷10) counter, another’s a hex inverter/buffer, and finally a dual channel audio amplifier. I finally got rid of most of my DIP style parts recently, deciding I’d never be using parts that were at least 30 years old in any design.

Of course the first thing I have to do is look up which post is which on a 9V battery so I can attach the bench supply with the correct polarity. Let’s try not to let out the magic smoke, shall we? So with that knowledge in hand, I power on the bench supply and… Nothing. Adjusting the voltage has no effect. Neither does adjusting the current limit. What about spinning the wheel with the sensor on it? Nothing.

Or Do We?

All this is going on while trying to record a video of it, and paying more attention to that, the lead that fell off the bench supply goes unnoticed at first. Not sure what the first clue was, no current draw perhaps? With the power now connected, the faint sound from the speaker of amplified noise together with one of those old style analog bell resonator circuits, right on the edge of ringing, riding on top of the noise can be heard.

Adjusting the volume knob has the expected “crackle”, another remnant from analog days where any DC voltage present on the adjuster arm detects every speck of dust in its path and creates a loud “pop” in the speaker when it finds it. But the real payoff comes from spinning the wheel with the sensor on it. The bell comes to life, then the chuff, chuff as the wheel spins faster.

It does manage to make reasonable bell, chuff, and hiss sounds, but will be replaced once the I2S sound sketch is up and running. The short exposure to that Phoenix 2K2 card spoiled me. It’s less than half the size of this thing, makes much better sound, and can be controlled simply by connecting external reed switches or programmatically via DCC or other means. And even that one’s obsolete!

 

Does It Run?

Jumped the gun describing the sound system first though. Once the tender’s open, it’s obvious more research is required. Testing out the engine came first. I set it on a short stretch of track and connected the test leads from the bench supply. It does run, if only for a short time before it runs off the end of the track. Reversing the polarity sends it the other direction.

So it does run, but how well is unknown until the first set of run in stands is finished printing and assembled. It takes six for just the three driver axles. Those together with the other ones I already had printed and assembled should be just enough… If the mix matched colors isn’t an issue. That set took all but the last one of the roller skate bearings. Time to restock those and the other hardware.

It probably wouldn’t have taken as long if the assembly steps hadn’t been recorded as well, but at least they’re finished. Once on the run in stand, it’s obvious this has a lot of slop designed in, most likely for tight radius curves. There’s at least a quarter of an inch (~6mm) slop side to side in each of the driver axles. Couple that with the middle axle being driven only by the plastic side rods and it’s a wobbly ride!

 

Death Wobble?

Don’t know if it’s “death wobble”, but she’s certainly a rockin’ back and forth and side to side! With a slight tug on the cab the wobble is tamed somewhat, but not entirely. While the first and last axles are physically linked together by a shaft to the motor, that middle axle is free to “float” between the side rod links. There are two of them, not one solid single side rod like on the ten wheelers.

One link is connected between the drive pins of the middle and rear drivers. The other connects to the that link and the drive pin of the front driver. The connecting rod from the piston and cylinder shares the middle driver’s pin with one of the side links as well as the arm to the valve rod. The sector arm rocks back and forth around a centered “Johnson bar” with the valve rod action.

That’s the extent of valving action. I’d like to draft up a CNC design to mill out metal side rods and operational valve links with prototypical reverser action. Unfortunately, the Mikado suffers the same valve action limitations with rigid cast plastic in place of the expected moving mechanism. Just now thinking about, it may be possible to borrow valve parts from the ten wheeler replacement mechanisms. Hmmm…

Saving The Best For Last?

More like saving the boring for last. The first installment of this series focused on catching up with where we’re at and why expanding the roster wasn’t a priority. Then it moved on to how most of these historic items are no longer available except for those rare offerings on eBay. The occasional item may pop up in an online dealer’s list of previously owned items, but they’re usually way overpriced.

With that being said, the particulars of the deal were held until the last this time around. This particular acquisition was one of those buy it now or best offer deals on eBay. Most of those available were in the $750 – $1150 “Buy It Now” price range. Not sure what the original price was back when Aristocraft was still in business, but even so, that’s pretty steep.

The offer was half the ask, and the seller countered with an extra $50 tacked on. Combined with tax and shipping it was a little over $500 all told, not quite a hundred dollars more than the Mikado deal, where the tax and shipping together were still less than just the shipping here.

Stupid eBay Tricks

Guess it’s a common “trick” eBay sellers use to avoid having to pay more of a surcharge or lose as much when some buyer tries to rook them, but when I see shipping costs of more than a hundred dollars, it better be hand delivered, straight to my hands, and not tossed around by the postal system until it’s dropped at my doorstep. Literally.

One thing I didn’t cover in the first part was all the offers I got from sellers I hadn’t extended and offer to… Way to scare me off. Folks I’ve never met nor reached out to, already “leaching” out to me. I already think what they’re asking is overpriced to begin with. Those offers only put the price in the ball park of other sellers, before I make any offers. No thanks. I’ll keep looking.

I know what these items are worth to me, regardless of what the sellers think they’re worth. “No lowball offers. I know what I got.” comes to mind. But enough about eBay sellers and tactics. I bought the item I wanted for a price I was willing to pay. Granted, it’s not what I thought I was buying, but it’s a good enough start to know better next time. Who knows? Maybe I’ll design my own CNC version of the mechanism and 3D print the rest.

The Best Part

The best part is all the video material recorded while exploring these “new to us” models. It’s been way too long since we’ve posted any new videos to our YouTube channel. They pretty much stopped when our beloved Brigel crossed the Rainbow Bridge mid 2022. There’s a short of Brigel’s last days with us to mark the anniversary of his passing, but nothing since.

That’s not the only reason, but it definitely took its toll on us. Another source of concern was the aging computer system we use to edit and render the videos. It was a real screamer in its day… A decade ago! Now its age is definitely showing. Nick gave me an older video card he had that was still more powerful than the one I built the system with. That’s helped for a while. But the old girl is tired…

But not retired. That system has roughly 20TB of storage. Some of it SSD, most of it spindle drives. It provides network access to all our collected works, knowledge, and projects. When we lost two of the 2TB drives, meant to be backups of each other, we lost most of our pictures from 2013 and parts of 2014. It was the motivation to pull the trigger on a new machine.

A New Hope

The new system is more than capable of creating videos. There were some hiccups along the way, like when the boot SSD failed, and it could have been bricked for more than two months. And all this just after finally getting everything squared away and ready to go. Seemed like we just couldn’t catch a break. I took the opportunity to rebuild a new boot drive without all the extra fluff included with Windows 11.

Back up and running, all the while waiting on a warranty replacement SSD. At first it was a struggle just to figure out who was on the hook for the warranty. Once that got resolved, things didn’t improve much. Not until I finally convinced someone in support that having a new computer that’s essentially a brick sitting under my desk for the last two months wasn’t the user experience I expected when I bought it.

He sent me a new 2TB boot SSD express! The best part was I got another 2TB replacement SSD a week or so later through the standard warranty channels! So I bought a set of USB drive cases and now have two external 2TB SSD drives for portable storage. The new computer itself was already treated to an upgrade of a second internal drive, a 4TB SSD!

A New Video

With all that being said, it’s time to start putting out the videos again. I managed to collect up all the relevant material in a “starter” project I can “save as” to any new video project, then just remove the content that’s not related. Maybe I should just export all the bins and import just what I need into the new project. Guess I’ll try both ways.

I use DaVinci Resolve for making videos. It’s just the free version, but has plenty of features even so. Microsoft was pushing their latest Clipchamp “freebie”, but it’s barely capable of editing out the unwanted parts just creating a short excerpt video. Guess I’m spoiled. I’m using version DaVinci Resolve 18.6, but they’ve already pushed out the new 19 release.

The short video clips in these new posts were created just for them, saving the full up content for new YouTube postings. All we need now is that “flashy” intro for the channel. Maybe even a trailer to boot. Just need the inspiration…

Much more to come. Stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Latest Acquisitions – Part I

barkmannLeave a comment

It’s been nearly a year since we added to our equipment roster, choosing instead to concentrate on infrastructure improvements, organization, and storage. While I’d like to say we’ve been busy doing that, progress has been almost nonexistent. If anything, we’ve taken a few steps backward. The latest setback is preparations for hurricane Helene, hurriedly cramming everything in the garage, and making a shambles of any progress organizing it.

One great feature we added long ago is the storage drawers for the old Bachmann ten wheelers and passenger cars. More recent acquisitions concentrated on diesel equipment, mainly freight oriented, but the USA Trains heavyweight passenger car set upstaged all the Bachmann passenger cars. And while those ten wheelers are well suited to the Bachmann cars, the heavyweights would look out of place behind one.

Most of the other steam engines we have are more suited for logging applications, like the three truck shay and mallet. There’s that 2-6-0 we were going to modify to match the “Orange Blossom Cannonball” that we used to ride from Mount Dora out to Tavares and back, then realized it was the wrong prototype to start with and would require massive modifications. It would be much better to start with something closer, but the original has long since ceased operation anyway.

Limited Choices

Few manufacturers make anything more than “novel” steam engines. LGB is one of the few remaining, but predominantly European designs. USA Trains has one offering, the UP FEF-3 Northern, with a price tag of $4,000. Not for the feint of heart, or pocketbook. Considering the only other offerings are live steam, usually in the $5,000-$7,000 price range for just a little 0-4-0, pretty slim pickings if you’re in the market for a modern steam engine.

Before they went out of business, Aristocraft used to make some decent modern steam engines, like a 2-8-2 Mikado, and a 4-6-2 Pacific. LGB also had a 2-8-2 Mikado offering. No one makes them anymore, which leaves the aftermarket, be it eBay or online dealers. Of all the hobby shops I used to frequent, I can only think of one that may still be in business, and it’s paired with a photography store. Trains on one side, cameras and such on the other.

There was one time way back, when we were shopping after going out to dinner, we thought we found a new one. Walking in we were told they just sold all their inventory to another dealer. I don’t want to call those types of deals “predatory”, so let’s just say the online dealers I’ve seen, brick or mortar front or not, seem to want exorbitant amounts of money for what’s left of those “rare” items.

Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware)

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve found a few good deals online, but not many. That leaves eBay. My experience with eBay has been mixed. If you’re looking for deals on eBay, you really have to know what it is you’re looking for. You need to “do your homework”, so to speak, and go in with “eyes wide open” as they say. Many of the sellers are established, and most are fair and honest and want your return business.

But even though some sport good overall ratings, they’re shady nonetheless. Back when I was restoring classic motorcycles, I had a seller refuse to refund my money when he had obviously posted a deceptive offering. When I gave him a poor review, he retaliated and said I was the one that was lying about the whole deal and trying to get something for nothing. Live and learn, and NEVER deal with them again!

Sadly, the best deals I’ve found is when the seller doesn’t no what they have, offering the item for much less than it’s worth, or mislabeling it where most others looking for the item wouldn’t think to look at that auction. Long gone are my days of sniping items at the last second. I’m more of a buy it now type these days. I know what I want and what I’m willing to pay for it. These latest deals were one of those “Make an Offer” types.

Milwaukee Road Mikado
Milwaukee Road Mikado

Shiny and New?

From eBay? Nope. As luck would have it, I got a great deal on an Aristocraft Milwaukee Road Mikado from an online dealer! Listed as “Very Good” and in the box, the price was already lower than anything I’d seen on eBay for similar items. Couple that with a 10% off coupon and it’s a deal. That 10% almost covered the tax and shipping. I think they priced it low because the tender had been modified with some sort of aftermarket electronics added to it.

Talk about a deal! I’d even call it a steal. The only way I knew there was something in the tender from the pictures was the handle of a toggle switch protruding from beneath the floor. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but knew it was some sort of electronics. For less than $450 delivered, I had a “new to me” Mikado. Of course the first thing I had to do was see if it ran. Normally that would be as easy as applying power to the wheels. Not this time though.

I did a quick internet search for the manuals and such. Near as I could tell, the plugs and wires I could see kind of matched the schematics? The front pilot was fitted with an Aristocraft coupler and the “cow catcher” was missing. One of the cast steps from the tender was broken off and missing too. There were other loose parts floating around, like the whistle and rear pilot, but not those parts.

Oh well. For what I paid, I can’t complain, although I might argue with the “Very Good” rating they gave it.

A Peek Inside The Tender
A Peek Inside The Tender

Such a Deal

One of the first things I did was take the shell off the tender to see what electronics lurked inside. Not that I’d know what I was looking at mind you. There’s a built in circuit card, and additional circuit card, a speaker, a small battery pack, a couple of switches, one in the tender floor and one in the tender shell, and a bunch of mix matched wiring, complete with wire nuts. Ugh. Thankfully there’s a connector to the switch in the tender shell.

The additional circuit card uses “modern” surface mount components. It has one large, apparently custom chip, with 40 – 50 pins and a large “sticker” on it.  I try Googling the numbers from the sticker and other components but not getting a good match from any of them. I’ve never used the image search feature… Until now. That’s what it takes to get me a valid match. Turns out it’s a Phoenix sound system! Nice!

At least that’s what I thought, until I tried to find more information. It’s a BigSound™ 2K2, short for model year 2002 I’m guessing. But I’m too late to the party. They went out of business more than a year ago. Even though I’m able to find a saved version of their website on the “WayBack Machine” site, looks like none of the PDF or MP3 files were saved. Damn! That means no manuals, no sound files, nothing.

Now What?

I did manage to find the manual and more information on various large scale sites, and one user even brags he recently made a copy of the Phoenix site, but advises to just throw them in the bin. Great. Thanks for the help. Any information gleaned from a site no longer available, that might help support others willing to take the time to keep these things working, would be greatly appreciated.

If you’re reading this and have the sound files, and are willing to share them, please let me know. If you have the programming interface and installation CD, even the schematic, I’m interested in those too. The bottom line is I have one of these sound systems and it still works fine. I’d like to keep it working and not just throw it away because there’s something newer and better.

The good news is IT WORKS! Let me see if I can figure out a way to embed a video player here. I may need to link to one already deployed on the web site itself. It has chuff, dynamo, automatic whistle, cylinder cock steam hiss, and bell on first motion. The chuff must be speed sensitive since it has some sort of magnet/reed switch sensor on one of the tender axles.

Sound Works, But Does It Run?

One of the first things I did after diving into the sound system was to take the engine apart, both to clean it and see if I could just apply power to the circuit board and get it to run that way. I was able to download the manual and parts diagrams for it along with the schematic. It shows a “jumper board” that can be replaced by DCC or other means of remote control. It’s nice that one end has the power connection and the other end the ground.

It has a built in switch to select battery power or track power, but applying power to the pickups on either of the pilot or pony trucks doesn’t work, regardless of the position of the switch. That small battery pack is just to keep the sounds playing when track power is removed. I was hoping it was some sort of battery power arrangement for running the locomotive too, but no such luck. With the shell removed, I have access to the circuit card.

Connecting the adjustable bench supply using a set of test jumpers, I slowly increase the voltage. With the base of the engine laying on its side, the drivers slowly begin to move. IT WORKS TOO! Wahoo! Not sure why the power pickups on the engine aren’t working, but at least I know once it gets power it will move. Would hate to think it relies on just two axles on the tender for power, but a battery power conversion will fix that.

It’s Alive!

I am absolutely thrilled with these results. The next step is to get things working reliably. To that end, I begin disassembling the drive mechanism. This is a strange beast to behold though. Each axle has its own dedicated gear box, all connected together by drive shafts, with the last axle also connected to the motor by drive shaft. I start with the lead axle gearbox, carefully removing the side rods and the the gear box itself.

Or should I say rod? That’s when I find the engineer’s (right) side is missing the link between the first and second axles. Bummer. I can probably design and 3D print something that will fit, but these are all metal side rods, and I’d rather fashion something from metal than plastic. What are the odds of finding that replacement part for a 20 year old engine? Slim to none I would wager. Disappointing, but not a show stopper.

Digging deeper into the first gear box, I realize at least one of the wheels will need to come off to split the gear box halves and expose the innards. The gear box itself is plastic, the halves held together by two screws each on opposite sides. The worm is metal and the drive line components have ball bearings on either end of the worm shaft. The axle also has ball bearings. The weird thing is the wheel and axle is taper fit. Never seen that before.

Missing Side Rod Link
Missing Side Rod Link

Replacement Parts

Generally wheels and axles are keyed to each other in some fashion to ensure quartering is maintained between sides. This design relies on the taper fit to wedge the wheels to the axles. The tighter the wheel retaining screw, the tighter the fit to the axle. Again, not a show stopper, but I realize it’s going to take some sort of quartering jig to maintain ALL the wheel positions relative to each another and decide to stop with that first axle.

The ball bearings looks to be single sided metal shielded, and the one at the front of that first axle gear box is pretty rusty and crusty. Its movement feels rough too. Time to replace it, but I don’t have any bearings on hand that will fit. Time to grab the measurements and see what’s available. The nice thing about bearings is they’re standardized and can be identified with just the measurements.

I ordered a pack of 10 for when I finally decide to get in there. I’d do a total refresh of the gear boxes and such, but for now, it will be easy enough to just replace that front bearing without having to tear the rest of the driveline apart. Until I come up with a quartering jig, there’s no way I’m tearing it all apart. The goal is to get it running “good enough”. It would be a good thing to get the track good enough to run on first.

Next steps

As luck would have it, there are just enough spare run in stands to assemble together for the engine to sit on, and in matching black no less! It takes every last one I have that isn’t dedicated to another engine type. I’ll need to 3D print and assemble 8 more for the tender, but considering it can just sit on the rails with no moving parts, there’s no great hurry or need. For now, we’re all set.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Lighting Gadget

barkmannLeave a comment

Another lighting gadget? Why? Because it’s necessary. If you’ve read the post about the office refit, you’ll know why “Data Central” needed a new lighting gadget. If not, let’s get you up to speed. Recently the office got a “facelift”. To be more precise, many of the issues with the office arrangement were addressed. In fact, this new gadget addresses an issue that way caused by the refit.

We added a new shelf over the monitors on the desk. Those monitors shared space with lamps hidden behind them. The lamps shone upward and bathed the white ceiling with light, then reflected and scattered back into the room, softly illuminating it. That is, until the shelf effectively covered them.

Well, it didn’t exactly cover the lamps, but it effectively blocked their light from doing anything but backlighting the monitors. And the monitors don’t need backlighting. The overhead light on the ceiling fan is too bright. The LED fixture over the gadget bench is WAY TOO BRIGHT. Now what? We need a new light.

Inspired by my latest lighting adventures controlling lithophanes, I decided to dig out those LED strip corner frames I bought years ago to use for the train station lighting. The train station we no longer have, lost when we removed the raised bed planters along the patio. Anyway, the idea is to place the corner frame along the back of the shelf over the monitors, facing toward the ceiling and out into the office.

Those corner frames have a face at 45º to either side, meant for the LED strip to stick to, and a snap in diffuser over top of it all. While I didn’t really need the scheduling additions from the lithophane lighting sketch, I did want all the updates and bug fixes that came with it. I also expanded the “build from config” feature to get us closer to not having to create a dedicated HTML page just to control all the different lighting arrangements.

ESP32 Arduino Testing LED Strip

Designing The Fixture

The picture shows the ESP32 I’m using to test the sketch, connected to the first 55 of 110 LEDs. The shelf is 72″ long, so I cut two of the meter long (39.36″) frames and diffusers to 36″ each. The plan is to connect the two at the middle to make a 72″ long fixture of sorts. But to do that I’ll need to design some sort of end caps that emulate those that come with the frames.

At full intensity those 110 LEDs will consume 60mA * 110. That’s 6.6A! I don’t think even the powered USB 3 hub will handle that much current. Time to order a dedicated power supply for this project. All I can find is 6A and 8A, but the 6A version will take too long to get here, so I go with the 8A version. It may be a bit overkill, but I’d rather have too much than not enough.

The frame extrusion is hollow behind that 45º face so the plan is to power one end and run the wiring through that hollow space to the middle to evenly distribute power between the two halves. The difficult part is trying to shoehorn an Arduino as well as the power connector into the smallest box at one end.

LED Strip Illuminated Running “Flicker” Effect

Baby Steps

Sounds easy, right? Let’s start with copying the end “stopper” to get the dimensions correct. It takes a few tries, but eventually the part snaps right into the end of the extrusion. From there, it’s a new design to snap over the extrusion rather than snap into the extrusion. The reason is original has a long “snout” that fills the hollow space we want to run the power wires through.

We need the snap over design to provide a “window” for the wires to pass through where the original snout would be in the way. That much is a no brainer, but it still take a second try to get it right. The next step is to figure out how to reduce the size of those “default” 3 pin connectors. For the life of me I cannot find a name for those standard black connectors.

But it doesn’t matter because they’re too big to use anyway. One of the JST connector styles in one of those assortments may work. Turns out an XH3 works just fine. Three pins on tenth inch (2.54mm) centers. Add that to the cap design, one opening for the power lines and one for the XH3 connector. We’ll need one on the power supply end and two for the connection between the two halves.

Making It Fit

Now all we need is some sort of box to house the power connector and the Arduino. The ESP32 we’re using is too big and way overkill for what we need it for. Even the ESP8266s we normally use is too big. One of the WeMos D1s ought to work. It’s the smallest we have that still uses the ESP8266 core.

Starting with the power connector for initial dimensions, the design is just the box with a hole in it for the connector. It takes two tries just to get the dimensions of that hole correct. Rather than design some elaborate attachment scheme, it’s assumed the control box will be glued to the end cap. For now the goal is to fit everything inside the box.

Shoehorning the Arduino in there pushes the dimensions a bit larger than desired, but it’s still roughly a ½” deep by a little more than the dimensions of the WeMos D1. Why ½” deep? Because there’s not much more space left between the wall and the doorframe to fit anything else. After capping the shelf with ¼” thick screen mold, it’s already 72½” long anyway.

End Cap and Control Box Design

That much is done. Now we need to modify the design to add a snap on lid that we’ll glue to the end cap to keep everything attached to the end of the fixture. The snap effect is decisive and holds tighter than the end cap snapping over the end of the fixture. Considering that control box will rest up against the wall that shouldn’t be an issue.

Not shown is the access port for the USB micro connector on the Arduino. It serves two purposes, the first of which should be obvious, programming access. But the real reason there’s an access port at all is to help align the Arduino and keep in in place as well as reducing the overall length of the box since the connector extends beyond the edge of the circuit board. It’s a small amount, but not negligible.

Joining The Fixtures

Seems like this should be the easiest to do, after all, we’re just sticking them together, right? At first I was thinking just a pair of connectors, one on each end, and maybe some sort of back to back plugs to connect the sockets together. That went out the window with how much the connectors would extend past the end.

The next idea is to allow a single connector from one end to extend through the opening in both and a plug with a short pigtail from the other end to connect them. The only concern now is how short of a pigtail and will it interfere with any of the LEDs. Sounds good. Until considering the power leads, or rather, failing to consider them.

Rather than take the time to drill holes in the aluminum extrusion, it’s quicker to just drill a couple holes in the 3D printed plastic end cap, then loop the wires from the bottom hollow section up and through the holes to solder them to the power traces on the LED strip. There are copper “pads” every LED, so the connector will solder to the pads at the end of the strip and the power wires to the next set of pads.

Adding The Controller

It’s a bit of a hack, but it works. With all the wiring work done for connecting the two fixtures together as one, it’s time get to work on the controller end. Time to “ohm out” how these fine Chinesium power jacks work. Three terminal, only need two, but which? There’s usually a set of switched contacts that provide continuity until contact is broken by inserting the power plug. Then only one of them is in contact with the plug, breaking the connection with other.

Generally the power connection would be switched, but in this arrangement, it’s actually the ground. Tip is power, ring or shroud is ground. Before all that, the lid needs glued to the end cap. Then the power lines can be run through the opening in both and soldered to the power jack. The jack can then be mounted to the control block, passing the wires through the lid unit.

That leaves the connection to the Arduino. And that means crimping the pins for the plug of the “harness” to the Arduino. Unfortunately, the crimper is loaned out. There’s a “backup crimper” that sort of works, but just as many pins are wasted as there are good crimps. There isn’t room for pin headers to be soldered to the Arduino, so the harness wires are soldered directly to it.

First Test of Assembled Lighting Fixture

The sketch is already loaded on the Arduino and it’s ready to go! The Arduino fit in its space, plugged in, and the box snapped on, all that remains is to plug in the power supply and wait for everything to come to life… And it does! WooHoo! Just had to try changing effect right off the bat. Christmas TruTone® effect, complete with blinking! Looking good!

Now to see if everything will fit on the new shelf over the monitors and continue to work. A few last minute tweaks to the sketch, including setting up the config for a warmish white. Well, try as I might, these LED strips are the finest quality Chinesium and it shows. There is just no way to make these things look warm. It’s either that pinkish “grow light” white or a harsh blue white, but at least it’s ready to deploy to the shelf.

Well, at least it’s sitting on the shelf and operational. Fully deployed would mean clips attached to the shelf or the wall to snap the fixtures into. And that sounds too much like work at this point. We’ll save that for later since the shelf will be taken down to stain and finish in the near future. It makes more sense to wait and do it then, if at all.

If anything needs done, it’s adjusting the brightness and tone of the light to match the desired lighting for the room, and that takes some doing. These LED strips probably weren’t the best choice. The red power and green power don’t seem to balance out to a warm yellow or amber. It’s either way too green or way too pink, with no happy medium between the two.

New Lighting Fixture Deployed on Shelf

Future Changes

Having spent hours trying already, it’s time to look for a better LED strip. If anything, those LED strips need swapped out with some quality Alitove strips. The problem is there are so many different “brands” available, most of which are cheap knockoffs, that it’s difficult to know what you’re buying beforehand. Paying for quality counts.

There seems to be a bug with the power button in the UI as well. It works fine after short delays up to hours, but overnight it somehow only enables the red of the first pixel. Turn it off then back on again and everything’s fine. Must be something in the loop handler for the power, or the effect, or both. For now, it works well enough to use as office lighting.

I’d really like to finish the “build from config” feature to get get away from having to create a dedicated HTML page for every gadget that has to address every minute detail of controlling it. There’s really no way to avoid having a dedicated page though. For example, favicons will differ along with files included based on what is being controlled.

But automating the control portion of the page based on configuration and what is being controlled will save plenty of time

New Office “Grow Light” White Lighting

If anything else is lacking it’s an Amazon Alexa interface. A quick and dirty way to enable that would be to just plug the power supply itself into a already Alexa compatible smart outlet. Eventually I’ll figure out what it takes to add that to the Arduino sketch. More like once there aren’t so many other pressing issues on the Barkyard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Office Refit

barkmannLeave a comment

This post is a bit off the beaten path compared to other posts about the Barkyard itself. Why a post about the office? We’re refitting “Data Central”, the heart of Barkyard designs, gadgets, and posting of course! Just about everything associated with the Barkyard starts here in Data Central. An idea starts here and grows here. Whether it’s online research or Arduino coding, it all starts here.

What used to be drawn up with pencil and paper is now captured electronically, and has been for years now, decades even. And over those years, the applications used have changed, many so old they are no longer supported by modern operating systems. For example, while my favorite Windows 95/98 programs continued to run on Windows XP, they absolutely will not run on Windows 10 or 11.

What does all this computer speak have to do with refitting the office? Everything. Within reach of my office chair are two servers and three laptops. The two servers share physical keyboard, mouse, display, and USB devices via a KVM switch. While not really necessary, it certainly comes in handy when we can’t reach the Internet for whatever reason, when I can’t use Chrome Remote Desktop to access the other server.

The Start of Good Things To Come

Computers Are Great… When They Work!

These posts are created on the new computer, with a brief hiatus while the failed boot drive was replaced. Short version is just before the year warranty ran out, the 2TB SSD failed miserably and the computer refused to boot. I put in a warranty claim, then waited months before I was finally able to talk to someone who cared, and he express shipped a replacement SSD to me.

What’s the kicker? By the time the normal warranty chain played out, they ended up sending me another replacement SSD a few weeks later! As much as I complained about their cumbersome and exasperating support process, or lack thereof, it serves as a striking example of how not to do things. But it paid off for me in the end! I’m still chuckling about it.

Whether designing a new gadget or coding a new Arduino sketch or writing a new post or just plain research for the Barkyard, computers are a vital part of it. The older server provides large data storage and backup, both for applications and data. The new server is optimized to compose and render videos, perform CAD/CAM, and provide enough local storage to save all the collective research.

A Bit of History

There are two work cells, one devoted to personal servers, the other a gadget work cell “around the corner” from the first, now shared with work computing. That’s where the laptops come into play. When I started back to work more than two years ago, I needed another computer work space, separate from my personal computing space, for the work laptop and its associated devices and monitors.

The original gadget workspace was a set of cabinets, one 42″ and one 36″, that supported a ¾” cabinet grade plywood top. The 42″ cabinet forms an “L” with two more 36″ cabinets along the back wall facing the Barkyard. All in all, it’s a Galley style arrangement when the computer desk is added along the opposite wall.

I wasn’t pleased I had to share my gadget assembly and testing area with my work computing. Work by day and projects by night? Sounds good until there’s a project laid out that can’t be put “back in the box” the next morning when booting the computer and getting back to work. At least it pays the bills.

Preparing to Install the Split Unit

Original Rework

The makeshift computer work cell using the original 42″ cabinet was not optimized for computing. For that matter, it wasn’t meant for computing at all. The cabinet sat on the floor, which runs downhill toward the back wall. Originally this was the sleeping porch, now closed in and under air. In fact, it has it’s own dedicated split unit now to handle all the heat those computers and printers throw off. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

About the only thing that can be said is it’s level so things don’t roll off it. It’s home to all sorts of electronics and parts assortments and Arduino kits, haphazardly arranged on a custom shelf arrangement that was previously meant to store CD jewel cases. Thankfully the top shelf is just wide enough to hold up another set of monitors.

It doesn’t take long to realize that not only is it not optimized for computing, it’s in no way ergonomic either. The pain in my back, through my hip, and down the side of my leg is telling me something has to change. Assuming it’s constantly fighting that tendency to roll downhill since the pain is on that side. Of course, having to keep my feet up in that cabinet probably doesn’t help.

That 42″ cabinet has to go. Go where? Out. It doesn’t matter where. But that doesn’t help fix the downhill slope of the floor. The plan is to lay down a 4×4 sheet of ¾” plywood, strategically supported to keep it level. The only problem is that 36″ cabinet, but there’s nowhere for it to go. Now what? There’s just enough space to push those other 36″ cabinets along the back wall far enough to spin that 36″ cabinet around and inline with the other two.

Long story short, the floor is now a level sheet of plywood with a nice rug to cover it and the gadget workspace is now a dedicated counter supported by a set of custom brackets. Custom brackets that used to support my HO scale layout at the old house, sitting in the garage waiting to be useful again nearly as long as we’ve lived here.

Data Central Two Years Ago

The Problem

Well, there’s more than one problem, but the main problem now is the haphazard arrangement of everything in relation to everything else. There are five 27″ monitors, and no two sets of them are at the same height. The two monitors dedicated to personal computing are at just the right height off the desk, sitting atop its “Pidgeon hole” cabinet, roughly 9″ at the base. The middle of the screen is just at eye level. No neck strain.

The base of the single monitor dedicated to the surveillance system sits right on the gadget counter, but that sits about 3″ lower than the desk, about 12″ lower than the first set of monitors. And even though that counter is lower, the custom shelf arrangement holds the base of the two monitors dedicated to the work laptop at a good 6″ – 7″ higher than the personal computing set.

As if that isn’t goofy enough, the counter isn’t long enough to complete the “L” with the desk, so there’s a gaping 20″ chasm between the wall and the edge of the counter. That monitor for the surveillance system teeters precariously over the edge and the USB hub sitting next to it is always falling into the abyss. What should be a Galley style arrangement isn’t. The issue is the metal and glass shelving unit that promised to be more useful than it turned out to be. All it does is collect dust and it needs to go away too.

Another problem is the loss of storage space with the loss of that 42″ cabinet. To that end a drawer was added under the counter and between the custom brackets. But because it wasn’t well thought out when installed originally, a compromise was made. More like a complex set of pieces were needed to force the drawer and slides to fit, even after it was cut down from its original wider size. Between that and constantly banging my knees against it, that will need to be addressed as well.

The Solution

The solution to these problems and more is a refit. That is to say a retrofit to re-fit everything together in a more purposeful, organized fashion. I’ve been updating my office layout in SketchUp, mainly to try some “what ifs” without having to tear everything apart to test fit ideas. It definitely helped me figure out where that 42″ cabinet would fit, along with the rest of everything else.

I’m not going to lie. Part of that effort was to catalog and look at some “what ifs” for placing the old HO scale layout sections in a bookshelf layout arrangement, fitting and reusing the various shapes and pieces of ½” plywood sub base that’s been waiting to become useful again along with those custom brackets. But that’s on hold for now. More pressing matters to address.

More pressing matters like continually deteriorating infrastructure and soon to be installed fiber service. That’s right, it’s finally here. Nearly twenty years after we were originally promised fiber at the old house, and by the same company no less! It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know that until their trucks showed up out front or I would have told them to pound sand! But that’s another story for another time.

Not that we were unhappy with our service provider, 250MB per second download speeds are nothing to sneeze at, but we’re lucky to get 10MB – 12MB per second upload speeds. The one and only time we tried to go live failed miserably because of those limited upload speeds. With fiber we can speed less and get more, like 1GB per second down and up! In fact, we can cut our costs further by going with the 500MB per second plan.

Before Slicing and Dicing
After Slicing and Dicing
Plywood Sheet Conveniently Cut Into Shelves

The Refit

That’s the motivation for the refit, and the motivation to get the refit done now, before they come to install the fiber. So what exactly is the refit? Good question. Glad you asked. To boil it down into its most condensed form, it’s slicing up a 4×8 sheet of ¾” furniture grade plywood into dedicated shelving that solves all the disparities already listed.

  • A new counter section that not only fills the missing gap, but also adjusts the height and solves the constant knee banging.
  • A new shelf to align all the monitors at the same eye level height along with increased storage space.
  • A new shelf along the wall over the personal computing and surveillance system monitors for more storage space.

It begins with the shelf over the monitors so there’s someplace to put the Gramazon, and the track and rail cars sitting on top of the work monitors, and anything else that needs a temporary home while fitting the new counter and the other shelf. The shelves are cut 12″ deep for the 8′ length of the sheet. That leaves the remaining 24″ for the new counter. All that remains is fitting to length and capping with screen mold for a clean, finished look.

“Hidden L” Brackets

Originally I was going to make custom wooden brackets for the shelves but the more pressing need to finish before the fiber is installed put an end to that idea. Looking at various options online, I came across the “Hidden L” arrangement. Essentially a thick, flat piece of metal with an attached mounting bracket at a right angle that is partially hidden by the shelf it supports. My only concern is how much they’ll sag under load.

The Rethink

The shelf for over the monitors is shortened to 6′ to fit the available space between the wall and the door frame. Then the screen mold is glued and brad nailed into place. Finally the piece is sanded smooth and ready for placement. After attaching the brackets to the wall at every stud, 16″ on center, the shelf is set in place. I can pull the shelf down at least ½” applying a lot of force. Even though they’re rated for 100#, I imagine I could bend or break the brackets if I hung my full weight on them.

I’m pleased with the fitment and the resilience of the brackets but soon realize I forgot to cut the angled notch out of the corner for cord relief. No matter, there’s enough clearance on either end that only the fattest power cord wouldn’t fit. Considering the only power cord so far is for the amazon dot and it could fit in the space between the bracket mount and the back edge of the shelf, roughly 0.2″ thick, it’s not a big deal.

The New Counter and Monitor Shelves Waiting For Trim In The Garage

The office isn’t quite 8′ wide, roughly 90½” from the inside wall to the outside wall. The original plan was to place the counter from wall to wall with those 36″ cabinets lifted and levelled to match, mainly to allow access to the floor plywood to rework the levelling supports beneath it to firm things up. Best laid plans…

After seeing how the wooden bracket that supports the 3D printer shelf would interfere with the back runner on the cabinet and how much trouble it was trying to maneuver the new counter into place, the plan to make everything level was quickly abandoned. Cutting to fit wall to wall turns out to be a bad idea, an awful idea in fact.

After multiple back and forth trips to trim the length it’s still a bear to get the thing maneuvered into position. Short of nearly standing the thing up just so the corners clear when rotating it into place, it’s nearly impossible to clear what used to be the porch banister, still a major structure on that wall. Add to that the overhang sagging on either side of the custom brackets and we need a new plan.

The Replan

More like we need a replan. We can add another one of those custom brackets on the end by the desk, but we’re out of luck on the end over the 36″ cabinet. The decision is made. The counter will be cut to fit up to but not cover the 36″ cabinet. That is to say we’ll remove 24″ from the 90½” length. We’ll also add that third custom bracket near the inside wall to support the sag on that end.

Next step is to rework the mounts for the drawer slides. Starting with a 1×4 doesn’t give enough clearance for the contents of the drawer. The big offender is the mixer board, stashed there until needed. The idea is to leave it connected and just pull out the drawer when we want to use it. Switching to 1x6s. My knee aren’t smashing into the drawer anymore, just the corners of those 1x6s!

The new shelf for the other monitors is cut to fit wall to wall, which is still a bad idea. After multiple back and forth trips to trim the length it finally fits. The biggest issue this time is it deviates from the plan and there’s not quite enough space for the surveillance system monitor in its planned position.

New Counter and Monitor Shelf, Complete With Third Starship Liftoff!

The picture above shows the halfway point so to speak. This is the work laptop setup. On the left in the foreground, glowing green, is the new power supply for the audio amplifier. Behind that is the surveillance system, it’s PoE ethernet switch for the cameras, and the battery backup (UPS) for those and the amp. The monitors and the laptop itself have their own dedicated battery backup (off screen to the right).

The keyboard and mouse sit atop a piece of 1×6 that spans the front of the drawer and acts as a keyboard shelf. The dedicated microphone and audio amplifier for the associated speakers is visible on the right, left speaker visible on shelf to left. The surveillance system monitor has been relocated to the right side of the work monitors. Regardless of its placement, the work monitors must shift one direction or the other. Time to go back to plan.

The original plan calls for a “round the corner” fitment for the shelf on the left end, pretty much where the left speaker and Gramazon are sitting. What’s a Gramazon? Good question. Glad you asked. See that blue thing there that looks like a gramophone? The base contains my Amazon Dot 3 and the gramophone part guides sound to and from it. It’s one of the first 3D prints I made, starting with one for Ann’s Dot 2.

“Around The Corner” Shelf And New Fiber Modem/Router

Time’s Up

Because they had to locate the utilities, pull the permits, and trench in the new fiber before they could connect us, it gave us a bit of a reprieve of maybe a week or so. The picture above shows we’re still working on getting the refit finished. It didn’t stop the installation or even slow it down. Having to go through three different fiber modems set us back more than our refit, still in progress, but at least they figured out what was wrong with their system and fixed it.

You can see the fiber modem/router in the picture above, white case with a green light. I dressed out the ethernet cables from the surveillance cameras using short lengths of Velcro® looped around on itself, and the excess length coiled beneath the fiber modem. To the right of that and under the square chunk of shelf is the surveillance system (NVR) and the PoE switch to manage all the connections.

At least this time I remembered to cut the cable relief in the back corner of the shelf. Still missing is the planned angled cut on the front corner facing out of the picture. The plan called for an 18″ square piece with a 6″ triangular relief cut from the front corner. That plan was modified to avoid having to move the shelf bracket. So 16½” it is. Hopefully that will provide enough space for the surveillance system monitor to sit above it.

Installation Finished

Both the fiber modem and office refit are installed and we’re happy with both. It certainly took some doing though. What started with dropping the Internet connection a few times a day turned into swapping modems twice, each time getting worse, not better. The last attempt and we had maybe ten minutes of connection before dropping again. Totally unacceptable! Now I’m wondering if we haven’t allowed the same company to totally screw up our Internet once again.

Both Ann and I have 100% remote jobs that require a reliable Internet connection. At least Ann has an Air Card supplied with her work laptop. Me? Not so much. I had to tether through my phone until they fixed it! They had to replace some “filter” downtown at the office just blocks away from us. This played out over the course of a week or more.

I must admit, now that it’s working reliably, 540MB per second speeds both down and up is really much better than we had before. Maybe we’ll try one of those livestreams again to really test it out. It certainly was a distraction from more pressing issues, not to mention the extra stress of having to deal with it at all. Now back to the matter at hand, the refit.

Refit Installed, Monitor Shelf and Counter Shown

A place for everything and everything in its place is the ultimate goal for the refit now that the new counter and shelves are installed. Even the idea of hanging the battery backups from the underside of the monitor shelf panned out. Most of the project “pencil boxes” are back where they sat on the counter, but all the parts kits and such are still sitting in a large tub in the corner of the office, their place yet to be determined.

The picture shows one of the benefits of having a second computer space for laptops. That’s my personal laptop, but it can share the same docking station that came with my work laptop. Convenient. Very convenient. Both are ThinkPads, but my personal one has the super sized screen, which is why it’s folded down to fit on the counter. I do like having three screens for sure.

As an aside, the Windows 11 driver for the CH340 serial controller doesn’t work, but the Windows 10 version does. You’ll never guess what’s running on the new computer. Good thing I can connect the laptop and have it talk to the Arduinos that use that CH340 chip! In fact, that’s pretty much what’s going on in the picture.

New Gadgets

Speaking of Arduinos, the refit inspired a new gadget. A new lighting gadget. You can see the first cut at it above running the “Christmas Tru-Tone™” effect. A little setup first might help. The monitors aren’t the only things sitting on the desk “Pidgeon hole” cabinet. Behind the monitors at each end of the desk are a set of lamps. Those lamps have Amazon Alexa compatible smart plugs attached so I can say, “Alexa, turn on Office 1” and the lamp on the left will light.

Convenient. Much more convenient than having to run the lamp cord by hand just to find the inline switch every time I want to turn one on or off. Unfortunately, the new shelf over the monitors on the desk blocks the light from the lamps. What used to illuminate the white ceiling and cast light throughout the office now provides just a backlight to the monitors. An unwanted backlight. We need something to replace the light we lost.

Inspired by my latest lighting adventures for controlling the lithophanes, I decided to dig out those LED strip corner frames I bought years ago to use for the train station lighting. The train station we no longer have, lost when we removed the raised bed planters along the patio. Anyway, the idea is to place the corner frame along the back of the shelf over the monitors, facing toward the ceiling and out into the office.

Those corner frames have a face at 45º to either side, meant for the LED strip to stick to, and a snap in diffuser over top of it all. While I didn’t really need the scheduling additions from the lithophane lighting sketch, I did want all the updates and bug fixes that came with it. I also expanded the “build from config” feature to get us closer to not having to create a dedicated HTML page just to control all the different lighting arrangements.

I’ll save all the exciting details for a separate post. Suffice it to say that it took some doing, both in hardware and software. The end product does what I want, provide a soft backlit atmosphere for the office, perfect to see what you’re doing but not so bright that I have to squint. This picture shows the shelf over the monitors. You can also see the split unit and the Gramazon on the right.

Let There Be Light! The New Office Lighting Gadget In Operation.

Finishing Touches

If anything remains to be done it would be to apply a finish to the new shelving. I think I’ll save that for when I have a week off of work and can take the counter and monitor shelf offline long enough to stain and finish them. I can take down the shelf over the monitors pretty much anytime I want, but I’ll probably wait and do them all at once. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get motivated to stain, finish, and level those 36″ cabinets too!

I may even break this into two parts, seems kind of long winded, even to me. Let me know what you think in the comments.

 

Back To Work!

barkmannLeave a comment

My First Day Back To Work!

After an extended time off, I’m finally back to work. And it’s good to be back! Now the money for new trains and other Barkyard related items will come pouring in! Just in time for USA Trains to start producing their F7A-B units again! And I threw a couple of GP38s in the order for good measure… Pent up demand I suppose.

It’s nice to not have to worry about spending the money again. I was laid off back in May of 2021, so the “reserves” were running low, so to speak. This opportunity just fell in my lap! And the timing was right. Providence and all that I suppose.

I was hoping to have the Barkyard self sufficient and operational by now. Life’s what happens while you’re busy making other plans I suppose.

Just when we got comfortable with Rocket and his special needs, just when we thought it was safe, Brigel is diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia. His right atrium is three times normal size, and his heart will eventually fail. And to top that off, his digestion is hit and miss as well lately. Some days he has no appetite. Other days he’s fine. Could be worse I suppose.

Thankfully this is a one hundred percent remote position, although I did have to travel to Lakeland PD for a Go Live after my short one day stint on Jury Duty here in Lake County the day before. Everyday is a winding road… And I took them home from Lakeland. All two lane and back roads. It didn’t take much longer than taking the super slabs and toll roads would have either. Less stress I suppose.

They sent a docking station and a 24″ monitor along with the laptop. I had another 24″ monitor dedicated to the surveillance system, but decided to double it up with the one they sent. I’ve been using my son’s spare 27″ monitor as a third with the server, but reallocated it to the security cameras. I ordered a new tactile keyboard and trackball dedicated to the work system. The only drawback is sharing my project bench space. It’s not so much shared as reallocated since I have to stash the projects out of the way. But it keeps me focused on work I suppose.

Data Central

I’ve renamed my office “Data Central”. What else would you call six computer screens staring at you 24/7? I exaggerate of course. Come close of business Friday, the work laptop gets stashed until start of business Monday morning, freeing up the project workbench for the weekend. I’ve already splashed the liquid cement I use to bond the 3D printed PLA pieces on the track ball, leaving discolorations on the right button. Now I stash it too. Learned my lesson I suppose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Halloween Ghost Town

barkmannLeave a comment

 

The Idea…

We transformed our downtown marketplace into a ghost town for Halloween. The idea that the empty building faces already made it look like a ghost town played right into it…

But we needed more than those same tired buildings I cast so many years ago. Something more than three storefront apartment buildings. Something big. Something Grand. Hello Grand Hotel!

But that still wasn’t enough. Those foundation blocks with their corner cutouts have been patiently waiting for some attention too. Hello Corner Drugstore!

All of these additions came together in the few weeks before Halloween. Most of the groundwork began in September, but filing our taxes stole time away from our goals. And we had many goals.

Glow in the dark ghosts. Lightning bolts striking the Grand Hotel sign which would then remain eerily lit. “Uncanny eyes” gazing about in the hotel’s elevator houses atop the towers on either end. Even a drive in theater playing horror movies!

The Result…

Alas, those were not to be, but there’s always next year. We are more than pleased with what we accomplished though! The customized lighting effects stole the show. They were the show!

Eerie “ectoplasmic” colors fading in and out. Bright blues coupled with flashes of lightning give the impression of dramatic and destructive electrical explosions. Surging waves of blood red, as if the building is breathing.

Here’s a look before we even had the Corner Drugstore finished!

The History…

It all started with the desire for better lighting inside our passenger car “fleet”.

All but a handful of these passenger cars are Bachmann, the style with two light bulbs inside and a 9V battery box beneath to power them. They really couldn’t be seen until dark and the battery usually only lasts a few hours until it’s dead anyway. Not real impressive…

I used 5050 LED strips for everything, starting with lighting under our patio train station platform… All 16 feet of it! These were pre canned light strips, complete with remote control and power supply. I even dug in an underground feed right to the corner of the platform dedicated to powering it.

The next step was to fit shorter segments of those strips inside a passenger car. This had a number of drawbacks. First, while small, the Arduino controller still didn’t fit inside the existing battery box. The Lithium battery is slightly larger than that. I designed and 3D printed one large enough to replace the existing battery box.

Fast forward to now. Many iterations of the design later, I switched to using 2812 individually addressable LED strips, for a number of reasons. What’s the difference? The power supply for one. The 2812 strips run on 5V, the 5050 strips require 12V. Not a showstopper, but it does require extra parts to boost the 5V supply I already have to 12V.

The biggest difference between the two types is the ability to address each LED on the strip individually with the 2812 style. While the 5050 version allowed me to mimic the effects of the pre canned units, I wanted to be able to have them individually flicker, even scroll in marquee fashion!

The Effects…

I started with the easy effects, jump, fade, flash, blink. I added the ability to individually address each “pixel”. Then I added the flicker. It can be adjusted to be as slow and subtle as a kerosene lamp to as fast as an arc welder, with a flickering candle flame somewhere in between.

The problem is all the effects are global in nature. That is to say, they affect ALL the LEDs at once. Only the “per pixel” selection allows for changing each pixel’s color independently from one another and the ability to scroll them (marquee).

I spent a good bit of time to marry the two versions together… The issue I have to solve is the all or one addressing, or rather, pixel addressing and grouping. In a nutshell, we have baggage cars (no lighting whatsoever), combination cars (baggage and passenger sections), full passenger cars, and what I’ll call a parlor car (with an additional lit herald on the back railing).

How to handle all these different situations in ONE implementation? The hardware was identical, with 24 LEDs for each. The only exception is an extra 3 LEDs for the herald. The software is as generic as well. Each car has its own configuration that describes its unique situation.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, all these “gadgets” use a web browser interface for control. The embedded Arduino controller has built in WiFi. It operates as an access point that will allow other devices to connect to it as well as connecting to an existing WiFi access point as a client.

All of this allows the Arduino to act as a web server, serving up the control interface web page, available to any device on the network! Smart phone, tablet, laptop, you name it. If it has a web browser, you can control it!

I’ll add a video capture of the interface in action soon…

The old version only accounted for baggage and passenger sections of the combination car. The herald lighting wasn’t even addressed. It’s a step by step approach. First the LED and group addressing. The next is modifying the effects selection for each group and pixel.

In the process, I had to “wedge” the new additions into the existing status reporting mechanism. I pretty much gutted the entire per pixel reporting mechanism and refactored it to better fit into the group addressing scheme. Needless to say, the per pixel addressing functionality was the last to come back online.

Without getting into too much detail, there are two sides of the coin we’re talking about here. The client side and the server side. The client side is the browser client, consisting of HTML web pages, CSS for styling, and javascript for the nuts and bolts programming “smarts” behind the button pushes and handling the web socket interface to the web server.

The web server is the Arduino side, serving up the control interface pages and taking the appropriate actions when commanded. If this is all Greek to you, that’s alright. It’s a lot of programming jargon if you’re not interested.

If you are interested and would like to know more, leave a comment and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have. If there’s enough interest, I can add more detailed posts that describe how this all works.

The Ghost Town…

I had to further adapt the passenger lighting controller to become the ghost town controllers, starting with the Grand Hotel. But that’s not the only thing we needed. It would help if we actually had a Grand Hotel! For that, I cobbled together a number of 3D print designs I’d been working on to improve the casting process in the form of custom molds.

After many iterations, I finally managed to match the brick pattern sheets I used to cast the original storefront apartment buildings. In fact, I came up the the positive version before converting it to the negative impression suitable for use as a casting mold.

With a few changes here and there, I can print the various pieces of a building, one floor at a time. In essence, I’m converting a concrete block into a building using a 3D printed skin, one 5″ x 8″ section at a time. The sections are then joined together similar to styrene models, using a different liquid cement (chloroform), together with brick strips that mimic columns and headers.

If you’re a model railroader in smaller scales, you’ll recognize the approach is similar to Design Preservation Models modular kits. They supply a set of walls, window, door, and other detail castings, and the assembly instructions. All you need is glue and paint.

Detailed Downtown Marketplace Buildings

Once Detailed Downtown Marketplace Buildings

Ghost Town

They Soon Became The Ghost Town

The resulting “skin” then slides over the block, after painting of course! It’s obvious the window frames and glazing are missing, but that’s what prompted us to make it a ghost town in the first place! The original buildings had both window frames and glazing in addition to a ground floor store front at first, slowly demolished by continued collisions with the pups.

I start by assembling floor sections together into a single three story wall then comparing it to the block. My first attempt fell short… Literally. Had I butted the brick header strips together with the sections to be joined instead of overlapped on top of them, it would have been just about the correct height.

The Grand Hotel…

Armed with this information, I began to madly 3D print wall after wall. I already had a few walls that I had previously printed, attempting to recreate the existing storefront apartments. My first attempt left too large an opening for the windows. The next attempt matched the window openings very closely, but added an extra brick to the width.

Great for ¼” thick castings… For a 0.072″ plastic brick sheet, not so much. The great thing about thin plastic sheet is how easy it is to cut with a good pair of scissors! Not Kindergarten scissors and construction paper easy, but easy enough to trim half a brick off either end without much bruising…

This is a seat of the pants operation here. It doesn’t need to look perfect and it doesn’t need to last, it only has to resemble a big hotel from a distance at dusk. If you look closely, you’ll see there are no doors anywhere on the ground floor. Kind of like Hotel California, “You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave”, assuming you could get inside in the first place!

In any case, I soon exhaust the entire replacement spool of yellow filament. I screwed up getting the hub to fit inside when I first got it and it’s been hanging there ever since. The fear was a tangle in the line will cause a knot and jam the printer extruder. The result? A failed print at the very least. A flying spaghetti monster if not caught in time.

I was lucky this time though. I was present for most if not all the printing. Each section takes about three to four hours to print, so I continue to update my Arduino code while printing continues in the background behind me. Not only did I exhaust that entire replacement spool, I went through another regular spool as well, plus part of a second!

I had to wait on the second regular spool to get here too! The hotel is complete except for a few sections, so at least the side that shows looks like the Grand Hotel.

The Corner Drugstore…

The Corner Drugstore was meant to be printed from a spool of brick red colored filament I ordered especially for it. There’s something to be said for sticking with the known quality of a brand of filament. Apparently, I chose poorly… I tried three times to get a print just to stick to the bed before I finally gave up and threw it off to the side.

I loaded up my usual brand of filament in the bright red variety and had nothing but perfect prints one after another. This building is different than the others in that the corner entrance wall and doors will be at a 45° angle to the side walls. With barely enough time left to print the side walls themselves, I didn’t take the time to design the entrance and the 45° column pieces.

I did design a different set of window walls though. Two large windows per section for the bottom floor, as if there is restaurant seating, and four small windows for the middle floor sections suggesting a mezzanine. The upper floor sections are the standard three window apartment style windows.

I even added a set of alley side carriage doors with a small office door beside them. It went together quickly, but not quickly enough. I was still adding those finishing touches Halloween night! I ran out of time to cut the aluminum extrusions to size for the LED strip to fit inside.

Not even the original storefront apartment buildings had them, just the Grand Hotel, and even then those were cobbled together and barely fit inside the blocks. I needed something to diffuse the bright spot source of the LEDs. Even with the diffuser covers snapped in the extrusions over the LED strips, they can still be seen and it’s obvious they’re LEDs.

The only “pictures” I have are actual video recordings of it, and even then it’s just the incomplete skin. At least it’s painted brick red and has the lighting effects installed! It was a rush job to say the least. I was lucky to get as much done as I did. Here’s what the end product looked like. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Most of the work remaining on it and the rest of downtown will wait until the new Main Street design is finished. The idea is to pour a thin concrete “sidewalk” that will serve as Main Street and the side streets, including curbs, sidewalks, and a firm, level foundation for all the buildings. But that’s another project for another time…

The Code…

The code has evolved over time, based on the success of previous additions from various projects. It all started with the WiFiTrainController Arduino sketch Nick put together a few years back to control his Lionel trains. Between his inspiration and my renewed immersion into embedded systems control at work, there’s a strong motivation to return to my “gadgetronics” days of the past.

After a number of iterations of modifications, and many failed attempts at getting reliable readings from Hall effect current sensors, I finally stumbled across the resolution to the problem. Unfortunately it meant going in an entirely different direction. That resulted in more iterations and improvements, and some refactoring along the way.

All that work on the block and motor controllers paid solid dividends going forward. The expanded web socket interface was far beyond the original single character command approach. Adding new commands is as easy as adding the command keyword to a map of handlers and pairing it with a new command handler to take the appropriate action on the server side.

This scaled nicely when I began working on the passenger car lighting projects, the direct ancestors of these building lighting effects projects for Halloween. First it was my “Glow In The Day” clocks, 3D printed in glow in the dark filament, then illuminated with UV LEDs to glow in the daytime. Now it’s the downtown ghost town.

Actually, it’s three separate projects, one for the Grand Hotel, one for the original Storefront Apartments, and one for the Corner Drugstore. The code for all three is basically the same except for the number of LEDs controlled and the user interface pages themselves.

In more detail, the projects consist of an Arduino sketch (written in C) and the data files. The NodeMCU 12E controllers are ESP8266 based and contain 4MBytes of flash memory. This can be divided between the two parts, in 1MByte increments.

The program sketch is compiled into an executable binary that is uploaded to the first part of flash memory. The data files are stored using the SPI Flash File System (SPIFFS). It’s a flat file system, but provides hierarchical storage via the file name itself. This is where the web pages, CSS, and javascript files are stored that are served to the web browser.

Here’s a video example of how we select and control the lighting effects we used for the ghost town. As you can see, there’s even enough room in the flash memory for a couple of smaller image files.

The Finish…

I used a dedicated power bank (20,000mAh) each for the Grand Hotel, Storefront Apartments, and Corner Drugstore. Each had its own dedicated Arduino controller as well. I was able to connect to each controller with my phone and the office PC to control them! The only thing I wasn’t able to pull off was the passenger car effects.

I thought I could spend a couple hours and get something whipped in to shape and working, but it was not to be. In fact, it took more than another week to get things the way I wanted them to work. But that’s software. If you wait until it’s perfect you’ll never have anything to ship!

As an experiment, I left the effects running all night long. They were still going in the morning! The power banks were fully charged Halloween night, with somewhere between 25% and 50% of the 20,00omAh charge remaining. I was also quite aggressive with the LED levels for a more dramatic effect. More conservative selections would last even longer.

By comparison, the passenger cars have only a tenth of that power (2,000mAh), and with more subdued lighting levels they are still running in the morning as well. I can get anywhere from 8 to 12 hours from them on a single four hour charge.

Stayed tuned for more updates on the passenger cars and the Barkyard too!