EMPCCCC
Embedded Micro PC Command Control Communication
This page last updated: December 21, 2012
December 2016 both my XP computer power supplies failed. December 2017 my laptop - my only working computer - failed. Merry Christmas
as of December 2017
as of December 2018

Operate Arduino microcontrollers wirelessly from a PC using an XBee, or locally using an IR remote to control HO train accessories. During 2016 all the code that uses servos will be changed to use attach and detach so the servos will only be signalled while being used as this seems to eliminate the 'glitching' problems that nothing else has. Hardware and software setup and notes that are common to all projects and direct links to the individual projects are here. If that is what you are looking for, then go there; to learn about DCC controlled Arduino HO animation read geoffb's blog on Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine and my DCC devolution; all that follows is sundry satire. EMPCCCC layout construction implementation and weathering of locomotive, cars, and structures are provided. Project building instructions with multiple large photos are in the individual project html. Project action is demonstrated at the HO train Hobby YouTube video channel. Arduino micro-controller operation code, and Delphi 5 PC Command Control Communication Code are zipped on the SourceForge files page - per project. Arduino and Delphi are the copyrighted-trademarked names of the programs the source code is written in, not endorsements of or by these EMPCCCC projects. Mobile Missile Launchers was-is the EMPCCCC project ... everything else collated around it. Finished construction and detailed weathering are delayed due to people destroying the layout at multiple times. There has been reconstruction destruction and thus restricted desire to do final finishing to the scenery and moving objects .. they are made to the -it works- stage and detailed finishing is left for infinity and beyond.

• EMPCCCC Projects
• Alternative America (Historically different: Air force, Marines, Coast Guard, Air Defense Artillery, Navy Seals do not exist, only the Army and Navy. I would say that LGBT remains a criminal offense : they were not "born that way", they are sexual pervert bullies; it is just that in this alternative sexual perversion does not exist. Rainbows are reflections in the sky after it rains. Gay means joyful. Psychiatry is illegal. Psychiatrists are quacks, con men preying on people and then torturing their victims. [Real world status as of April 2014 : Perverts claim it is their civil right - they liken it to race and women suffrage. Catholic priests rape children and the Vatican protects them from any criminal prosecution. Military officers rape and torture subordinates and the military does not prosecute them. The government decides taxes can control the population so they impose high taxation to impose their values. .. values not determined by the people. Actually people do not elect the government as the government allows any amount of money to be donated to 'election campaigns'. Mozilla is run by perverts, Opera does not import browser links so forgetaboutit, IE is boggled, Chrome has a license same as Adobe : everything you do belongs to them, you have no privacy nor ownership. I think I am about done with this Internet thing .. been programming in Pascal since the 80's and the Internet and computers have become narcissistic.)
• Temporal Tense : (Now)
• Surreal Scenery : (My favorite movie scenes as background and foreground and interwoven into the trains themselves)
• Fictionally Functional : (I am not a prototypical fast clock timetable guy, although it does help to have the trains going somewhere and doing something...) Railroad acquisitions happened differently : Great Northern (Grand Trunk Western), Union Pacific, ATSF Trifecta (POTS Portland Omaha Topeka St Louis <> STOP St Louis Topeka Omaha Portland / SAT St louis Atchison Topeka / SS St louis Southern), ICN Illinois Central Northern, KCS Kansas City Southern, CEXT Conrail Eastern eXpress Transportation, NS Norfolk Southern (Global Automobile Corporations and the Government did not collude to move manuafacturing out of Detroit and the USA, so yeah, no damn Canadian RR exist.)
[ATSF : All Terrain Special Forces]
[ATSF : All Terrain Science Fiction]

• [] Aircraft : are all integral to the Army units ... the Navy is not allowed off their ships. NEVER EVER.
• Spaceship Flying Saucer : Hover craft - flying saucer- there are many plastic models in HO scale and larger available. As of 2012 Syma is releasing small ~15" square semi indestructible Quadricopters ~$50. AR.Drone Quadricopter about 2' square ~$300 flown with Android Devices is ready to fly... diydrones ArduCopter is a kit you have to assemble and program it yourself OR RTF~$800 26"plus rotors = 34"?. .. witespyquad RTF size maybe 20" square ~$500..$1000... Despite the PR videos these fragile Quadricopters crash and break... not really ready for prime time. The bigger they are the harder they fall. As of 2015 there are many 'nano' size less than 2" square quadcopters that are light and gyroed.
• Helicopters take off from flat cars and fly around. They keep improving them, as is as of 2012 they are on a delayed crash flight (fortunately they are light weight and survive crashing). As of 2013 Dual rotor models are stable and controllable but they have dual rotors so do not look as 'real' traveling around the layout [Russian Air Force Kamov Ka-50, Sikorsky_X2, Sikorsky S-97 Raider] (they are also VERY tall with that second rotor). On the other hand the military bodies look more 'real' than 'Fish head' helicopters. Syma: S107G Fish head, S105G smaller Fish head, S102G UH60 Black Hawk, S108G AH-1 Cobra, S109G AH-64 Apache, S111G Coast Guard, S026G CH-47 Chinook, SxxxG ... yeah look for the G for Gyroscope stabilization. Some are larger than HO scale S023G, S033G...
• Mobile Missile Launchers : EMPCCCC, Infantry, Armor, Cavalry, and Artillery units on rails. Rockets on train and or on ground will target train cars that explode. Model Power makes exploding boxcars and missile launchers in their 'Army' series. Other launchers will be off the shelf (USB camera guided) and 'XBee radio' and Arduino with camera and sensors controlled Missile launcher- computer control communication by 'XBee radio'. Some missiles are foam or plastic and some launchers can fire ESTES solid propellant rockets (outdoors - not out doors).
• I have no plans for a runway... planes hanging from the ceiling (suspended from the ceiling by some nearly invisible monofilament fishing line.) and a couple of those Boeing fuselages on flatcars ... These might become extinct since Boeing closed the Wichita Kansas plant TBD 2013 .. or the fuselages might be shipped from somewhere else... not really clear as i don't operate Boeing.
  Amazing Hamburg Germany HO scale airport video and an informational video. This and more is at the miniatur-wunderland. They have just about every Faller thing operating and maybe more.

• [] Ships
• Barge : transport cargo to-from the train cars
• Vehicle barge: ‘Faller' Vehicles load onto dock - onto (car ferry) ..travel across water.. unload from barge onto dock. Drive through hidden background (across bridge... goofy to have a bridge next to a barge but the bridge would be more interesting) and do it all over again.
• Train cars load onto dock - onto barge ..travel across water.. from barge onto dock. Alaska barges: Each barge has 8 tracks of about 400’ in length. length of 397.9 feet (55"), a beam of 100 feet (13.8") and a depth of 24 feet (3.3"). Train cars on base, stacked above with containers. Jeez, that is bigger than the Container and Oil Ships I plan to use ~40" x 6" (This is larger than I plan to use but it is real data: WMS Groningen : Length x Breadth: 129 m X 22 m = 423'x72' = HO 58"x9.9" They do make smaller ships similar to what I will use. Barges that travel across lakes are smaller too, just a few tracks wide and a few cars long.)
• Rock Barge MUST be *secured* to keep from making waves and sinking when loaded-unloaded, also position-able so the conveyor can reach all of the rocks.
• Conveyor scoop-lifts rock from barge straight into funnel rock loader into train cars destined for cement plant. Tug pushes barge around-under lift bridge, around to be loaded from rotary dumper dumping rock fresh from the hillside quarry mine down a slide. The barge travels back from the dumper to the unloader. (Just in case, maybe, the barge and tug could actually have wheels for moving on the 'resin river' or they might be on carts)
• Rock coming from the quarry mine is rotary dumped into barges for transportation to the scoop unloader that deposits the rock into train hoppers for delivery to the cement plant. The back side of the cement plant IS the hillside quarry mine... So this is a race between the train and the barge, from the rotary dumper to the scoop unloader. yuck. The barge could travel a ways... around the layout instead of through it. O yeah, this is a train set and it is supposed to be fun to run the trains...
  • Rock cars are actually repurposed coal gondolas that fit the rotary dumpers...
  • As the cars have to be uncoupled to be rotary dumped, [the locomotives cannot pass through the dumper -the hood and dynamic brake hit the dumper grabberoids- unless a remote controlled 'slug' B unit is used] (have 1 engine on front and 1 in back, when it gets dumped the engine in front recouples and pulls it out of the dumper, the one in back pushes the cars into the dumper after passing over the uncoupler - thus leaving the car in the dumper, and pulls the rest of the train back - clear of the dumper), collect them and go through a tunnel to the scoop unloader to be filled. Maybe that will give enough diversion.
• This idea could be used for unloading barges and ships Working LEGO bucket wheel excavator or make something like a real barge unloader from a conveyor, just need to make the buckets.
• As of 2015 It will be a barge FILLED from a river side Walthers concrete grain elevator - prototype at Alton IL. Grain from barge unloaded by suction-conveyor and funnel dumped into train cars that are delivered to Grain Silos (?goofy? grain silos could be adjacent to the unloader and the train cars are filled from it. Since it is simulated there could be conveyor tubes from the barge to the silos.) that are then delivered to the Home Pride Bakery [Ethanol plant which makes ethanol liquid fuel which is delivered in train cars to refinery valve operation unloading.] [Ethanol is a Very Bad idea. It ruins the cars and it takes more gasoline-energy to produce than it creates.] (Grain barge could be 'simulated' with a suction tube that goes into a hole in barge deck plate and siphoned into the enclosed hopper train cars and dumped inside the Home Pride Bakery [ethanol plant]. It would be enough action to have the tube move to and into the barge deck.) (Mississippi River Grain Barge: Corn being loaded at Savanna,IL, These barges are 200'X35' [HO: 27.6" x 4.8" x 1.7" high+0.5"cover] and carry 1500 tons of material. The max draft is 12' when fully loaded and only 1.5' when empty. Hopper depth is determined by combing height, usually 3' to 6' + barge height (11' or 12') They can be loaded in as little as 5 hrs at the rate of 3,000 tons per hour.) (1 barge fills ~15 100 ton train cars) This is another goofy thing as the grain barge is never Loaded, might not even be moved.
• Custom Model Railroads makes barges (4"W x 12.5" or 15"L :110 feet) and tugboats. It seems they are too small for 'modern' use. Need a source for Tug and Barge models... Walthers Carfloat and they sell tugs too...
• Ships : transport cargo to-from the train cars
• Coal ship : Coal in train cars from mine floodloader is transported up and delivered to be rotary dumped into conveyor into ship loader into ship. Ship sails to distant port. Then the ships conveyor unloads at dock into conveyor-flood loader that loads train cars for delivery to steel mill rotary dumper and from there the coal is conveyored down into the mine flood loader. Video of martyhb1 rotary dumper with a conveyor. Video of an AMAZING HO Rotary Coal Dumper (not a walthers kit, this is machined steel) with a positioner. (As good as it Looks (and it looks Yowza!), until there is an uncut-unedited version it will be in the realm of the FAKE IBM Jeopardy show where it took four hours to film 20 minutes due to the machine breaking down and having to be 'fixed' whenever it gave the wrong answer)
• Great Lakes Freighter to be made as a self-unloader : off-loading using a 260’ Conveyor that is part of the 680' l x78' w x42' h ship [HO: 93" x 10.7 x 5.8, uhm 93" = 7.75', model is 71" =5.9' = real 514']. Base and conveyor to be parts available from 'Robot' sites. Bridges and ship unloading based on Cleveland Ohio. Google map the area to see Ship conveyor unloading, multiple various bridges. (They change the photos periodically, so what you see changes)Working Conveyor this idea could be used for unloading ships (Basic idea of a self unloading ship, the load does not compresss the conveyor. americansteamship , metso ... need to move the material from the conveyor IN the ship, UP to the conveyor on top of the ship) and also as a flood coal loader.. just STOP the conveyor .. No problems with coal jamming the chute when it tries to close.
• The train travels from the ship-unloader to the steel mill and the coal is rotary dumped into the lower level mine conveyor that loads train cars for delivery to the ship. Dan Shephard made a coal flood loader that Works!. Operating coal loader Wireless controlled and this is the Flood loader mechanism. The BNSF empty train travels from the ship dumper to the mine loader. Repeat. The UP empty train travels from the steel mill dumper to the ship unloader. Repeat. Coal loaded onto ship at Superior WI and unloaded at Cleveland OH, therefore being on the turnaround 'points' of the island layout.A good example of a conveyor ship loader loading coal at Superior Midwest Energy Terminal. the ship loading rotary dumper will dump into a conveyor that moves the coal up to the loading dock. The dock conveyor can 'move' to the various hatches in the ship. (Ground conveyor empties into a funnel that has a moving conveyor that dumps into 'hoppers' which open to feed the ship loading conveyor machine that moves back and forth with a conveyor to only catch the load under a hopper) To get the needed distance, the conveyor sticking out over the ship will be 2 conveyors, lower one will have to be longer? than the upper one, so it can load the hold evenly, rather than one central pile. The ship hatch remover-mover can be moved with wires at its base going from one end of the ship to the other. Pulleys will move the wires and thus the hatch mechanism. How to get it to grab and lift the hatches : Little hooks near the 4 corners facing outward could be grabbed and then lifted.
• Container ship is unloaded by a (electro-magnet) crane (Walthers-Heljan: $800) (since it is out of stock and limited size, will probably be made with an Erector set or fischertechnik like here or even better Version 2, it would be great if there was a YouTube universal translator option) at the Intermodal yard where the containers are loaded onto trains and trucks. There are various types of cranes and lifting trucks that move containers (Few..None of them are working models). The container ship can be loaded with one trains containers and unloaded onto a different train - set of trucks. Another possibility for Faller vehicles... just like in their demo videos. Container ship is never 'loaded' anywhere, it is on a cart so it can be moved out of the way. The 'loading' is done while it is being 'unloaded'. Unload Incoming and Load Outgoing from different trains and trucks... so the ship does not tip over.
• Oil tanker ship -Arm moves to 'connect' pipeline to pump oil to adjacent refinery HYDRODYNAMIC Building Set [Valves, pumps, visible liquid]. I love the refinery kits.. all the pipes and tanks.. will combine several from G,HO, and N scales...

• [] HO Train Action - Interaction
• Autorack loading : 'Faller' automobiiles load onto Autoracks at the manufacturing plant (Wentzville, MO) [Chevy Colorado and Express vans, so long Shreveport LA], Autorack rebuild shop (Dome at Wood River IL). Destinations for the Mobile Missile Launchers.
• Granular [Coal, Gravel, Wood chips, Ore-Taconite, Corn-grain] into Hoppers-Gondolas. Walthers has re-released the Rotary Dumper. My plans on building several dumpers, using knowledge gained and an Arduino micro controller are here
• Steel mill receives coal and ore ( and limestone and many other items), then ship steel on flat and coil cars (and other items, it is not simple although it all depends on the actual steel mill functions). Rotary dump the coal, have 'action' in the steel plant: moving cranes, liquid steel poured into hot metal cars, Steel plate loaded onto cars and moved to rolling mill, steel coil rolls and parts sent to automobile plant. Ore cars go IN a building at the Steel plant then appear going OUT of a Mine loader on the "other side" of the layout : Paint the structures two sided (ore is never loaded nor unloaded): Ore delivery is at back of plant, Coal Rotary dumping is at the front. Coal is unloaded by Rotary Dumper at the 'Steel plant' on top level and then (conveyor) 'flood loaded' into gondolas on the lower level.
• Paper Plant : Wood chips (Sawdust) from the rotary dumper beside the (extinct as of 2011) International Paper Co, at Bastrop, LA. pulp mill plant building falls down then are ?moved?-into conveyor- on next level- conveyor loads into train cars (Google wood chip: chip mill near Yazoo City, MS ) [270 South Industrial Parkway, Yazoo City, MS] {or International Paper Co Pineville, La for a plant that has the chipper on site}. Crane lifts logs and places into the grinder and sawdust comes out the conveyor-tube into the train wood chip cars. The logs actually go down into a pile to be manually loaded on log trailers to be delivered by semi-trucks to the wood chip mill to be ground into Wood chips (sawdust). The log trucks could be moved around by an electromagnet pulling on the front of the truck and then on the back to get it to back up next to the crane; or Faller trucks or put the cab of a semi over one of the RC cars and use it to haul a trailer. Sawdust-pencil shavings are VERY light, maybe use perlite dyed a light color...
• Walthers rotary dumper assembled for Wood chips -engine can drive thru- Use perlite as wood chips -same stuff as coal-but unpainted or a light brown - Chain-gear driven positioner- engine drive thru and then uncouples--- try to have it move the cars by signalling the DCC controller--car couplers make placement too sloppy- signal time to DCC too long... we shall see
• Scratch built ideas: lazy susan ends, geared hold downs, chain drive rotation, gear drive or pulley pulled positioner, ‘dummy' locomotive in front-actually pushed by one in rear until past the dumper- then rear loco uncouples and positioner moves the train cars... a positioner on both sides of the dumper - take turns actually moving the cars - they return while the other one is moving train and dumper is dumping.
• Steampunk version : Life-Like Gravel-Coal loader : dump into car - Life-Like Gravel-Coal dump from car into bin. Coaling tower simulates coal being lifted in buckets into the bin on one side and emptied out a chute into the steam train tender on the other side. A steam engine coal hopper can have a servo that raises-lowers to make the amount of coal appear to change.
• My first Rotary Dumper construction and lessons learned. The Plastic gears MUST be used as there is no pinion gear that fits. Superglue them onto a smaller pinion gear to enable positioning with the set screw.
• An innovative idea for material delivery : Lafarge's Self Discharging Train... really : British Train
• There are power plants (mine mouth), steel mills (shoreline), and paper plants (integrated mill) that do all on site, don't even need the trains for incoming material, just build those kind of operations... and deliver their product on trucks.
• Intermodal yard is where containers are loaded from Container ship onto train rail cars and over the road trucks.
• Locomotive : Lights, Sound, Smoke are built in, depending on the model. A cotton swab with alcohol, lighter fluid or petroeum jelly could be lit in the exhaust stack of a Brass locomotive ...Very carefully... to simulate that hot running diesel locomotive. Make a video and display on the Drive in theatre screen .. Always having Burning Things running around the train set is not something to do.
• Nuclear waste containers loading from a nuclear plant ... unloading at a recycling operation to convert into depleted uranium ammunition. Concept Models makes Schnabel Cars to carry-deliver the nuclear reactors, generators, Nuclear waste container flat cars, Super size oil tank cars, Boeing airplane cars, and many more amazing products. Schnabel Car video and another Schnabel Car video as it delivers a nuclear reactor.
  nuclear-power-plant-dimensions : The usual height of the power plants is between 82 to 98 feet and the total width is around 131 to 148 feet. The width cultivation and the height cultivation are between 33 to 66 feet. The machinery building should be 131 to 148 feet and the overall length must be 164 to 180 feet.
  wikipedia: cell cooling towers. Each row has a length of 613 feet and a height of 58 feet.
  The power plant building is about 80' tall and 120' wide. [11" dome on 16" box] The generator building is 120' x 150' and about 60' tall [16.5x20.7 x8.3"tall].
  wikipedia: Wet cooling tower: 656 feet tall and 328 feet in diameter; 656'= 90" = 7.5 HO feet tall
  mechanical:131 feet tall and 262 feet long; 131'= 18" = 1.5 HO feet tall. Walthers ethanol plant has cooling towers that could be used here ? [Cooling Tower: 11-15/16 x 3-1/16 x 3-1/2"].
• Oil into tank cars - from refinery
• Oil burning Power plant can receive some oil from refinery
• [Ethanol plant can receive some gasoline from refinery to mix with the ethanol. Not much 'action' at the Ethanol plant but train movement from grain silos to the ethanol plant and from the plant to refinery for distribution. (seems the pipe network actually distributes most oil and gas?]
• Refinery can have tracks running through it for filling and emptying cars. Flames shooting out the cracking towers. Black oil bubbling out of the overflowing tanks. 'Tar man' rising out of the goo. "Gasoline" flowing through the Hydrodynamic tubes. Working oil pumps elsewhere on the layout. Gasoline tanks with sides that raise and lower - Gasoline tanks are the ones with supports around the sides and the top of the tank raises and lowers within the support structure. Oil tanker is never "loaded" anywhere, it is on a cart so it can be moved out of the way. They have so many tubes and valves... Squee
• Passenger station on upper levels of buildings.. trains running on bridges through town and suspended from the ceiling.
• Rolling stock action: Mobile DCC controler commands and powers tiny motors: Difco dump cars, ... Lights in cars, Doors open to reveal ___. XBee radio - Arduino controlled Missiles raise and fire... Searchlights, RC Helicopter takes off, TFT changing image display billboard on boxcar, Ammo box explodes apart when hit by missile launched from other train car or land based launcher. hmmm all military macho things, huh. hmmmm sounds like there is a need for an Army base and an Enemy. Dogs are bad M'kay, dogs are the enemy M'kay, kill all dogs M'kay, based on the "No dogs allowed" religion. Cat Planet Cuties anime: Catians from Catia VS Dogisians from Dogisia. Catians Eris and Kuune are remarkable. Dogisian Jens has dog ears but have not seen her tail. Death to ants, grubs, moles, voles, chipmunks, groundhogs, and all other burrowing animals except worms.
• Objects moved-positioned onto flatcars, into boxcars, into gondolas
• Nine basic types of railcars: Boxcar[ ], Refrigerated Boxcar (Reefer)[ ], Flatcar[ ], Tanker[ ], Gondola[ ], Hopper[ ], Center Partition Railcar[ ], Container Carrier[ ], Auto Transporter[ ]. Many subtypes: All door Boxcar, Cyrogenic Reefer, Coil car Flatcar, Compressed gas Tanker, Gondor Gondola, 2-3-4 door - rotary Hopper, Opera window Center Partition, Twin Stack, Tri level, ... Freight cars, Passenger cars, Maintenance of Way...
• 'Raw' Cotton is not shipped on trains anymore. It is harvested into rectangular 'bales' the size of a semi-trailer, then scooped up and trucked to the Cotton-Gin. The processed cotton is shipped in bales 55"x21"x33". They would be loaded in boxcars to keep them from getting wet.
• Cows, pigs, chickens are butchered and processed at the 'farm', then shipped frozen. No shipment to slaughterhouses anymore, the animals lost too much weight on the journey.
• Steel recycler crane unloads train cars (scrap steel / old flattened cars) into the ‘crusher' ... cubed steel loaded onto gondolas trained to the steel plant.
• Oversize loads : Daves Models makes Wind Turbine blades, Bachman makes a Schnabel Car, Concept Models makes Schnabel Cars to carry-deliver the nuclear reactors, generators, Nuclear waste container flat cars, Super size oil tank cars, Boeing airplane cars, and many more amazing products.

• [] Landscape
• Action : continually or signaled on/off by train or by people movement detection sensors. Landscape lights, Hotel Elevators going up and down, Factory objects moving: cranes, forklifts, things on conveyors, Objects moved into train boxcars, hot metal pouring from cauldron, pouring into hot metal car, houses burning, Factories fuming (polyfill painted becomes very stiff), Eye of Sauron glowing, moving oil derricks, moving level gasoline tank, 'Faller' cars-trucks-busses travel around town, 'Faller' Carnival rides, RC Construction crane and other RC construction equipment, Wind mill, Don Quixote Tilting at windmills, wind turbine, skiers sking down and riding the ski lift up the mountain. OWI-MSK676 - Solar Powered Aerial Cable Car Kit. Missile silo opens and missile raises. Mountain side Army base - moving rock cave entrance to the storage area for Army Hell on Wheels... seems goofy when there are rails leading up to it... o security not secrecy. LED lights, motors, servos, gears, elliptical gears (for vertical movement), pulleys, connecting rods... Roofers hammering, Carpenters sawing, ...
• People move: People glued to rare earth magnets slide on a glass sidewalk with moving machine underneath.
• Water flowing... -Water comes in from a water fall, goes around {barge canal} {Shipyard docks} and out and down a drain- to be pumped up to the waterfall. (well maybe on the Garden scale railroad, water inside the house in/on the train set just seems like a foolish-daredevil electrifying, high humidty changing- board warping thing to do)
• Bridges span open area, raise-lower to allow river traffic to pass underneath. Google Cleveland Ohio to see the various type bridges.
• Camera on train displayed on a 'Skyview Drive-in' theatre screen (19" widescreen is the right scale size, Blair Line HO Scale Drive-In Theater Laser Kit : HO screen size: 8.00" wide x 5.50" tall.. so the kit is about 1/4 what the real screen is...). My entrance sign is 5.00" wide x 5.50" tall. If Miller Engineering made the entrance sign to the Drive-in they would sell hundreds of them!
• Put LCD display on-in the side of a boxcar (fits in the doors of a double door car) and display changing bitmaps. Do it as a billboard for along track side entertainment. Use a 10" LCD on the side of a building for a Blade Runner Coca-Cola ad. No real code or instructions just buy from Lada ada and follow those instructions. well, ok, there is specialized code at Sourcforge.
• DCC / JMRI computer controlled trains, switches, signals... Railroad Yard - Block direction of travel ..
• RR crossing gates: Train - Automobile - ///Servos for train crossing gates.. actuated by train passing over sensor///
  Faller makes operational gates and their cars will stop at the crossing when the train goes by.
• HO scale Slot cars roadway and train track that can drive over each other by Lifelike as of Nov 2009.
• There are Faller vehicles: directed by a magnet over a wire, Slot cars, and RC cars : Shen Qi Wei Micro Racers roughly 1/60th to 1/70th scale, mini rc cars .. mini rc cars. Hot Wheels RC Nitro Speeders seem to have proportional speed-direction (no steering - variable drive rear wheels) (roughly 1/120 scale tho somewhat comical) and available about everywhere Hot Wheels are sold. There are even 1/87 scale RC trucks... but the RC stuff fills up the truck. Google desk runner 2000 , 1/87 scale RC and/or small rc cars. Coke can cars are small RC cars about Ho scale - slightly larger. They are on Amazon and sold by by AirsoftXP.
• Hump yard (Venice IL): RFID tags in cars and reader in 'tower' to use for a Automatic-sort 'hump' yard. Switches operated according to RFID ID# as to which track they are assigned./// Fatal Error: How to slow them down so they do not crash into each other at the bottom... 'air jets' do NOT seem to work AFAIK .. no utube videos show a hump yard without crashing cars. There are claims of using friction retarders that press against the wheels... As is said physics does not scale. Momentum is mass x velocity, and it doesn't scale. I Would like to see a video of a working HO scale hump yard : without crashing cars, and explanations of how it was done...
• []The Engineering matryoshka limit of building the speed retarders used on hump yards.
• []Maybe use the RFID to switch a path on a flat yard and position the cars with a locomotive... with a usb link to PC connection to override the micro controller program when needed to selectively switch a path.
• []Maybe have electromagnets under the tracks, the controller would know the car length and the cars already there. Program to STOP the car, if they move together - ok, else the switcher will push them together to couple. The cars must have a steel plate for the magnet to attract - and hope the RDID tags do not get erased by magents.
• []There are working miniatures of the switches used... make a yard house with them instead of buttons on the front of the layout.
• Railroad turntable : Usually near or in a Roundhouse for Locomotive maintenance, takes up a lot of room... Mine is on a separate table that can attach to a siding that goes off the edge of the main layout structure.
• Dioramas are scattered about. Some may have movement, most only have lights, a few are just kinda there for identification.

• Projects that are NOT HO scale nor train related
• 1/5 .. 1/12 scale Radio Controlled Aircraft and vehicles ...
  My Compendium of aircraft and images RC Aircraft.pdf
  A list I found somewhere Aircraft List.pdf
• 1/24 scale slot cars ... track on raised 8x14 slabs in another room.
  AFAIK carrera is the only 1/24 scale track manufacturer, there are many car manufacturers. Since carrera came out with wireless lane changing cars adapting other manufacturer cars is beyond my capabilities and not worthwhile as the carrera cars come ready to go and are less expensive.
• Computer Controlled Pioneer Laserdisk 2600

While there are references cited such as Wikipedia and Google maps, be aware 1984 was 30 years ago. YMMV. I do not know who did 9/11, I do know the military loved being given the 'power' and having all the safeguards removed. Original DIA NSA mandate was No gathering of US intel. The inteligence branches were created to be separate with different areas of focus. The US gave Iraq WMD in the 80s, so of course they had them in the 2011.



Overview of this and other programming projects
Copyright © 1991..2018 by Ivan Lee Herring

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