XXHighEnd

Please watch this short video to understand the feeling of frustration of chasing the "real" thing and the impossibility of getting it.  :)

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=ba61eda845&view=att&th=13c205d150e6cd7f&attid=0.1&disp=safe&zw (https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=ba61eda845&view=att&th=13c205d150e6cd7f&attid=0.1&disp=safe&zw)

Cheers,
Juan

Ha ha ! I saw that video !

Here in Quebec (should I mention "in French Canada" since the province of Quebec is mostly French speaking), we are called "Frogs" by English Canadians, but I don't know why...  :derisive: It's been a while since I have eaten a fly or for this matter, attempted to catch one in the TV screen  :rofl:

Hey Alain!, not only the Québécois, we are all a bit like that frog trying to achieve the REAL sound through intermediate means. Btw, not bad if the Québécois, although being called "Frog", have the strong character of the one in the video.  :smile:

Best regards,
Juan

HI Juan,

:)

I know what you mean ! I am not sure about our temperament as a society, but I can be quite hard headed - well as a good "second", since my girlfriend has the record for that :)

On the other hand, I have recently spent lots of money here and there to achieve... I am not sure what anymore ;) I have an Aqvox, an iUSB, even a Sotm (bought last September) PCIe usb card, Clearlink USB cables that I bought to work with the iUSB, but it did not work... Put back the Aqvox to have only one cable in the path (Clearlink) and now I am removing my SSD (carrying my OS) from the PC to have all "outside".

What a hobby :) I should catch my breath and put money aside for an NOS1 instead...

And I think I could also spend in electric trains... My nephew had one for Christmas and I caught the bug - another costly hobby :) At least I am still thinking about it ;)

I should do an auction one day ;)

Regards,

Alain

Alain, you forgot the Adnaco I think. :)

And oh, I didn't coun't the exact number, but something like 240 Dutch locomotives here. Should be the largest collection around. Was all to be fully automated, but the project was too big for a one man show. So I started doing other things ...

Oh... The Adnaco yes :teasing:... It was almost heating the room and the sound was so dull... Not mentionning that it was makig BSODs...

And my cousin that asks me when I will stop buying these "gadgets" to take care of the acoustic of my room...  :fishy:

What ??? :shout: 240 locomotives ??? I hope you also mean "wagons", not just "locomotives" :). Wow :1eye: ! I know you have a lot of space (spacious home), but this is something !

I have mentionned my interest to my girlfriend and she seems interested too. She is quite skillful so if I take care of the connections part, she could build villages, houses and landscapes.

240 locomotives... I can only dream of a 2-3 trains running at the same time... Steam, Diesel-electric, electric engines - kind of ? It is simply extraordinary all they can do now !!!

You don't have pictures do you ?

Alain

Never counted the wagons. But something like maybe 5-10 fold of the locs. And IIRC some 8 kilometers of rails.

Pictures ? no, sorry. It's all stowed away in boxes in a safe place. But imagine I ever back built a house especially for the trains. Lived there for 19 years and it never happened. Then another house was built especially for it and I thought "oh wait, if I just start buying the lot then I can't go back this time". But it didn't help.
And believe it or not, but what got me stuck was building the tables. This already would have been a huge project and it went along with the design of the track which was planned to be as complicated as possible so it would be unpredictable how trains would run. Things would be in there like (on command) train A had to be as close as possible to train B, while train B had to prevent it, with any other train helping to prevent it. Seems stupid, but it would randomize things nicely.
All controlled by software of course.

Peter


PS: Those 240 locs are all different Dutch locs. I guess there are a 100 more which came along with aquisitions which are not Dutch or doublures.

PPS: See ... I AM crazy.

"Ouf" ... What a fantastic project this could be... To know at what position a locomotive is from sensors, from its length, speed, if another train is coming from the opposite direction, if there is a crossing railroad to put it away for the other train to pass, change the speed of one or the two of them... There are so many possibilities. Analogue computer et al...

But this would be such a complex project... I did not think about it this way... The trains I saw have a remote control (DCS and DCC), but compared to what you are (were) seeking, they are limited to "human behaviour"... Can be fun too of course.

If I was to do something like you mentionned, I would seek a way to follow each wagon and loco on a giant screen first... That would be my first objective - software wise...

I can think about it, have ideas, but to implement it ?

Crazy ? Maybe, but certainly most interesting ! :)

Ah... The reason I did not leave the store with a "starting kit" is that I have first to convince myself I will make my table !!! I have all the required tools for this (table saw, band saw, miter saw, jointer, etc...), but I have yet to organize my workshop (it's all in my garage)...

Hum...

You can't guess it, but this is/was one of the major psychological hurdles to take. So, this is just a necessity in order to keep track of where things go wrong and/or control all. The (psychological) point is : once you have that running nicely it will have become a game within itself, but a far less complex thing. So, it is necessary, but in addition to it all the physical stuff has to be built.

Btw, back at the time I had sorted it all out for the electrical supply to the locs, but merely : how to not get involved with dirty tracks and cleaning it. So, all would be powered by super caps (super capacitors which even today are not known by everybody) with "loading stations" through the rails.
All control would go through air by means of transceivers in each loc (and if IRC also in each wagon) and ...

And an LPS (Local Positioning System). Sometimes I tell about this, but this has always been outside the real subject, and the subject were these trains. So, what I have been working on for a year or three together with a friend (all through email) was an LPS with 0.1mm accuracy. This was done through hyberboloid math (not hyperbole which is easy) and which could be done by 5 persons in the world. We could do it too my means of "stealing" examples through Google. The workout of the formula was (is) 14 pages of Word document.
We built a prototype which worked with (40KHz) audio and the real thing (light wave) was never done, but could have.
I stopped the project and started doing other things ...

Point for here is : all could be controlled by two antennas which could locate in the 3D space. Yes, two antennas. But with the smart addition of using different frequencies.
This is where the name "Phasure" emerged and where I was - and still am - quite sure that this principle can be reversed : use two speakers and locate the source in air again, the different frequencies taking care of that. One thing : it needs way more accuracy than audio (audible waves) can do. So for example, where the audio proto could achieve 10cm accuracy and while the lightwave same principle and software did 0.1mm, the difference comes from the short wavelength with light.

This is how I always try to make the audio waves more "thin".

Peter

Wow, this was a project of a different dimension ! May I ask what "disconnected" you from this project ? Was it too much time consuming and you got jaded of it ?

Alain please stop this topic! Far too risky! What would happen if you get Peter started again on this train-project ? :censored:

Leo

haha

Hi Leo,

You are giving me more influence than I really have ;)

It's like hoping that our girlfriend would suddenly start to approve all that we do  :o

Alain :)
Edit: Even I have to make choices about this... This train hobby would cost "an arm and a leg"... For the moment, I am just thinking about it, but what I spend in one place will not be available to spend somewhere else :)

Actually those tables. Envision over 100 meters (300ft) of length and certain width only to cover for the outside walls so to speak. Then it would have been in 3 layers, so that is actually 300 meters of length of table. And then there's still nothing counted for the middle of the space (which is 6 meters wide everywhere). In there had to be man holes at positions so all could be reached and all was to be of a construction I couldn't work out much.
But there was also the problem of designing the track for which I could not find proper software. So, had to scale the tables properly which already wasn't doable and together with that the proper scaling of bends, junctions and such. So I had to write software for *that* first, and that never happened.

But maybe the real problem was this :
When I was of the age of 11, we moved to a new house and in the old house my father built that table of the size of the room which could go to the sealing when not in use. I always helped my father with everything and learned a few things there;
All was to fit in a room in the new house, but it didn't. This is how I started to lay out the already fairly much lot just on the floor and with the 5 locs we had I made it all 100% automated. With relais and my own made contact rails and such and 100s of meters of electrical wire. Just on the floor. Once or twice a year I layed it out and made drew a new track design which would bring the most unpredictable behaviour of it all. So, 11 and up;
When 14 years ago our son was born, it was clear he would be joining me in the same fashion, later. So at his first birthday we gave him this nice steam locomotive. That would help.
But today he still doesn't know what to do with a soldering iron and is only capable of positioning his computer mouse a 100 times faster than I can. Plays Railroad Tycoon and the lot (btw the only game I ever played in my whole life). Modern times ? perhaps. But I already said it : once the simulation (or projection) by computer(s) would be there, it would already have been a great thing to play with. That is what *I* saw coming, only getting tired of the physical stuff to come.
So I saw that (not) coming with our son, and no way I would perform such a project for myself. Well, not anymore. Man, I already run hot when I have to plug in the analyser. Haha.

So it's a combination of a few things, but it was too large scaled anyway. Was due to be world's largest and most complex, but merely interesting to watch forever (which all tracks I know are not at all).

Oh, the "operating system" would have been the ERP software from my other life; it can nicely deal with demands and fulfillment which can be used to direct trains from A to B, but merely this ERP system already consists of tracking and directives (where to go to) by means of GPS data ...

:wacko:

It seems to me that only the frog is able to stop this topic and, to tell the truth, she is totally freaked looking at the train tracks without daring to cross them. Frogs likes more music than trains... ;)

+1 :)

Complex projects can be very enthousiastic as I recall some projects I realized in another life (nothing as complex as you detail here). You also need to feel that there is some kind of support for tasks that are not as exciting... I have abandonned many projects because of a lack of support, not that I asked others to help, but I hoped someone would offer his help.

Of course, this "to happen someday" hobby will be interesting, but not for the same reasons. At this part of my life, apart from very small things, programming is not anymore my activity of choice, but I admire your skills and talent from what you have done.

And as always, it is very interesting :)

Alain

Finally, I checked on the net for this "frog" and "French" thing. I seems that it is not related directly at Canadian French people, but to French (from France) first, and then extended here...

All this is because our French cousins like to eat frog legs... I tried that many years ago and with spices and garlic, I must admit that it really tastes good !

But if one thinks he will jump higher and further after, well... Think again ;)

Wow... I can't imagine the compliments a guy would receive if he eats horse... Hum "You look like an stallion..." ???

But I would not say that I like to eat lobster, nobody would want to shake hand with me...

Alain :)