BOB WALKER posted:For several years, a number of my BlueRail Trains equipped bluetooth controlled engines included an on-board bluetooth amplifier and speaker. The BlueRail app connects with the amp and provides a wide variety of sounds. Power to the amp is regulated to 5V and is sourced from either track AC or DC.
Certainly a nice package there, nice to see, Even before I really got going into trains again like this I have heard of BlueRail. At this point I have a personal goal to get the official LC remote to send commands to a device of my own design and after that my plans open up a bit.
I will likely try to make a new sound board/amp package that gets triggered by the LC Universal remote(I would like to gauge the interest level in this on the forums) as an alternative to using phones. Maybe people would like the ability to keep cell phones out of the train room as a way to show kids these days that there are things that can be done without a smartphone.
Also as I just added to my first post, my top priority end game right now is to create a gateway that allows me to add external speed limits and momentum to the LC remotes and official app. As we know the LC app's momentum and speed limit settings do not apply to the non app based remotes. You can't just set the speed limit in the app and then hand a child the LC remote with a new speed limit applied to it. Same thing with Momentum. If we want to simulate a heavily loaded LC based freight train with momentum, the only current option is to use the LC phone app. My gateway will in theory allow me to implement those options as a master setting for all remote options. That way when you want to impose a speed limit for anyone who uses any remote it will be an option. With expansion interfaces I should also be able to have my gateway allow multiple remotes on one LC engine at the same time. Maybe allow you to designate a supervisor remote that overrides all other remotes. maybe you want multiple remotes to be able to trigger the horns and bells separately. Maybe you want a horn only remote that ignores speed input that you can hand to any kid without the chance of them creating a collision situation. All this is possible now that I cracked the code of these remotes.
