LionChief Bluetooth Gateway Project (Updated 2-8-20)

I don't know whether you can make a living doing this, but I'm sure many folks in the hobby will be interested in your enhancements of LionChief locos and the LionChief remote.  These are very good value beginner products, but adding further controls, sounds, perhaps speed control, etc. will be of interest to folks who are progressing in the hobby, or have a mixture of LC, LC+, TMCC and Legacy equipment.  Perhaps you may find a way to add functions to the LC remotes to mimic the TMCC and Legacy control of switches, routes and similar more complex functions. 

TMCC was simple and largely bulletproof. Legacy is more complex and capable, but a little less bulletproof is my impression. LC and LC+/Bluetooth are very simple and almost entirely bulletproof.    Add to these strengths that there are literally hundreds of thousands to perhaps even millions of LC remotes out there from set sales, as mentioned previously. 

I would suggest that prior to investing any significant funds in developing these projects beyond your own use, or making available at cost,  would involve getting Lionel's approval for developing these products. Lionel (unlike their competition) has been very open to having third party products developed for their control system (TMCC/Legacy), but this is an entirely new management group compared with those earlier (1990s and 2000s) days. No one wants to receive a cease and desist letter from an intellectual property law firm .  Personally I think they'd be fools not to let you develop new products that enhance their existing technology, but sometimes people are control freaks.

I find your projects interesting.  I like the idea of being able to set the max speed, then hand the remote to the child.  Also, the sound only remote sounds like a winner for really young kids.  How much would I pay for it? eh, not much, because I could also just hand them my phone to control the train with the speed setting in the app.

Two things I think would be interesting, although I have no idea if they are feasible:

1. Separate sale Bluetooth board (installed in the train) that responds to the LionChief App.  Similar to the ERR TMCC boards that allow TMCC control of trains.

2. Send the train sounds to a stereo system or separate speaker (such as a Bose soundlink) via bluetooth.  

Landsteiner posted:

I don't know whether you can make a living doing this, but I'm sure many folks in the hobby will be interested in your enhancements of LionChief locos and the LionChief remote.  These are very good value beginner products, but adding further controls, sounds, perhaps speed control, etc. will be of interest to folks who are progressing in the hobby, or have a mixture of LC, LC+, TMCC and Legacy equipment.  Perhaps you may find a way to add functions to the LC remotes to mimic the TMCC and Legacy control of switches, routes and similar more complex functions. 

TMCC was simple and largely bulletproof. Legacy is more complex and capable, but a little less bulletproof is my impression. LC and LC+/Bluetooth are very simple and almost entirely bulletproof.    Add to these strengths that there are literally hundreds of thousands to perhaps even millions of LC remotes out there from set sales, as mentioned previously. 

Landsteiner posted:

I would suggest that prior to investing any significant funds in developing these projects beyond your own use, or making available at cost,  would involve getting Lionel's approval for developing these products. Lionel (unlike their competition) has been very open to having third party products developed for their control system (TMCC/Legacy), but this is an entirely new management group compared with those earlier (1990s and 2000s) days. No one wants to receive a cease and desist letter from an intellectual property law firm .  Personally I think they'd be fools not to let you develop new products that enhance their existing technology, but sometimes people are control freaks.

I also highly doubt this would be replacing my day job any time soon, definitely just a hobby (though in a dream world a side job work for Lionel would be sweet I must say). If that hobby ends up starting to fund itself a little then all then merrier.

As someone who walked into a train store and bought my first Lionel Set a few months ago I can definitely say that (to someone just starting off in the hobby) the LC starter sets and price tag are much more palatable (and are the reason made the decision to buy any trains at all). Now they tried to warn me that if I wanted to go crazy LC would not be a good fit, but I said oh well I have ideas to fix that and walked out with a starter set.

Since then I've made about 6 more trips to Trainland added about $600 dollars worth of Fastrack including a quartet of Fastrack Remote Switches. I am getting hooked. I am looking to expand functionality but I am still not ready to literally pay double and go to Legacy or TMCC, especially while also loosing the ability to simultaneously run my initial investment locomotive by making the switch. Being told there is no option to get my existing train to a new control platform only sours the experience in my opinion. People should be rewarded for wanting to grow their starter set at their own pace.

As you mentioned this little project of mine would probably help not only those who have upgraded to own mixed equipment but also those who are just at the stage I am where we only own an LC (+ some post war conventional in my case now) and are looking to start integrating things like their switches and signals to LC.

I already think I have found the way to get the LC remote to control the switches and that is actually one of the things I am developing right now. (though I will need create an add on switch controller for my gateway, not a big deal though). I may not end up stopping until I have some equivalent of ATC on my trains though.

I am interested in hearing an expanded version what you mentioned about the bulletproof-ness of legacy though, I just watched some videos comparing Legacy with TMCC to try and understand. Were you talking with regards to the confusion about those modules for example? I also think I get what you mean about the fact that LC is certainly bulletproof simple. Hard to mess that process up. It certainly makes sense that in order of setup and run time, from quickest to slowest it appears to go LC-TMCC-LEGACY. Consequently it also is the same order for functionality.

On the note of the intellectual property and talking to Lionel I wouldn't have any clue where to start on that. I am definitely way more computer programmer than business man. But I know for one I won't be calling it the LionChief Gateway Project much longer but probably just LC Gateway. I would say you can look at my project the same as you would look at a person selling a board to control banks of Lionel switches, at the end of the day I'm just adding to an existing product. Plus the funny thing is any thing I do should add value towards people buying more Lionel hardware, if for example I add a feature that gets triggered by the LC Universal Remote then everyone would need to buy or own a LC Universal Remote. A definite win for them. And if People can also buy more LC trains knowing they can expand with more Lionel hardware in the future it is also a win for them. Working with Lionel in any capacity is of course the most desirable option, for now I am just a guy playing with his new trains in the basement, A guy who also has plans and ideas to do cool things with those trains.

To date I have only purchased what I need for myself to get this going, just as a project I have wanted to do since the minute I bought my first LC Loco.

I will also continue to rely on the community for ideas as I am sure I am way too new to know what people like to see happen. 

I definitely appreciate your input, You raised some important points.

-Ryan

JD2035RR posted:

I find your projects interesting.  I like the idea of being able to set the max speed, then hand the remote to the child.  Also, the sound only remote sounds like a winner for really young kids.  How much would I pay for it? eh, not much, because I could also just hand them my phone to control the train with the speed setting in the app.

Two things I think would be interesting, although I have no idea if they are feasible:

1. Separate sale Bluetooth board (installed in the train) that responds to the LionChief App.  Similar to the ERR TMCC boards that allow TMCC control of trains.

2. Send the train sounds to a stereo system or separate speaker (such as a Bose soundlink) via bluetooth.  

Thanks for the encouragement, It's great to hear any positive feedback on my ideas. As for cost it all comes down to how many features at what price point. Definitely nothing crazy, and also set by demand I would say. The more features I add the more hardware I need to add to the LC Gateway. If it was for one train at a time (based on what I know today) then I would say maybe around $60. This is based off the fact that the hardware to do this stuff isn't exactly free. but I also have to recoup tool cost, Keep in mind this is with the demand of just one person. The more interest the cheaper I could get it done.

As for your other ideas,

1. I am testing that very concept out now. Results are promising so far. I would like to use my postwar conventional locos with the LC Universal remote for example.

2. There are a few ways I could get this done. I should definitely be able to trigger it using the buttons on the original remote and app no matter what. If I do it without modification to the Locomotive, it would be an add on option to the LC Gateway, but it would also require you to provide your own sound files. If I did it as a plug into the original Loco LC control board then you can only connect one speaker per train (two trains can't share a speaker with that method), I also have no idea if there would be a delay since I haven't tested this yet. I would say an add on to the original LC board is the best way to keep the original sounds and just use a different speaker. 

Project update posted in top message. 

App button interception and remapping now works!

Video version below.

https://youtu.be/NDgSqmBNPxM

Two updates posted above. The video is here https://youtu.be/ZtITYrEDdwc and shows off the new accessory controlling ability on some postwar operating accessories. All from the official LionChief App.

great stuff.

This is a FANTASTIC project, and I am very excited about the possibilities of enhancing LionChief as well as adding LionChief to non-LionChief locomotives.  Please continue to keep us updated on this project. You may want to consider a crowdfunding campaign to allow you to continue development of this. Thank you!!

Jarrod

@Jarrod DellaChiesa posted:

This is a FANTASTIC project, and I am very excited about the possibilities of enhancing LionChief as well as adding LionChief to non-LionChief locomotives.  Please continue to keep us updated on this project. You may want to consider a crowdfunding campaign to allow you to continue development of this. Thank you!!

Jarrod

Thank you, I hope you also checked out this thread too: LionChief Gateway Project (8-30-20 Update)

^it's basically a more up to date version of this thread.

One thing I was recently looking into was an mod for MTH locos to run LionChief too.

At the moment the biggest obstacle to getting my efforts out there is how busy my software engineering day job is keeping me lately. Recovering development costs would be great though.

The most important thing I need to do with this LC Gateway is write the code to discover new locos on demand instead of requiring them to be pre programmed like I do now.

Jarrod, What sort of enhancement would you prioritize for LionChief personally? one thing I personally enjoyed is doing a consist of LionChief Locos.

Since seeing this post, I went and read the other thread and watched all the other videos.  Amazing work!  You've made great progress.  A consist of LionChief locomotives would be at the top of my list for sure.  My son has a LionChief and I have a LC+ 2.0 and we'd love to be able to create a consist!  Please consider creating a website for this project, with the ability to donate and potentially upvote features people would like to see!