Rear Passenger Car Tail Lights:

I'm working on one, but I don't have it released yet.  This is exactly the type of scenario that I envision for this project.

The Universal Wireless Remote Control Topic

Thanks for the reply, are you still working on it, i noticed the last reply in that discussion was 9/30. Another thought I saw you mention four channels, Ideally I'd like to put the engine in the third or forth position because of the engine cover. Having the head and tail lights work the the lead and last car change switch, and the engine in the middle would be awesome.

Yep, I have prototypes, and most everything is working.  I'm just trying to get a ton of projects done, and some of them are slipping. I still have some work to do on the transmitter microprocessor code, I have a couple of glitches that I'm trying to sort out.

I'm also working on a Universal Sound Board that  offers both wireless and wired capability to trigger multiple sound files.  The sounds can be of any length from seconds to days, and they're user configurable using and SD-card.  I have the boards built, I just have to do the documentation and packaging.  So many projects... so little time!

Here's the production version of the sound board.

@MCD4x4 posted:

Thanks for the reply, are you still working on it, i noticed the last reply in that discussion was 9/30. Another thought I saw you mention four channels, Ideally I'd like to put the engine in the third or forth position because of the engine cover. Having the head and tail lights work the the lead and last car change switch, and the engine in the middle would be awesome.

I'm sure I'll feel foolish for asking, but what do you mean by "engine cover"... i.e., reason you want the powered car in the middle of the consist.

Having the lead and last car change when switching direction should not be a problem with GRJ's design.  Each end car would have its own receiver board; both boards would listen to a single transmitter board in the middle-positioned powered car.  Only difference would be the headlights and tail-lights would be in swapped positions in the receivers.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

  So many projects... so little time!

So how is the "BIG" project coming?

Little by little John.  I got the rest of my switches in, and I'm soldering leads to the group on the liftgate so I can get that section nailed down.  That's kinda the anchor for a lot of the track, so that has to be right first.

It's real busy right here, and these have to be right to line up with all the rest of the track.  Any adjustments need to be made before I can move on.

@stan2004 posted:

I'm sure I'll feel foolish for asking, but what do you mean by "engine cover"... i.e  reason you want the powered car in the middle of the consist  

The MTH NYC Subways have a shell, or a cover over the motors to keep looking through the windows presentable. When the train is coming into the station, or leaving your vantage point, the first or the last two cars would look better seeing the interior, the seats etc.  so if the engine were moved to the third or forth position in a six car consist, ya really wouldn’t notice it.

@MCD4x4 posted:

The MTH NYC Subways have a shell, or a cover over the motors to keep looking through the windows presentable. When the train is coming into the station, or leaving your vantage point, the first or the last two cars would look better seeing the interior, the seats etc.  so if the engine were moved to the third or forth position in a six car consist, ya really wouldn’t notice it.

Print out some passenger figures and glue them to the inner partition.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Print out some passenger figures and glue them to the inner partition.

I’ve tried that, it looks much better in a few cars. What’s your ETA on this project. I can use five a week or forty in on shot. Trying to figure this one out is holding me up. You work looks promising.

So for the record, I offer the following summary of various methods that have been discussed on OGR for directional lighting on subways.

Method 1.  Daisy-chained tether from the powered car to/thru intermediate cars and terminating at the end car(s).  If done with a wired tether, the power for the lights in the cars can come from the powered car.  This means the noisy pickup rollers can be removed all but the powered car.  Or the tethers could be wireless.  For example, some Lionel engines use a wireless infrared tether to talk between steam engine & tender.  I believe the Lionel Acela uses a wireless infrared tether to talk between cars.  However, I do not recall anyone actually implementing a daisy-chained tether (wired or wireless) for the matter at hand (end-car directional lighting in a subway consist).

Method 2.  Direction sensor on the end car. There is NO communication between the powered car and the end car(s).  In this case the end car is responsible for setting its own direction lights based on a sensor.  Ideas proposed in OGR threads have included an accelerometer sensor and a wheel-direction rotation detector.  The problem with this method is the direction lights only change when the consist starts moving.  Again, there has been discussion but I do not recall anyone actually implementing this.

Method 3.  Motor control board on the end car used just for lighting.  For conventional operation, the end car has an E-unit / reversing-unit.  It's "sole-purpose" in life is to provide direction information extracting the DIRECTION button track-power interruptions to alternate the lights.  The motor drive electronics is not used.  For command control, in the case of MTH subways, a PS2 or PS3 board is placed in the end car.  The PS2/3 board essentially "listens" to the same address as the powered car.  This seems like an expensive alternative but I seem to recall a relatively recent OGR thread where this was actually implemented.  MTH never offered a simple DCS accessory decoders for operating cars like ERR does for TMCC.

Method 4.  Wireless signal from powered car to end car(s).  This is GRJ's project presently under discussion.  In a previous OGR thread I showed a rudimentary version where the tail-light in the powered car turns on an RF transmitter whenever it is on.  A simple RF receiver in the end car detects this and turns on its tail-light.  This is/was very simple and inexpensive (maybe $5 total) but you could only have 1 subway consist in your train room!  That is, whenever in reverse, the powered car is rudely spraying RF energy every which way!  As discussed in the long thread about GRJ's project, the trick is to only send a short RF signal when the direction changes..and to only send that RF signal to the intended (addressed) end car.

@stan2004 posted:

So for the record, I offer the following summary of various methods that have been discussed on OGR for directional lighting on subways.

Method 1.  Daisy-chained tether from the powered car to/thru intermediate cars and terminating at the end car(s).

Method 2.  Direction sensor on the end car. There is NO communication between the powered car and the end car(s).  In this case the end car is responsible for setting its own direction lights based on a sensor.  Ideas proposed in OGR threads have included an accelerometer sensor and a wheel-direction rotation detector.  The problem with this method is the direction lights only change when the consist starts moving.  Again, there has been discussion but I do not recall anyone actually implementing this.

Method 3.  Motor control board on the end car used just for lighting. For command control, in the case of MTH subways, a PS2 or PS3 board is placed in the end car.

Method 4.  Wireless signal from powered car to end car(s).  This is GRJ's project presently under discussion.

but you could only have 1 subway consist in your train room!

Hi Stan, thanks for the reply.

For number one, I’m trying to stay away from the tether I’d possibly

for number two, the direction sensor is interesting, down side is the lights only working when moving. Not ideal.

For number three, a. PS2 or 3 board for this use would be big bucks, especially times forty.

For number four, I didn’t realize the channels would all be the same. The layout I am currently working on will easily accommodate thirteen subways running at once. hmm, so maybe this won’t work either.

Brian

Actually, #4, at least with my upcoming remote control stuff, would work totally independently for as many subways as you have.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Actually, #4, at least with my upcoming remote control stuff, would work totally independently for as many subways as you have.

Hi John, would changing forward to reverse affect the train on the next track, make that ones light change?

@MCD4x4 posted:

...

For number four, I didn’t realize the channels would all be the same. The layout I am currently working on will easily accommodate thirteen subways running at once. hmm, so maybe this won’t work either.

Door number four is the way you want to go.  GRJ's method will support 13 subways at once.  In fact it would handle up to a million simultaneous subways if you are so fortunate to have such a ginormous train room!

I was not clear.  I mentioned that years back I made a proof-of-concept video demo where a PS2 engine transmitted a simple ON/OFF RF signal whenever in reverse.  I can't find the original thread but here's a brief description from a 5 year old OGR thread on the topic.  Here's the video from that thread.  And here's a "new" annotated picture showing what's going on in the video.

In the video, note the pair of white and pair of red LEDs in the receiver that toggle when the tail-light in the engine car turns on/off.

In the last 5 years (or so), inexpensive RF transmit and receive modules ($1) have become widely available on the likes of eBay that support a communications protocol allowing a million (or so) different addresses.  The trick is to only transmit for a brief fraction of a second when the transmitter has something to say...rather than transmitting whenever the powered car is in reverse.  So the powered car will only transmit a RF signal when the tail-light turns on...or when the tail-light turns off.  In other words only a brief transmission when the direction changes.

It appears that you are more than a Lookie-Lou!  Your application is a sliver of the capabilities of his "universal" one-size-fits-all project.  Obviously I can't speak to the pricing.  GRJ will certainly speak for himself, but I would be disappointed if the universal nature of the project would price it out of the ballpark for your specific application...times 40.

No, every channel on every transmitter will be matched to a single one-channel receiver.  These are based on 1527 learning code links, there is no crosstalk.  One of the things my transmitter module is doing is sending out only a brief control so it won't tie up the 433mhz band and cause issue with other transmitters.

I haven't gotten to pricing, and I don't know if I can justify a production run of these.  I think the transmitter module and the two single channel receiver modules would probably be the most in demand.  However, in order to offer assembled versions of these at a reasonable price, I have to run at least several hundred.  With three boards, we're talking about fronting thousands of dollars without any certainty of recouping my investment, never mind any profit on the venture.  Given that fact, I'm considering maybe I should try to re-spin the PCB for thru-hole and offer kits.  That is a much smaller outlay and I wouldn't be so nervous about fronting that kind of cash.

Yup.  I'm such a tight-wad and what I'll do to save a buck seriously clouds my judgment!  So don't listen to anything I have to say about what guys want and what they will pay for it! 

@MCD4x4 posted:

Hi John, would changing forward to reverse affect the train on the next track, make that ones light change?

Perhaps a bit more of what is going on "under-the-hood" would make this more clear.  Each transmitter module (in the powered car) sends out RF commands with what amounts to a random digital address (about a million combinations).  On the $1 receiver module is a so-called "learn" button.  You press this button to put the receiver into "learn" mode.  Now the receiver is listening for a RF transmission.  You have the transmitter send a signal.  The receiver "learns" the address of the transmission and remembers it forever.  This is kind of like pressing the "pair" or WPS button to mate Bluetooth or Wi-Fi devices.  In your example of a middle-positioned powered car talking to 2 end cars you would have both end cars "learn" the address of the powered car.  You can have an unlimited number of receivers taught to listen to a specific powered car.  For example, you might want to command ALL the subway cars in a consist to turn their interior/cabin lights on and off together.  No problem!  Just put a receiver in each car and teach it to listen to the address of the powered car in the consist.  No other consist will pay attention to the goings-on of another consist!

@stan2004 posted:

You can have an unlimited number of receivers taught to listen to a specific powered car.  For example, you might want to command ALL the subway cars in a consist to turn their interior/cabin lights on and off together.  No problem!  Just put a receiver in each car and teach it to listen to the address of the powered car in the consist.  No other consist will pay attention to the goings-on of another consist!

I understand that the head and tail lights become the signal for same to happen in the other two cars, but what would send the signal for the interior lights? This all sounds very promising. It seems like John has this pretty much figured out. The question is, are these going to be sold ready to plug in, or are they going to be sold as solder it yourself kits.

Brian

See my previous post, I don't know that I can afford to front the amount of money needed to go to production on all the boards.  It would be keen, but I have no idea if I'd ever even recover my investment, much less make a profit on all the engineering and prototype work it's taking to create this system.

@MCD4x4 posted:

I understand that the head and tail lights become the signal for same to happen in the other two cars, but what would send the signal for the interior lights?...

I don't have an MTH subway set.  I was assuming subway engines have a DCS-controllable interior light or cab light that can be turned on/off.  Unless it has changed recently, GRJ's transmitter has 4 inputs.  The receiver has (up to) 4 outputs.  So the interior light circuit in each car can be driven by 1 of the 4 signals; and by teaching each receiver to listen to the address of the powered car, then the interior lights of every car in the consist would mimic the interior lights of the powered car.

I just glued in some Evans RED LED's into the holders on my designated end RK cars and soldered the leads to the light holder. They stay lit  from 3  to 17v.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

See my previous post,

I read it John, what aim trying to figure out is if this option will materialize, or should I keep searching. Did you look into the costs yet? You mentioned thousands, how many thousands and what profit can be made?

I need to finish the code for the uP on the transmitter and I will then have an assembled set to do some additional testing.  As for pricing, I see these priced ala-carte, one might one one or two transmitters and a few of the one-channel receivers.  I'm still trying to determine what would be the best way to produce these without taking too much of a financial bath up front.

@stan2004 posted:

I don't have an MTH subway set.  I was assuming subway engines have a DCS-controllable interior light or cab light that can be turned on/off

Stan, I have not tried a PS3 engine test but the PS2 engines do not. It the PS2 version the glass interior lights are run off track pier directly to the center roller. I’m going to swap all that out and go with LED’s. When i changed a speak on a PS2 Subway engine I noticed this empty female plug. I’m not sure what it may do in other engines or if they give a signal in Subways. I can tell you that some engines have two proto couples and some one.

@SIRT posted:

I just glued in some Evans RED LED's

Steve I remember us talking about this and saved the info. Between than and now I saw a few videos of HO Subways with working, reversible tail lights. Before I swap all my cars over set by set, I’d like to do this at the same time while the sells are off. I also have to swap out all the PS2 9 volts.

The interior lights are on the 12-pin connector.

The 8 pin connector has other lights, Marker, MARS, DITCH, and the Beacon.

If you want the white and red LED switching per direction, a circuit can be easily built.

Maybe as an option, remove the cover in the rear of the R-40 designated last car and reverse engineer the board using that as an example for RK Cars? 

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

The interior lights are on the 12-pin connector.

The 8 pin connector has other lights, Marker, MARS, DITCH, and the Beacon.

Looking in the remote, I don’t see the cab or interior light on/off option. I did find Dutch lights and smoke controls.

@SIRT posted:

If you want the white and red LED switching per direction, a circuit can be easily built.

Maybe as an option, remove the cover in the rear of the R-40 designated last car and reverse engineer the board using that as an example for RK Cars? 

I’m looking to have it work with the DCS, I love that DCS.

@MCD4x4 posted:

Stan, I have not tried a PS3 engine test but the PS2 engines do not. It the PS2 version the glass interior lights are run off track pier directly to the center roller. I’m going to swap all that out and go with LED’s. When i changed a speak on a PS2 Subway engine I noticed this empty female plug. I’m not sure what it may do in other engines or if they give a signal in Subways. I can tell you that some engines have two proto couples and some one.

@MCD4x4 posted:

Looking in the remote, I don’t see the cab or interior light on/off option. I did find Dutch lights and smoke controls.

Again, this is just my ignorance showing but I don't understand what DCS-controllable features a subway has in regards the lighting.

In your above photo, the signals on the 12-pin connector are as shown in GRJ's diagram.  It's hard to tell from your photo (perhaps you could carefully inspect and report) which of the 12 contacts are installed.  For example it looks like #1 is empty; that's the smoke control.  I guess it makes sense that there is no smoke in the subway.  #2 has a bunch of purple wires crammed into it.  Etc.  IF there is an Interior Light, it would be on contact #3 (is there one?).   Presumably there is the standard directional headlight / tail-light on the powered car on contact #5 and #4.

It's puzzling that you can pull up the Ditch Light controls on the remote.  I thought the remote would only display valid options.  That is, the 8-contact connector which has the ditch light signal is empty in your photo.  Does it do anything if you press it ON and OFF?

Then, since there is no smoke, the 4-contact connector is alsy empty.

So are you saying the interior light in the powered car are directly wired to track voltage?  In other words you have absolutely no control over the interior lighting?  If this is the case, and it's just my opinion, then it seems you should consider part of the project to make the interior lights controllable using one of the signals you can get to!  Does the remote ever display the control to the Interior Light; I think it might be labeled "LIN" for Light INterior.

Stan, a lot of the interior lights in stuff like the Doodlebug and RK Subways were wired to track power and not controlled.  I think it's because there were too many lights for the lighting output, so they just took the easy way out.

The marker LED's on some of the subways were also wired in parallel, they had red & green wired directly in parallel.  You can guess which ones didn't work!

Well, that makes sense.  I figure most guys run multiple-car subway consists...and if the Interior Lights of the non-motorized cars simply come on with track voltage then why would you want the powered/motorized car to behave any differently?  Duh! 

I guess remote-controlled synchronized Interior Lights of an entire consist is asking a bit much...when what has actually been requested over the years is a solution to directional lighting on the end cars.  That is, how to simply, inexpensively, easily, etc. have the end car mimic the directional lights of the powered car at the other end.

That said, and just thinking out loud, perhaps your Universal (up to 4 channel) system is too much capability?  It's just that I believe it's the only-game-in-town for what I'm calling Method 4.

This being a discussion forum, I wonder if the Method 1 tether can step up to the plate - specifically the wireless tether.  I think of the MTH slave-diesel configuration and how the daisy-chain means you can't have a pusher-puller with the engines on the ends.  Yet, that's really the same thing as the subway "problem."  You want the car/engine at one end of the consist duplicating/copying the behavior of the car/engine at the other end.  But what's different with the subway is all the intermediate/intervening cars HAVE POWER!  How can this be used to advantage?  Read on!

So here's a half-baked idea. Assume one wants to "upgrade" the interior lights of the non-motorized cars to LED lighting.  Yes, the lights always come on with track power but that's just the way it is.  But with LED lights (I'd think some LED strips) there is DC power and you have to mess with and modify the shell/roof to install them.  I'm imagining a very simple circuit that has a 5-cent Infrared LED and a 5-cent Infrared detector.  These can be the 3mm style commonly used in O-gauge.

The idea is the powered car's tail-light also turns on an IR LED aimed out a window or unused lens.  The LED is aimed at the next car's symmetrically located window or lens.  The IR detector in the next car detects the IR LED energy (it's coming from an inch or two away!) and echoes this to its LED at the other end.  This makes a simple ON-OFF daisy chain to the last car which now has the powered car's tail-light status.  This then drives the directional lights at the far end.

As shown, I believe this can also work for a middle-positioned power car.  That is, the powered car's tail-light drives an IR LED at each end of the powered car.

Again, this is a discussion forum.  This is a different tack.  That is, it approaches the problem by asking what is the minimum needed to get the job done...rather than stripping down and using only the fraction of the capabilities of the Universal Wireless system.

That should work, but with one issue I can see.  With the issues I've heard about with alignment of the Lionel Acela IR link, I wonder how reliable it would be on curves, etc?  Also, you need a bit more logic wrapped around them to switch the lights, right?  The good side is that there's no interference with other consists, that's one issue to contend with with RF links.

@stan2004 posted:

Again, this is just my ignorance showing but I don't understand what DCS-controllable features a subway has in regards the lighting.

In your above photo, the signals on the 12-pin connector are as shown in GRJ's diagram.  It's hard to tell from your photo (perhaps you could carefully inspect and report) which of the 12 contacts are installed.  For example it looks like #1 is empty; that's the smoke control.  I guess it makes sense that there is no smoke in the subway.  #2 has a bunch of purple wires crammed into it.  Etc.  IF there is an Interior Light, it would be on contact #3 (is there one?).   Presumably there is the standard directional headlight / tail-light on the powered car on contact #5 and #4.

It's puzzling that you can pull up the Ditch Light controls on the remote.  I thought the remote would only display valid options.  That is, the 8-contact connector which has the ditch light signal is empty in your photo.  Does it do anything if you press it ON and OFF?

Then, since there is no smoke, the 4-contact connector is alsy empty.

So are you saying the interior light in the powered car are directly wired to track voltage?  In other words you have absolutely no control over the interior lighting?  If this is the case, and it's just my opinion, then it seems you should consider part of the project to make the interior lights controllable using one of the signals you can get to!  Does the remote ever display the control to the Interior Light; I think it might be labeled "LIN" for Light INterior.

Again Stan I appreciate the time from you guys. I opened it up, on the 12 pin side, 1 is empty, 2 seems to be all the purple ground wires, three is the marker lights, 4 is the tail light, 5 is the head light, 6 is yellow going to the speaker, 7 is empty, 8 is white going to the speaker, 9 is black going to the front coupler, 10 going to the speaker volume pot, 11 is the other side of the speaker adjustment pot, 12 is going to the battery charging port on the bottom.

The ditch light and smoke button do nothing.

The interior light are all glass and are wired to track power.

WOW, that's not wired according to Hoyle!  My diagram is right out of the ASC manuals, and I've used it many times debugging things.

6 & 7 should go to the speaker, and all three of 10,11, & 12 should go to the volume control. red to the center, gray to the high end, and blue to the low end.  Markers are normally powered from the 8-pin connector.  12 to the battery charging port makes NO SENSE AT ALL!  The battery port is the 2-pin connector on the power board!

I looked at a few harnesses in my parts box, all were wired as I describe.  I have no idea how that's working at all!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

WOW, that's not wired according to Hoyle!  My diagram is right out of the ASC manuals, and I've used it many times debugging things.

Could I be looking at the board from the wrong side?

Not likely, many of the wires are in the right place.  However, several are also a big mystery!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

The interior lights are on the 12-pin connector.

The 8 pin connector has other lights, Marker, MARS, DITCH, and the Beacon.

John is there a clear picture of the pin labels on the internet somewhere?

Did you click on the pictures to enlarge them?

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

That should work, but with one issue I can see.  With the issues I've heard about with alignment of the Lionel Acela IR link, I wonder how reliable it would be on curves, etc?  Also, you need a bit more logic wrapped around them to switch the lights, right?  The good side is that there's no interference with other consists, that's one issue to contend with with RF links.

Right.  As I said, this is a germinating thought.

So I cobbled together a simple experiment as shown in above video.  On the left is an IR LED (transmitter) driven by a nominal 20 mA.  This would represent what is transmitted by the powered car when the tail-light is ON.  On the right is a widget that I built some time in the last century which I use to detect the presence of Infrared (IR) energy.  I've written about it in previous OGR threads.  Basically, when IR energy is present the red LED turns ON.  The red LED gets brighter with more IR energy.  It is powered by a 9V (DC) battery.  The idea is this is essentially what would be the repeater circuitry in the intermediate/intervening cars.  When IR energy is detected from the previous car, the 25-cent circuit would repeat the tail-light on/off state via an IR LED (instead of the red LED) on the other end of the car to the next car.  And so on.

The experiment was to place the receiver about my guess of the distance between two subway cars....then to rotate the receiver to simulate going around curves.

The video suggests we're in the ball park!  I believe you can reliably detect the IR transmission from an adjacent car even going around curves.

As mentioned earlier, this only makes sense if already opening up the intermediate cars to convert from power-hungry bulbs to LEDs.  It is a very simple and inexpensive circuit to detect IR energy with an IR detector at one end of the car...and then re-transmit the on/off status to an IR LED at the other end of the car; this daisy-chains the on/off status of the tail-light to the end-car.  No "software" or fancy digital circuitry is required!

Looks promising, Stan, what happens if the receiver is off the axis of the transmitting lens?  I'm wondering how wide the beam angle is coming from the transmitter.  Your demo kept it right in line with the transmitter and only changed it's angle, just curious how far off-axis it can be and still see the beam.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Looks promising, Stan, what happens if the receiver is off the axis of the transmitting lens?  I'm wondering how wide the beam angle is coming from the transmitter.  Your demo kept it right in line with the transmitter and only changed it's angle, just curious how far off-axis it can be and still see the beam.

Agreed my experiment was simply to see if in the ballpark.  This was one of those "raise the flag and see who salutes."

The LED and detector each have angular-displacement specifications.  In the case of the LED this characterizes how the intensity changes as you go off center (rotated).  Likewise for the detector, this characterizes how the sensitivity changes as you go off center.  For example, from the datasheet of one particular 3mm IR LED, the intensity is 90% if 10-degrees off center, and 80% if 20-degrees off center.

If this hobby project was "engineered," one should do-the-math to show if enough IR energy makes it across the gap going around an O-31 curve (or whatever the worst case curve is needed).  Likewise, to your point, the TX and RX devices will be slightly off-axis...this could be horizontal and/or vertical mis-alignment. For the matter at hand, I suggest an off-axis error can be converted to an off-center error and the parametric datasheet graphs can be used.

This is offered in the spirit of a discussion forum.  Again, this method would require modifying each car in the consist.  Hence, I commented that this would probably only make sense if already planning to open up the middle cars to, say, convert from bulbs to LEDs for the interior lights.

But if there's any interest in this method, even if only for discussion purposes, we can press forward.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'm working on one, but I don't have it released yet.  This is exactly the type of scenario that I envision for this project.

The Universal Wireless Remote Control Topic

Hi John,

How ya making out with this project?

Brian NY

It's been on the back burner, I have to get back to it.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'm working on one, but I don't have it released yet.  This is exactly the type of scenario that I envision for this project.

Hi John, how are did you make out with this project? I need forty of them.

Brian NY

@MCD4x4 posted:

Hi John, how are did you make out with this project? I need forty of them.

All the different modules are actually all designed, prototyped, and tested.  It works great, and I've hand assembled a few of each of the components, even used several of them in my own stuff.  However, with the fall-off of interest for the summer, I haven't worked on getting any of it into production.  I'm at a crossroads with the project.

My dilemma is with very little feedback on what real quantities might be, committing to any volume production where I'd have a lot of money tied up in stock is a bit worrisome.  I've already gone down this road with my MP3 Sound board, after an initial flurry of interest, pretty much crickets.

What's the exact capability you are trying to achieve, is it simply handling directional lighting for the trailing cars?

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I've already gone down this road with my MP3 Sound board, after an initial flurry of interest, pretty much crickets.

What's the exact capability you are trying to achieve, is it simply handling directional lighting for the trailing cars?

I don't know much about railroads and the need for directional lighting in a tail car but I can tell you that every Subway enthusiast that I talk to wants this addition to each one of their four, six and eight car sets.

What I'm looking for is this, the NYC MTH Subway's do not have tail lights. Some guys add them in and wire them to the ceiling lights, better than nothing. The engines have directional head and tail lights. I want that in the tail car. when changing directions the tail car would be opposite.

I also have few push pull trains I'd like to add the boards to. New Jersey Transit, Metro North etc. Like anything else I'm sure price would have a bearing on peoples buying habits. I myself need about fifty of them to be safe. How much would they cost singularly and in bulk?

Brian

We probably looking at something in the ballpark of $75 for the ability to control the directional lights on your trailing cars.  It involves a track powered transmitter in the head (powered) car monitoring the status of the headlight and/or reverse light output.  This status is transmitted back to the receiver in the rear car and controls the lighting.  This would allow directional markers and headlights.

4-Channel Transmitter

4-Channel Relay Receiver

@MCD4x4 posted:

...

I'm about to swap all my NYC Subway cars over to LED's. probably about forty six car sets. I'd like to add head and tail lights to the last cars. The housings are there already. Only the LED's would have to be added. That's where my dilemma comes in.

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Curious if a ~$75 price tag is a buzzkill?  Let's see.  46 x $75 is a wad of Ben Franklin's!

Also, when you say swap "all...cars over to LEDs" does this also mean the incandescent interior lights?  I learned from one of your posts that the MTH Subway Cars have track-powered interior lights...including, as I understand it, the powered cars.

I don't have a Subway set and don't know "how" guys operate them.  But it seems that if one goes thru the effort of converting the tail-lights of Subway sets to LED, there would be interest in converting the interior lighting to LED too...and to also place those LEDs under DCS control assuming an available light outputs.

As I see it, you're trying to take a "universal" design and apply it to a very specific/narrow application.  Just wondering whether another tack is to flesh-out exactly what is needed/wanted for the specific application at hand.  Stated differently, so-called "universal" designs are great because they can be used in a wide variety of applications.  BUT.  They usually have everything but the kitchen sink and you're paying for it.  If you have an application that is specific enough that one person (i.e., YOU!) needs dozens of them, perhaps a different approach is warranted.  Just my 2 cents...

@stan2004 posted:

Curious if a ~$75 price tag is a buzzkill?  Let's see.  46 x $75 is a wad of Ben Franklin's!

I'm pretty sure that was a major factor.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'm pretty sure that was a major factor.

I have a ship in port, long days. Don't be so quick to judge, I'm interested but I would expect a discount on fifty boards. Two questions, why four channels for two lights, how big are these boards. I'd have to go back into notes but it doesn't look like its going to fit in the unseen area of a subway car. I remember posting a picture of the space I have. maybe you've worked on these before?

Brian NY

@MCD4x4 posted:

I have a ship in port, long days. Don't be so quick to judge

No judgment, just thought after three days I might have scared you away.

There's no way I can realistically judge if these would fit without actually seeing the cars.  I've seen various models of the subway cars before when working on them, but I don't keep all the clearances and details in my head as far as what might fit into them.  I know in standard passenger cars, my sense would be to stick these to the ceiling, I do that with LED lighting control modules. and they are out of sight unless you get below the window line and look up at an angle through the windows.

Considering the application, you could probably do the lighting with the FET receiver model.  It's 1.125"L x 1"W x .5"H.  The reason for two channels is independent control of two light channels.  The board come in 1 channel and 4 channel models, I don't happen to have a 2 channel board, but it wouldn't be much smaller than the 4 channel one.

The transmitter has a footprint of 1.4"L x 1.2"W x .4"H.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Considering the application, you could probably do the lighting with the FET receiver model.  It's 1.125"L x 1"W x .5"H.  The reason for two channels is independent control of two light channels.  The board come in 1 channel and 4 channel models, I don't happen to have a 2 channel board, but it wouldn't be much smaller than the 4 channel one.

I was wrong, those dimensions are fine, they just looked big in the picture. The four channels gives me another idea. If there were two receivers, I'd be able to move the engine back into the third position and control the lights in the forward and last cars correct? That would leave the first and last cars empty and normal looking as apposed to not being able to see through them. Picture attached:

Actually, since there are only two states for lights, you just need two channels for this option as well.  The two receivers both receive the transmitted signal, and just do the opposite thing with the lights.

Important point, the first two channels are microprocessor enhanced to allow additional lighting modes.  The last two channels just mirror the inputs as far as what is transmitted.  This is important as a continuous signal will inhibit other transmitters on other consists from operating if there is a continuous transmission.

GRJ, do the outputs of your FET (or relay output for that matter) receivers have provisioning to install a resistor for LED lighting?  And/or, stated differently, for this specific case of powering, say, a pair of directional LEDs, where does the low voltage DC come from (e.g., 5V DC) and how is current limited to the LEDs?  If you've already posted schematics in a previous thread and I've already made my comments on this, I apologize in advance for repeating myself.

Brian, what am I looking at?  In YOUR photo on the right it appears there are seven (7) incandescent bulbs in sockets.  In YOUR photo on the left it appears there are seven (7) LEDs+resistor.  Is this the difference between PS2 and PS3?

Separately, in photo on left, there are two connectors circled in Orange and Purple.

The Orange connector appears to have 2 wires going to it, Orange+Purple.

The Purple connector appears to have 3 wires going to it, Purple+Green+Green.

My vision ain't so good but that's what it looks like - is this correct and what plugs into these connectors???

@stan2004 posted:

GRJ, do the outputs of your FET (or relay output for that matter) receivers have provisioning to install a resistor for LED lighting?  And/or, stated differently, for this specific case of powering, say, a pair of directional LEDs, where does the low voltage DC come from (e.g., 5V DC) and how is current limited to the LEDs?  If you've already posted schematics in a previous thread and I've already made my comments on this, I apologize in advance for repeating myself.

I didn't put in provisions for optional resistors as the intent was a generic receiver.  Any resistors for LED use would be added externally.

Here's the documentation for the Universal Wireless Remote Controls Composite Documentation.pdf.

Here's an example of use of one of the remote receivers for controlling all aspects of the otherwise manually controlled Lionel sound cars.  This allows you to pick any combination of the sounds and also to turn power off to the sound board.

Click on graphic to enlarge.

GRJ, I realize this is really peeling the layers of the onion.  I reviewed the documentation in your above post.  I want to confirm the "change" detector in the transmitter has a filter (software or hardware) to reject the kHz rate PWM lighting modulation on the PS2 and PS3 light signals.  Seems we had a discussion about this in some OGR thread and there might have been something about capacitors on the input circuit.  Fuzzy on the details.  That is, I did not see explicit mention in the documentation about such a filter to make it compatible with PS2/PS3 light outputs which of course is absolutely required for MTH Subway application.

Stan, each input to the transmitter goes through an AC opto-coupler and has a 1uf filter cap.  This filter cap allows me to accept 60hz AC, and of course, any higher frequency appearing on the input.  I connected one of the transmitter inputs to a PS/3 headlight output and it correctly identified the state.  The input voltage sensing range is from less than 2 volts to 18 volts AC or DC.

Here's what each input circuit looks like.  The diode is to isolate the RF transmit module input, some versions of the RF transmit module have cross-talk between the inputs.

I'm still trying to understand EXACTLY what is needed for this application.  I'm still holding out for something special with INTERIOR LIGHT wireless control but that's just a peanut-gallery comment from a non-paying-customer!

I think it would be useful to draw out EXACTLY how the transmitter module hooks into a powered subway car including which connectors are used, where wires are spliced, etc. Likewise, EXACTLY how the receiver hooks into an end car, where external resistors must be added, etc..

For example, for the receiver, if all that is required is 2 white LEDs OR 2 red LEDs based on direction (i.e., never both ON together), I can imagine a scenario where this could be done with a 1-channel receiver.  That is, one output could use the "starve" the LED trick when employing 2 different LED colors.

@stan2004 posted:

I'm still trying to understand EXACTLY what is needed for this application.  I'm still holding out for something special with INTERIOR LIGHT wireless control but that's just a peanut-gallery comment from a non-paying-customer!

An exact set of requirements would be very useful, no doubt about it.

@stan2004 posted:

I think it would be useful to draw out EXACTLY how the transmitter module hooks into a powered subway car including which connectors are used, where wires are spliced, etc. Likewise, EXACTLY how the receiver hooks into an end car, where external resistors must be added, etc..

Those requirements would be useful for this activity.

@stan2004 posted:

For example, for the receiver, if all that is required is 2 white LEDs OR 2 red LEDs based on direction (i.e., never both ON together), I can imagine a scenario where this could be done with a 1-channel receiver.  That is, one output could use the "starve" the LED trick when employing 2 different LED colors.

No need for the "starve" voltage trick, the 1-channel relay receiver has two sets of Form-C contacts, plenty to do this the classic way.

@stan2004 posted:

Brian, what am I looking at?  In YOUR photo on the right it appears there are seven (7) incandescent bulbs in sockets.  In YOUR photo on the left it appears there are seven (7) LEDs+resistor.  Is this the difference between PS2 and PS3?

Separately, in photo on left, there are two connectors circled in Orange and Purple.

The Orange connector appears to have 2 wires going to it, Orange+Purple.

The Purple connector appears to have 3 wires going to it, Purple+Green+Green.

My vision ain't so good but that's what it looks like - is this correct and what plugs into these connectors???

Stan,

The two pictures you post are of the same PS2 Subway engine. The Subway engines, and all trailer cars power the interior lights off of track power, same thing with PS3. The picture on the left is after I swapped out the glass power sucking bulb for some LED's with  resistors to lower the voltage.

The empty connectors you see are from the body mounted head/tail or marker lights.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Actually, since there are only two states for lights, you just need two channels for this option as well.  The two receivers both receive the transmitted signal, and just do the opposite thing with the lights.

Important point, the first two channels are microprocessor enhanced to allow additional lighting modes.  The last two channels just mirror the inputs as far as what is transmitted.  This is important as a continuous signal will inhibit other trs tansmitters on other consists from operating if there is a continuous transmission.

John with no electronics in the trailer cars I'm assuming your boards would be track powered and as such protected or regulated if the trans former is all the way up?

Also, if there were multiple trains running, would the transmitters interfere with each other, changing lights on different train?

Brian NY

@MCD4x4 posted:

John with no electronics in the trailer cars I'm assuming your boards would be track powered and as such protected or regulated if the trans former is all the way up?

Also, if there were multiple trains running, would the transmitters interfere with each other, changing lights on different train?

Brian NY

Correct, they boards are designed to run on track power and to not interfere with DCS track signals.  The transmitters are also designed not to step on each other.  The first two transmit channels are micro-processor controlled to prevent them from continuous transmission and stepping on other signals from other transmitters.