escortmad79 Posted October 29, 2010 Posted October 29, 2010 Inspired by Aliencat's Escape from Planet Monday MOC, I'm planning on building a town with a subway train underneath but on a larger scale. Obviously the track will be enclosed on 3 sides & have baseplates with modular buildings on top. Would PF or RC trains lose signal in the areas covered up? Would it be best to bite the bullet & just go for 9V instead? Cheers in advance Quote
Duq Posted October 29, 2010 Posted October 29, 2010 Not something I've tried but chances are that it will lose signal. It's Infra-Red remote control, not radio, so it does rely on line of sight to work. Quote
AndyC Posted October 29, 2010 Posted October 29, 2010 Line of sight is needed for the PF/RC controllers, since it's IR based. But remember also that they only need line of site to change speed, so you can quite happily leave them running under a covered section without them stopping. Quote
JopieK Posted October 29, 2010 Posted October 29, 2010 It should be very easy to create an IR repeater however :) using... a LEGuanO (or a normal Arduino of course...). Quote
Liutas Posted October 29, 2010 Posted October 29, 2010 Line of sight is needed for the PF/RC controllers, since it's IR based. But remember also that they only need line of site to change speed, so you can quite happily leave them running under a covered section without them stopping. I don't know about RC, but from my understanding, the PF system is sort of a set-it-and-forget-it system. You need line of sight to make changes, but once it's set it will go until changes are made. That make sense? Quote
JopieK Posted October 30, 2010 Posted October 30, 2010 I don't know about RC, but from my understanding, the PF system is sort of a set-it-and-forget-it system. You need line of sight to make changes, but once it's set it will go until changes are made. That make sense? Well, that depends. If you look up the IR PF protocol you see different messages some 'last' other messages let a motor turn only for a very short time. Also when you use e.g. the two different remotes on a train you see that the large one (with the round knobs and stop buttons) will let a train drive until you set power to zero or press stop. The small (technic PF) remote will only let the motor turn if you push or pull the remote lever. Quote
AndyC Posted October 30, 2010 Posted October 30, 2010 The old RC and PF "train" remote are 'set and forget', LoS is needed only to change the setting. The technic PF remote goes only when held in place, LoS is needed pretty much continuously. Finally, if you use the Rechargable PF battery box, it has a speed controller on it so you could dispense with IR entirely if you just wanted the train to run continuously at a fixed speed. Plenty of choice. Quote
Toastie Posted October 31, 2010 Posted October 31, 2010 Inspired by Aliencat's Escape from Planet Monday MOC, I'm planning on building a town with a subway train underneath but on a larger scale. Obviously the track will be enclosed on 3 sides & have baseplates with modular buildings on top. Would PF or RC trains lose signal in the areas covered up? Would it be best to bite the bullet & just go for 9V instead? Cheers in advance Well, almost all has been said; just to wrap up: The IR commands from the remote #8885 (bang-bang or more nicely on fwd/bwd as long as the IR signal from the remote is present) need to be in line of sight, if not the motor/light stop/go off. The IR commands from the remote #8879 are "set and forget". And then: Every cheap rf "TV/DVD/AV/... remote control extender" works beautifully well with all LEGO IR stuff, PF, RC, Manas, RCX, ... all that stuff runs on 38kHz modulated IR light - as the all the other plan vanilla remotes do as well. Just put the extender(s, use as many as you want/need) where there is no line of sight and you'll have full control, even in the dark ... Regards, Thorsten Quote
JopieK Posted November 2, 2010 Posted November 2, 2010 Well, almost all has been said; just to wrap up: The IR commands from the remote #8885 (bang-bang or more nicely on fwd/bwd as long as the IR signal from the remote is present) need to be in line of sight, if not the motor/light stop/go off. The IR commands from the remote #8879 are "set and forget". And then: Every cheap rf "TV/DVD/AV/... remote control extender" works beautifully well with all LEGO IR stuff, PF, RC, Manas, RCX, ... all that stuff runs on 38kHz modulated IR light - as the all the other plan vanilla remotes do as well. Just put the extender(s, use as many as you want/need) where there is no line of sight and you'll have full control, even in the dark ... Regards, Thorsten But that might be larger systems and it could be very easy by having a very small microcontroller. One IO pin needed for the IR LED, one for the IR receiver. Quote
Toastie Posted November 2, 2010 Posted November 2, 2010 But that might be larger systems and it could be very easy by having a very small microcontroller. One IO pin needed for the IR LED, one for the IR receiver. Yep, totally agreed on!!! (I was just throwing in some ideas you can plainly purchase and get back the heat into the ... ... thread still active on "how to make the ultimate train micro controller". Furthermore, we have all sorts of people willing to contribute, hardware freaks like you, dreamers like me, programmers, lurkers, enthusiasts, you name it ... it does nor get any better, I am just waiting. I guess your Arduino is close to the optimum ... how do we want to organize this? Rock on, Thorsten. Quote
Riccardo_Lenny Posted March 20, 2011 Posted March 20, 2011 Thanks for your answers. I found them very useful. Do you have more links like that one? I would like to know also more about arduino atmel. I want to make my layout as real as possible. Quote
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