This month has seen a few things happening: Flintston Industries, Sounds for EVNGR, Ops Sessions, Tasks completed & scheduled.

Flintston Cold Stores

I have placed some books to simulate the proposed cold store building size to see if my operators can still carry out all shunting functions without causing a problem.

For session #77 I used what is shown below.

The feedback was no impact and would be ok.

For session #78 I increased the height see below.

The feedback was it was too high!

So, I will measure the first configuration, and we will work with that for the building height.

Flintston Warehouse

Peter J brought me a "mock up" of the warehouse building. We propose to use some Clever Models images for brickwork, windows and concrete.

When the printed products were sourced all were good apart from the Dark Concrete & Medium Concrete which seemed too dark so Light Concrete was sourced and provides what we think is a better colour to use.

Sounds for EVNGR

Back in 2017 I put some sound files together using Audacity but for one reason or another we did not proceed, well now Peter J wants to implement sounds in three areas of his layout.

Peter would like two configurations:

On/Off by switch and volume control
On/Off by switch and/or movement sensing and volume control.

Peter had watched "Adding Sound to a Model Railroad Layout" on "Ron's Trains N Things" on YouTube and thought it could be a way to add the sounds he wanted. I watched the video and followed up on the components that Ron had used, and it was great but quite an expensive option so I decided to look at alternate ways to achieve the same outcome at a lower price.

Trial 1

I purchased a couple of different sound modules to experiment with the first was "8M Sound Modul Programmierbare MP3 WAV Musik Player with Speaker" from Amazon. It is an 0.5W unit so may not have the desired power output, time will tell.

Peter has a 12V DC Power Bus around the layout, so I put a diode bridge on the terminal block before the input side of a "LM2596S DC-DC Step Down Variable Volt Regulator" which I set to 4.7V using my bench power supply at 12V then the sound module with screw terminal blocks for the speaker wires.

I had to adjust the volume level in the mp3 file by +20db which allowed further adjustment on the config file of the sound module. Peter will build a speaker box. The disadvantage of this module is the sound level is fixed so a laptop to change setting in the config file is required to make changes.

Trial 2

Peter had watched a video on Ron's Trains N Things watch here. After watching you will see the methodology he used which formed the basis of my trial.

When I researched details in the video it was an expensive solution, so I decided to find a cheaper solution.

This trial will be using a "DollaTek Voice Sound Playback Module Arduino MP3 Player Module UART I/O Trigger Class D Amplifier Board 5W 8M Storage SD/TF Card".

This card is far more flexible than the first one and by using a Arduino you can have control for volume, start stop etc.

I asked CoPilot to create a sketch to control it using an Arduino Nano which it did and I set about building a module that also incorporated the ultrasonic sensor to start/stop the player when it detected "presence of an object in range". I assembled it on a base.

R>L Power in, Bridge Rectifier, Buck Converter, Power out

R>L Power out, Nano, Volume control, Ultrasonic Sensor, Solid State Relay

R>L Solid State Rela, Stop/Stop switch, Sound Board, Speaker

My approach was let's start with a sketch to get the sound module working then move on to incorporate the ultrasonic sensor switching.

Well, the CoPilot sketch for using the UART control did not work. I decided to bread board another trial so changes did not involve soldering/desoldering.

Trial 3

I searched for methods how to use the sound board which led me to GitHub and I found a library that detailed the method and commands I could use. The fundamental difference was the pins used for Rx/Tx on the Nano. I changed the code and he presto it worked!

I will go back and change the connections on the Nano from trial 2 then move on to the ultrasonic switch.

My Ops Sessions

I hosted two sessions, Session #77 & Session #78 since my last update.

2nd March - Session #77

Barry, Denis, Don, Paul, Peter S, Rosslyn & Wayne joined me for the session. It was great to see Rosslyn back her last attendance was Session #53 on 2nd September 2024.

We had a good session with minimal glitches.

L>R Peter S, Denis, Wayne, Barry, Don, Paul & Rosslyn

Barry ran the session at the Control Panel

Peter S ran the Flintston Local

Don & Rosslyn ran the Jimtown Turn

Denis ran the Loaded Ore Train and some mainline trains

Wayne ran some mainline trains and the Empty Ore Train

Paul worked Hornertown Yard

A rare sight - Hornertown Yard being bare...

Afterwards most of us, apart from those having to depart for parent duties, enjoyed afternoon tea.

18th March - Session #78

I forgot the Rouges Gallery... Anyway John, Paul, Peter J & Wayne joined me while I ran the Control Panel until Barry arrived somewhat late.

L>R Alex & John

Peter J

Paul

Wayne

John having Crib

Afterwards most of us, apart from those having to depart for dinner and show in the city, enjoyed afternoon tea.

L>R Paul, Peter J, John, Wayne & Barry

26th - Wayne's

Darren, Don, Peter S and I joined Wayne. We had a good run as we tried out Session 4 of Wayne's new operating system. There were a couple of scheduling issues that Wayne will address and a few improvements to job cards which is to be expected with a brand-new operating regime.