29 Apr, 2023 Minutes

MRT SIG minutes for April 29th, 2023

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The Model Railroad Technology (MRT) SIG met at 10:30AM at Rusty Baumberger’s residence on 29 April, 2023. In attendance were Rusty Baumberger, Eric Timberlake, Don Erikstrup, Gary Lee, Warner Swarner, Mike Fisher, and special guest Dr. Geoff Bunza.

The only topic of discussion was “An Operating Steam Throttle”. This is a handheld device, custom built by Dr. Bunza.

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  The handheld controller over a cab background

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  The receiver hooked to a battery and track

The controller operates any engine as though you were sitting in the cab of a steam engine. It has all the necessary controls and gauges. It also has sound recorded from an actual steam engine cab to simulate the background sounds and others sounds such as when you adjust the steam pressure or load fuel in the fire box. It works in conjunction with a receiver that is small enough to fit inside an HO scale engine or tender, and possibly even an N-scale, so it will definitely fit inside a G scale engine or tender.

The first photo above is from Dr. Bunza’s web site where he describes in detail this device and how to build it. The second photo above shows how the receiver is hooked to a battery and to the track. The receiver uses the battery not only for itself to receive commands from the control device, but to power the track as well. It could also be used to directly power an engine. The engines shown here are HO scale track powered.

For full details on this project, please see Dr. Bunza’s web site at https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/an-operating-steam-throttle-you-can-customize-12548356?highlight=steam%20throttle&trail=25. And check out Dr. Bunza’s article on Arduinos at https://www.scalemodelanimation.com/Articles/Arduino_for_Modelers.pdf.

During the meeting, Eric volunteered to see if he could produce the first "foundational" part of this project - a WiFi connected DCC Control Station with a built in web server with enough power to run a typical G-Scale locomotive. You can follow his progress on this project at this wiki page: Upgrading a Web based DCC control station

The next MRT SIG meeting will be on May 27, 2023, from 10:30 to Noon at Don Erikstrup’s residence. The only topic currently on the agenda is a demonstration of an Arduino Explorer board constructed by Don. It is primarily an experimentation board, but is currently set up to actually control turnout switches, building lights and signs, and play sounds. All stimulated by sensors placed around a track to detect the presence of a train at various locations.

If you would like to share anything you have learned or built, send an email to MRT-SIG@RCGRS.com. And try to come to the next meeting. You can also provide us with information we can put on the web site at https://RCGRS.com/mrtwiki. Any form is acceptable (text files, Word documents, Mac Pages files, PDFs, spreadsheets, images of any form, videos, even presentation documents).