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Traction Motor Drive (MCU) Non-Sound

The PCB electrical engineering for our Traction Motor Drive (MCU) Non-Sound is wrapping up this weekend.  Our project is going into production immediately to support our Traction Motor based drive system.  While the fabrication and assembly of the PCB’s is in progress, we are tackling the programming.

The traction motor based drive presents a few challenges that you will not see a single motor type drive.  Mainly the motors have to be set at a correct frequency and voltage to get the best operation and longevity.  The difficult thing is that Coreless DC Motors require modulation that is different from the traditional DC Brushed Motor, so you just can’t take a standard decoder and use it without some sort of modification. 

Hence we needed a new solution.  The philosophy with our design is to give you the best possible product with no compromises.

The traction motor based drive gives you a number of advantages over the traditional can motor set up. 

·         We are much more efficient in energy, thus each wheel is producing torque against the rails.  This means great performance and pulling power.

·         Each motor has its own circuit and each wheel has a pickup so only one wheel per side on the locomotive will provide system power.  If a traction motor fails, only one that traction motor will fail.  The system is free rolling.

·         There is no mechanical component inside the hood which enables electronics that have not been seen yet in the industry.

·         The traction motor based system enables a floating equalized suspension (P87).

We designed the Motor Control Unit (MCU) with the best possible components and smallest SMD footprints. 

Power Management System

The power management system integration on the PCB is used control the motors, distributes track power to the electronic components, and provides a Li-PO battery charging IC.  You can use either the battery for power or track power.  If you use the battery, it is “plug and play” with thermal protection, and a built in charger.  The advantage of using the battery of course is no worry about track electrical condition and less time and money spent on wiring.  The PCB also includes a “Fuel Gauge” so feedback on battery charge is provided on the Graphical User Interface.

Battery Support:

·         Li-PO Battery Charger

·         Battery “Fuel Gauge” & Temperature Monitor

Motor Control System

We use a System in Package for the motor control “brains”.  This provides digital control to the motors and we use a circuit that increases the available torque at low voltages to ensure smooth low end speed performance.  The digital control synchronizes the motors and gives precise response with either wireless or track power digital command control.

Motor Support:

·         5V Voltage Regulation

·         PWM Motor Control

·         B-EMF / H Bridge Circuit

·         Digital Signal

Communication Protocols

Integrated with this System in Package is a Zigbee Pro 2.4 gHz transceiver.  This communication protocol is becoming a new standard for home and industrial automation.  It is an open source bandwidth and the components feature low energy use, quick wake up, and signal strength good for 30 – 50 meters.

With this new communication protocol, your Zigbee integrated Tablet can be the hub for your home, business, and model railway without the need for dedicated control systems.  This makes your investment good for the long term because updating is done with software.  A traditional DCC System is not required to get the benefits for precision layout control.

Our new Zigbee Tablet also has 3G/WiFi/Bluetooth which makes it much more than a model railway control system.

You do not need to justify the cost of ancillary DCC equipment because you do not need them except for accessory and charging modules.  You will also not require expensive and time consuming wiring or dealing with electrical issues such as “shorts”.

If wireless control is not your thing, our system is designed to work with standard DCC signals through the rails.  DCC signal coding is standardized by the NMRA so our system will work on all current systems.

DCC:

·         DCC signal through rails or Zigbee 2.4 gHz Wireless Control

LED Control System

The 4 – 6 aux outputs on current decoders are limiting because of the realism you can apply to your model.  A real locomotive has class lights, safety lights, and additional peripherals such as Gyra Lights, Mars Lights, Strobes, and Ditch Lights.  If you want to use LED’s for most existing locomotives, you have to figure out resistor values and do some handiwork to get it done right. 

Our system does the work for you, you just solder the lead to the correct pad and the circuitry and programming is already done for you.  We also add all of the LED based lighting that is seen on the prototype.  This means number boards you can light independently from the rest of the locomotive or even put step lights on your model.  We also configured the lights to operate like the real unit.  Your headlight can be on at the front even though the unit is in reverse for example. 

LED Lighting:

·         Class Lights – Neutral White/Green/Red LED

·         Tri-color Class Lights – RGB LED

·         Safety Lights – Warm White LED

·         Number-boards – Warm White LED

·         Gyralight/Marslight/Strobe – LED base with supporting software

Motion Sensing

We integrate a motion sensing platform into our design.  This does two things.  One, it enables a Scale MPH feedback so you can operate your train based on the prototype.  The last application is location feedback.  By programming the unit to know its position, changes from this location can be tracked and displayed on a dispatch panel.

The latter feature also ties into concept of having a wireless layout.  By using the Zigbee mesh, the locomotive can signal its position to accessory devices such as block signals and turn out controllers so it is possible to have them activate when the locomotive is within a specified distance.  All of this information can be relayed wirelessly to your tablet or dispatch center without complicated wiring on your layout.

Release & MSRP

Our target shipment date for the Traction Motor Drive (MCU) Non-Sound is June 15^th, 2012.  The PCBA is currently in production, and programming is commencing.  A sound version is going to be developed ASAP.

MSRP on the Non-Sound MCU is $79.99 USD.

Questions arising...

Dear Chris,

Thanks for posting this. FWIW the PDF opened fine on IE8 with Adobe Reader X.

Some questions arise, but I'd like to read and re-read a few times so I'm not asking anything silly...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

I'll be the silly one

Chris,

I've read though it - but I'm finding the information a bit unclear concerning the traction drive.  If I want to use them, and use my Tsunami DCC sound decoder on my DCC system, I would need to purchase...

X traction drives and one MCU?

or

X traction drives, one MCU, and one PCB

or

????

Thanks.

Clarification

Guys,

This first release will power our traction motor based drive in a non-sound format.

You can use either an existing DCC station or the Zigbee Wireless for control.  If you use our Li-PO battery, this system will not require track power except for areas where you use a recharge module.

I am working on various components including a sound PCB.  The PCB's will also be changed later to drive the standard drive currently used however please note that our traction motor system is the best way to power a diesel without the use of a tender.

If you use the MCU, the only additional component to drive the locomotive require is the battery if you plan on using un-powered track.  You do not need to purchase additional decoders to use this sytem.

The control system we are using for the wireless is our Zigbee tablet.  We have a working engineering sample ready.  It is going to be upgraded to our required specifications before release.

With the tablet, you do not need track power or any track signal based DCC station to use digital command control.  The MCU's will work with existing DCC systems.

We will be releasing a recharge module, signal module, turnout module, and accessory module.  The locomotives recharge from track power.  With the Zigbee mesh, everything talks and communicates through wireless so you do not need complicated track bus and feedback bus methods.

The motion sensor is set up to provide scale MPH feedback and position if used with the Zigbee system.  There will be a low cost hand held for just cab and accessory control for larger layouts.

The main thing here is that you have a prototypical light and operating system, with minimal layout wiring possible.

CJH

Ok

Ok, I think I get it - the short answer to my question above, is that I can't use this product (currently) with my Tsunami sound decoder.   Your own sound decoder will be necessary to drive the device at a later date.

Do you have a time frame when my scenario may be possible?

Thanks

Some stuff missed off the Specification

But looks like it could be easily added to the PCB.

Dynamic Mass Control System (DMCS)

This is a description of what is needed to control our freight cars in way that more accurately reflects real world factors that influence performance. It's obviously not for everyone as certain aspects of the system will only appeal to people who can appreciate the cost/benefit analysis of more realistic model response patterns and operational enhancements which come as an extra to DMCS.

The heart of the system revolves around the use of established ideas, but taking the concept to the maximum limits of the technology. There are four parts to this system.

1. A digital processor control system. Your home computer will suffice with the right software and interface module.

2. A controllable master unit for each train. A suitably equipped locomotive of choice will be ideal.

3. An intelligent linking system for the train. This can be carried in the freight cars.

Implementation

Each freight car will need three components to work with DMCS:

- The first is a way of adding momentum effects to the car itself.
- The second is a control system which can respond to commands.
- The third is a link to the master unit.

1. A motorized axle on each truck, using coreless stepping motors, will power the freight car and provide dynamic braking. The other axle will support the linking system.

2. A infra-red transceiver module will fit on the outward facing axles to provide a continuous link through the train. These will use a slow IRDA protocol at approximately 256kbits per second.

3. A custom active digital control chip which will receive commands from the master unit and apply appropriate modulation of the current to the coreless motors.

The result is the first step towards a distributed intelligent control system. Now briefly as the rest of this is off topic as it deals with parts of model railroading that is not directly related to freight cars.

The controllable master system is a chip in our locomotives (which now have infra-red IRDA transceivers), when it couples up to a train, takes control of all the freight car mounted chips.

As a bonus it is possible to add to the locomotive a method of detecting grades, thereby through a time code cause the freight cars at the end of the train not to respond to the grade change until they reach it. So for example when going uphill the rear of the train doesn't respond to the gradient until all the train is on it. Secondly when cresting the summit different portions of the train will respond in a realistic manner.

Additionally the digital processor can can be encoded so that realistic applications of the trains brakes can be applied. Of course since this is a digital control system all the other benefits of such a system can be employed to enhance the railroad simulation. For instance why only have sound in the locomotives. Since each freight car has a chip it too could produce sound effects, like the squealing of brakes and even the sound of the knuckles as the couple/uncouple.

Advance User Functions for DMCS

Since each chip in each freight car is inherently programmable by the user the following functions cascade from the application of DMCS.

1. Integrated waybill attachment and re-billing of cars. The system can have a map of the layout and know where every freight car and locomotive is. A hidden bonus here is the quirky fun stuff like bad order bills. A freight car can actually cause operational difficulties by random actuation of its coreless motors.

2. Load simulation. Here you can automatically have the operational characteristics of the freight car changed to represent a loaded or empty car. In addition it's possible to simulate liquid loads sloshing around in tank cars. Again done by varying the braking effects upon the individual freight car through the coreless motors.

3. Automatic layout re-staging. By fully integrating the turnout control to the digital processor control system. This is a "Tower of Hanoi" problem in a sparse network environment. However, since the waybill generators can already be controlled by the computer software this should just be a matter of a database look-up function. Since all the units within the system are controllable, one can envisage an automatic shuffling of them on the layout.

Commercial Development

The commercial possibilities for DMCS are promising, as there are several bonus control spin-offs. Manufacturers of toy trains can exploit this to good effect. For instance the "Thomas The Tank Engine" Line could have models where the faces of the characters could be animated using pizzo electric actuation. They could be made to smile, move their eyes and talk using the sound capabilities of the chips. In addition, since the trucks have coreless motors capabilities, they can be real troublesome trucks and actually run away from Thomas when being shunted. Or bang against each other recklessly.

(forwarded on from a un unknown non-subscriber)

Neat

A simple solution to the "where is my freight car problem" is a simple RF chip and some scanners here and there.

My kids can do the "troublesome" trucks part without cost.

CJH

Sound

A sound version will start ASAP after the non-sound is completed.  The layout and components are very similar, the longest part will be creating the sound files and programming.

CJH

electrical engineering / PCB design completed

Guys,

The electrical engineering and PCB design for the project is complete and prototypes are going into fabrication.

Next up is programming.

Thanks,

Christopher Howard

Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.

http://www.railflyermodel.com

Non-Sound Wireless / Battery MCU is here, Sound version ready

Chris. I just started

Chris.

I just started reading up on your program and it blew my mind. This is really an amazing leap forward for model railroading. Thank you thank you thank you for figuring all of this out. The individual traction motors are awesome, can't wait to blow a large amount of money on your products!

Brian K

Can't wait

Looking very much forward to getting my hands on one too...and testing it out...soon, very soon....drooling...

Sorry Chris...