Tacho

Hi,

Do you know TACHO? Scale model tachymeter? It can save lot of your time

Very informative

Bill,

I very much enjoyed your article and look forward to trying your techniques on my own layout.  I've yet to fine tune the speed performance of my engines, but I think your method will work very well for me.  I especially like the idea of controlling my son's desire to run like a Bat out of Hell!  He's 22, and he knows what I'm talking about!  LOL

Nice approach

I like this approach to setting speed, will definitely give it a try. Easy to understand and great to make the calculators available.

Also great presentation of the article with enough pics and detail to fully explain the concept and steps. I feel other mags sometimes condense the info down too much to like 2 quick pages that include a useless locomotive picture, leaving out a lot of the finer details. So well done MRH!

Mike McNamara

Delran, NJ

JMRI jython script

Seems to me like a lot of the process could be automated using a JMRI jython script.

Back in 2015/2016 I wrote a script to do multiple unit matching:
https://bitbucket.org/ralfoide/layout/src/HEAD/experimental/Ralf_Speed_Matching_2016-02.py

This relies on having an oval loop and 2 sensors to create a timed section. I'd first place an engine on the loop and use the script in "measure" mode to record the time it took for each speed step, then I'd place another engine on the same loop and use the "set" mode to reprogram the engine's speed table. For each speed step it would first measure the second engine time then adjust the CV values using a dichotomy till it matched the requested time.

The same principle can be used with a linear non-loop track, just define 2 points using 2 sensors and have the engine running back and forth between them. That also allows the computer to compute the reverse running time and the forward ones at the same time. 

The advantage of that is that it uses the computer to do what it's best for -- menial repeatable tasks.

It can be easier