Show us the last picture you took on your phone. (VW related or not!)

Ah, that’s trial and error. The best tactic is to start with a Tele, if that doesn’t work add a Strat, and repeat by adding various models until bliss is reached.

I’m up to Jaguar but may need to add a Jazzmaster to make sure that the target level is achieved!

 

Giant Women from Mars

 

Customers are quiet this morning.

 

was it

 

Where dat den ??

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

2nd from the left

 

Elementary Watson

 

I think he likes the silly trousers

 

Have you given them names?

 

They may be tiny now but give them some leaves and they will be big b$%&@#$ /snails.

 

I've finally" finished" the control panel for my model railway.

On a conventional layout a transformer controls power to the track and the higher the voltage the faster the train. My layout runs on DCC (Digital Command and Control) whereby the track remains at full power all the time and digital signals are sent along the track to each individual train telling it what to do.

Each train is fitted with a chip programmed to a unique address, and a signal is sent over the track to control the train individually so the layout can have multiple trains all being individually controlled at once . The points are also operated by the system through an 8 channel decoder.

I run the whole thing through an open source program called JMRI (Java Model Railway Interface) on my laptop. But instead of using a commercial (and expensive) controller I built an interface using an Arduino UNO that converts the data from JMRI into "train language". The Arduino Mega is connected to a number of optical sensors around the layout so that JMRI knows the location of any running trains.

I've just started programming it to run automatically using a language called Python which lets me tell JMRI what to do, for example start train A, stop at sensor B, throw point C, and so on. I can also program acceleration and deceleration rates and all manner of other parameters. This allows fairly complex timetables to be run completely automatically.

The power supply came from an old computer and also operates the lights in the buildings and the sensors. The manual point switches control the lesser used points in the sidings and the mimic panel uses red/green led's to show the state of each individual point.

The whole lot cost around £150 including all the sensors and decoders which is pretty good considering that a basic DCC controller is around the £200 mark with no possibility of automation.

The joke amongst DCC modellers is just like we joke about "it's only 4 bolts" they joke about "it's only 2 wires"

 

Very impressive, Paul. Do beware, however, Python uses the offside rules, only known to refs and other programming gods! I wish you good luck with that

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-side_rule