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French mannequin railway fanatics Laurent and Sébastien Grenier are launching an add-on designed to supply lifelike lighting animation for O and I scale trains — utilizing a common controller constructed round an Espressif ESP32 microcontroller module and that includes a smartphone interface.
“Our first product, named Good Coach Lighting, is an animation controller for HO/OO scale passenger coaches,” Grenier explains of his firm’s historical past. “It gives lifelike animations & results in every a part of the coach, bringing the suitable mild in every compartment, hall, bathroom, and so forth. Supplied animations embrace : evening fall, conductor passing by the coaches to examine tickets, passengers going to the remaining room at some moments, van switching on throughout a station cease and turning off when the practice left the station, and lots of extra different options.”
The corporate’s prospects have been happy — however discovered a necessity for a similar sensible lighting management in bigger O and I scale carriages, at the very least eight occasions larger than the HO/OO scale practice beforehand focused. Add in a requirement for lighting up dwell stream trains, which lack help for the DCC management system and rail-based energy required by the Good Coach Lighting system, and it is clear one thing new was required.
The transfer to a bigger scale has introduced with it a shift in design paradigm, too: Fairly than constructing customized boards for specific carriage shapes, the crew’s Good Coach Lighting XL is a single compact circuit board based mostly on an ESP32 module to which the client will wire their very own lights.
“We determined to construct a common controller that may slot in any coach,” Grenier explains, “as an alternative of a variety of devoted merchandise. The result’s a small circuit of not more than 54×29mm (round 2.13×1.14″) offering able to solder energy outputs however with no embedded LEDs. Every output can drive a number of LEDs for as much as 20mA. All outputs are protected towards overload by an inside present limitation. LEDs voltage could be of as much as 3.2 Volts, the facility supply offering 3.3 Volts.”
As with the earlier design, the board helps DCC for each energy and management – however may also work independently with any energy supply from 6-24V AC or DC. For dwell steam trains, which lack digital management, a companion smartphone app permits for wi-fi management of the settings and animations — and might set off adjustments per-train or per-coach.
A smartphone app gives management over animations the place DCC management is unavailable or inconvenient. (📷: Final Fashions)
Lastly, an non-obligatory add-on energy pack is designed to resolve the issue of DCC interruptions because of switches or soiled tracks resetting the microcontroller — and thus cancelling an in-progress animation.
Extra particulars on the undertaking can be found on the Kickstarter marketing campaign web page, the place bodily rewards can be found beginning at €80 (round $91) with supply anticipated in March subsequent yr.
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