At the moment I’m controlling my trains by using an analogue DC system with handheld tethered control units. I want to get rid of the tethers and think about replacing it by an infrared system.
Is there anybody out there who has experience with infrared controlling, particularly the reliability of the system. f.i. is it critical where the receiver is placed in order to respond without hitches to the commands of the handheld unit; what is the critical distance between receiver and handheld unit?
BTW I don’t want to switch to DCC so that is not an option.
Thanks for any advice.
Hans
I think the big drawback to infra red is going to be line of sight communication. IR works for TV remotes, but this situation is different.
You would do much better with some kind of radio signal. Systems are out there, but I don’t have details.
Sometimes you can ‘bounce’ the infrared signal using mirrors. This would be easy to try.
That actually does work. I used to live in an apartment, with a galley kitchen. The back of the TV was right behind me when I stood at the sink. The TV was too large to turn. On the opposite side of the living room, was a sofa, and above it was a mirror. I could take the remote, while in the kitchen, turn and zap the TV, and even occaisionally watch a little, in the mirror, while making dinner. TV looks strange in a mirror.[;)]
There’s another potential problem with IR in this application, if I understand it correctly. That is, speed control is an analog function, but IR communucates in pulses. There needs to be a digital to analog conversion between the remote and track.
The volume control from an old TV might work well. To change speed press the volume button. It steps up the the voltage to the track instead of the speakers. Each block would need it’s own converter throttle. Each CAB would need it’s own converter.
I suppose it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to build a circuit like that if you could find a design. You could then use the channel selector function to choose which cab.
This is still a Rube Goldberg solution. Why not go with DCC? The inventing is already done.