Not audio.
I sell quite a bit of electronics on ebay and also sell PCBCAD software.
I had trouble competing with other sellers.
So started looking for more unique less easy to make things to sell.
I came across a model railway DCC (digital command control) shuttle controller.
It shuttles a model loco between two points on a track.
To control it you send digital FM signals down a pair of rails.
I managed to get the loco to go back and forth and change speed ok.
Managed to sell a few at a profit (for a change!)
Next project was a DCC encoder controller.
This can not only change speed and direction but also some of the loco configurations like acceleration speed, deceleration speed and loco address.
Most of this was ok except I couldn't change loco address.
So I read up the NMRA (national model railways association) spec for DCC.
As far as I could see I was sending right commands but no joy.
I looked far and wide on the internet for specs and other peoples attempts at it but couldnt get it working.
So in the end joined MERG (model electronic railway group)
After a few threads on there someone eventually pointed me to a pdf file that described how to do it.
It seems you cant just send the change loco address command.
You have to do a a number of resets to the loco to put it in service mode.
You then have to reset two other config variables in the loco.
Only then can you send new loco address command.
I must have messed about for 2 weeks trying to get this working.
The illusive spec was hidden in the vastness of the internet.
I sell quite a bit of electronics on ebay and also sell PCBCAD software.
I had trouble competing with other sellers.
So started looking for more unique less easy to make things to sell.
I came across a model railway DCC (digital command control) shuttle controller.
It shuttles a model loco between two points on a track.
To control it you send digital FM signals down a pair of rails.
I managed to get the loco to go back and forth and change speed ok.
Managed to sell a few at a profit (for a change!)
Next project was a DCC encoder controller.
This can not only change speed and direction but also some of the loco configurations like acceleration speed, deceleration speed and loco address.
Most of this was ok except I couldn't change loco address.
So I read up the NMRA (national model railways association) spec for DCC.
As far as I could see I was sending right commands but no joy.
I looked far and wide on the internet for specs and other peoples attempts at it but couldnt get it working.
So in the end joined MERG (model electronic railway group)
After a few threads on there someone eventually pointed me to a pdf file that described how to do it.
It seems you cant just send the change loco address command.
You have to do a a number of resets to the loco to put it in service mode.
You then have to reset two other config variables in the loco.
Only then can you send new loco address command.
I must have messed about for 2 weeks trying to get this working.
The illusive spec was hidden in the vastness of the internet.
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I see the "greatness of all things digital" has made its way into model RRding too. Gone are the days when just sweeping a little lever on the transformer was good enough to bring the engine to the part of the track you want.
Now you click on the part of the track CAD diagram on your PC screen to get it to go there. That's just gotta be so much more fun - whatever people think is good and will pay money for! Good to read you found a niche!
If you had multiple engines with trains on your model RR, you could randomly click on any different part of the layout - and an algorithm would calculate the most efficient path for each - without collision - to bring them there. Maybe one of the trains would have to wait at some point in the layout, just like the real ones do sometimes.
Or screw the physical model, just have a ceiling mounted projector putting a computer generated image on the ping-pong table surface (where I setup my trains as a kid) and you can have any one of a hundred famous towns and switch yards in an instant. Hump cars, build trains and then drive them all the way to Boston or Portland, with all the actual scenery modeled along the way - right down to the frequency of stray cows!
Gomez Adams ruined my train set. After seeing what he did on the TV I just had to try.
Now you click on the part of the track CAD diagram on your PC screen to get it to go there. That's just gotta be so much more fun - whatever people think is good and will pay money for! Good to read you found a niche!
If you had multiple engines with trains on your model RR, you could randomly click on any different part of the layout - and an algorithm would calculate the most efficient path for each - without collision - to bring them there. Maybe one of the trains would have to wait at some point in the layout, just like the real ones do sometimes.
Or screw the physical model, just have a ceiling mounted projector putting a computer generated image on the ping-pong table surface (where I setup my trains as a kid) and you can have any one of a hundred famous towns and switch yards in an instant. Hump cars, build trains and then drive them all the way to Boston or Portland, with all the actual scenery modeled along the way - right down to the frequency of stray cows!
Gomez Adams ruined my train set. After seeing what he did on the TV I just had to try.
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Things have certainly moved on since I was a boy in the 1960's.
I had an old power transformer controller.
It used to get red hot and push out the overload button sometimes.
I sell a few bits on ebay like DCC shuttle controller, DC shuttle controller and station start/stop controller.
Quite a bit of competition though. I went in cheap to start with but then you just get an under cutting war and end up making nothing.
The DCC stuff sells at a better price as less competition.
I had trouble to start with getting info on DCC.
I didnt realise it was AC and not pulsed DC so my first hardware didnt work.
I then had trouble in that loco would only go one way.
I then realised my turn around time was too short.
The loco has a deceleration time, stop then accelerate.
Before it could complete cycle I was reversing its direction again !
A longer rest time fixed that.
The FM timings need to be quite tight.
My first software worked but was on the edge.
So went up to an 8MHz processor and wrote a software shift register which was much more accurate at banging out the bits.
I had an old power transformer controller.
It used to get red hot and push out the overload button sometimes.
I sell a few bits on ebay like DCC shuttle controller, DC shuttle controller and station start/stop controller.
Quite a bit of competition though. I went in cheap to start with but then you just get an under cutting war and end up making nothing.
The DCC stuff sells at a better price as less competition.
I had trouble to start with getting info on DCC.
I didnt realise it was AC and not pulsed DC so my first hardware didnt work.
I then had trouble in that loco would only go one way.
I then realised my turn around time was too short.
The loco has a deceleration time, stop then accelerate.
Before it could complete cycle I was reversing its direction again !
A longer rest time fixed that.
The FM timings need to be quite tight.
My first software worked but was on the edge.
So went up to an 8MHz processor and wrote a software shift register which was much more accurate at banging out the bits.
"You can´t beat the Chinese" [tm]
Neither on price, nor on production, so third best is find a niche you are comfortable in.
Which is a chore by itself: too small/focused and you can´t live out of the tiny market, too large/profitable and it attracts "their" attention.
Not easy, congratulations you found a working compromise.
Neither on price, nor on production, so third best is find a niche you are comfortable in.
Which is a chore by itself: too small/focused and you can´t live out of the tiny market, too large/profitable and it attracts "their" attention.
Not easy, congratulations you found a working compromise.