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Internet-Controlled Train Set
Eric Barch writes "Using a servo connected to a Mini SSC II and wired into a dedicated server through the serial port, the Control Our Junk team has created a working train set controlled from any computer on the Internet with a few ports open and Java installed. The trains speed can be modified on the control page, which uses a PHP script to send commands to a .NET application sitting on the server. When the .NET application recieves the PHP command it sends the data to a serial port, and in turn, changes the speed of the train. The train set is running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and is quite fun to operate from the dual webcams mounted on a top down and side view of the train set. If you would like more information, or to control the train set visit controlourjunk.com/ and take the train for a spin."
Well...went and visited the site...took a whack at controlling the train...
Q: What's more boring than controlling an electric train from a website.
A: NOT controlling an electric train from a website.
Yup...doesn't seem to be working. I went to check this out expecting to be unimpressed, but now I'm unimpressed and disappointed.
I need a beer.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Crashing a server and a train!
Has anyone found the controls to their webserver yet?
Eric Barch, I would be angry at you for posting a story for the all the multitudes of /. to control this poor man's train, probably causing it (and the server) to crash. Fortunately, it doesn't work!
Worst... Site... Name... EVAR!
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Ooops..., the Slashdot effect!
Crunch!
DriveMeInsane.com was featured here a few years ago now. I believe the guy who started it is a Slashdotter himself. He basically hooked up all his lights to the Web, as well as a number of webcams, his sprinkler system, Christmas tree lights, etc. It was pretty hardcore back in the day. He's kept it going too, although it's up and down, but pretty much was "the" great example of this genre. Only seems to have two lights now though :-(
Remember the guy who posted a website where you could control christmas lights from it? Turned out it was a hoax.
Call me skeptic, but I think this one's a hoax, too.
The real-time programming course at the University of Waterloo has a model train set we write a control program form.
It's a lot of fun for the first couple of days until it sinks in how hard it's going to be to write a real-time OS and a GUI-based train management program for it in 3 months.
One of the tests is to keep adding trains to the tracks while it's running to see how much it can handle. If your program crashes, the trains crash.
I took the course in 1999 so if any of what I said sounds wrong, it's because it changed since then.
To whomever thought up that websites color and menu... god damn you. god damn you to hell.
.NET powered by PHP?
.NET just make an aspx and control things that way... if you're not there's half a dozen ways via PHP (perl+XMLRPC springs to mind).
If you're using
Mixing them just seems to be a headache, since making MS code integrate with non-MS code is always harder than just sticking to one or the other.
Wow, it's extremely difficult to send data on the serial port of a PC to control a couple of servos.. and a web interface..
:) but I don't think this is one of them.
Maybe it's interesting for some train geeks, but I think that's about it. The camera isn't even mounted ON the train. That might at least make it mildly more entertaining. Yeah, some internet controlled hacks are cool (especially the christmas lights one, doubly so because it was fake
10 motor 1 20 motor 0 30 goto 10
How come nobody or at least from what I have found modded a computer into a train?
Pull the power from the tracks, wireless card for networking, put a controller on the locomotive for the onboard computer to controll, as the faster the train moves the more cooling power it needs. Tie train speed and cpu speed or some other stat into trains control.
Thinking would have to go with a flash card based filesytem unless you can handle powering a hd. Could just put hd in a seperate car from the main computer.
(Sorry, I just couldn't resist mentioning one of the most famous 4chan memes. It's what instantly came to mind.)
Please help metamoderate.
I assumed everyone with a train set did this. My own train set (a Märklin Digital HO set of C track that I take out and build into various layouts when I get the inclination) is run by a TCP/IP server speaking a custom line-based protocol, and I've written a Web interface and an IRC bot interface to speak to it, as well as a couple of perl scripts that just run the trains around on specific schedules (using sensors in the track to detect when the train gets to a particular station).
So when I have my layout out people can just come to visit with their wireless laptops and immediately can control everything on the layout (trains, points, decouplers, etc).
I'm in Norway. I once had someone try to play a simplified Timesaver layout from Sweden, over IRC. That was not a pretty sight.
Admittedly I don't have a Web cam, which I assume is the attraction here.
(It's actually really hard to run any train set remotely, simply due to latency issues. Two seconds can easily be the difference between a neat arrival in a station and overshooting and hitting a freight train doing operations in a nearby yard.)
not millions of regular users, either.
hell, not even a million all time users. UIDs are up in the 800,000's.
slashdot isn't as big as everyone seems to think it is. the fact that we can take down a web server running on a home dsl line proves nothing.
There has been for several years now a digital standard http://www.dcc.info/ for controlling trains: it would have been far more impressive had they implemented this instead of a servo turning a crank. They could have even done this with off the shelf hardware. http://www.digitrax.com/menu_computercontrol.php
Speaking of model trains, what do breasts and model trains have in common? They've both meant for kids but it's adults who end up playing with them.
Breasts, hackers, and model trains all in one post! It's like the Slashdot Triple Crown!
EvilCON - Made Famous by
If they don't have 100,000 trains then there's going to be some really f*cked up action on those tracks. What the hell where they thinking? Three russian hacker groups are already fighting for control of the B & O Switch engine 5006 Diesel, and half of Berkley is trying to ram the American Flyer # 613 GN Box Car off the table.
Bastards.
I've driven real trains (dad's an engineer, I worked on the docks pushing cars into the dumper), and it's pretty easy to crash a train in the right area... run it full speed around a curve.
:)
dunno how good this would work on train sets tho
If I can't smoke and swear I'm fucked.
Truth can be as strange as fiction:)
---PCJ
'Back in the day', using a 14.4K modem and a 68k Mac, I remember a website (in Europe IIRC) which allowed you to control a train set with two trains, and 3 sidings. It only had one cam, and wireless wasnt in existance, but they included a clock in the background so you could tell you were truely controlling the train, and not watching a playback of pre-aquired images.
This was around the same time that the guys at MIT had the Pepsi machine wired so they could tell if it was empty, and whether it was worth walking down the hall or not. They also had a 24hr webcam pointed at the coffee machine for the ame reason.
Model railroading has gotten quite a bit of tech to it.
Used to be that you plonked the engine on the track, pushed some DC, and off you went.
That was then, this is now.
Digital Command Control (DCC) by Digitrax, EasyDCC, some pretty cool electronics interfacing stuff by Dr. Chubb (over at JLC Enterprises, or you can go with Protrak's system, Grapevine, and WOOT! WOOT! Some Open Source stuff from JMRI (and see the quote about controlling someone's layout from 600 miles away...)
You want sound with that? No Problem!
Yeah, model railroading has gotten high tech alright. No, you can't run my stuff over the internet, yes, I could if I wanted to let you. No, you'll have to come to an open house sometime. If you think you might like to get involved with it, check out The NMRA and find a club local to your area... but the hobby shop might be a better bet.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Our own layout is fully computer controlled, and can be operated over the internet (though for practical reasons, we don't let people run it through our web page, and probably never will). That includes over 600 feet of track divided into 120 independent blocks and 151 electrically operated turnouts. This control system was installed in January 2002, replacing an earlier system built in 1966 from surplus telephone relays.
Speaking from firsthand experience, there are a couple of problems with allowing general remote operation of trains (as opposed to running in small loop of track). The first is that it is hard to tell where the ends of the train really are relative to turnouts, block gaps, the ends of sidings and other things you don't want to run into. While we have block occupancy detection, it isn't good enough to park a train somewhere and be sure that you aren't fouling another track.
The other big problem is that you still need to have somebody there to deal with derailments. This isn't a big issue for a small loop of track but is for a larger layout like ours. Video from an onboard camera isn't much help either since it only shows one end of the train and may not be clear enough to spot gaps and turnout positions.
We've tried to let people run our layout remotely at recruiting events, with streaming video from an onboard camera (and someone back at the club room to deal with derailments and the like), but it never quite works right. One problem is that most streaming video systems (we've used Real) have a lot of lag. Even with video conferencing software (iChat) we had trouble with the available bandwidth at the location we were in. There were problems with bandwidth for the control software too, so mostly we could only let people run in a loop of track that they had to themselves which isn't much fun.
You can find information about our control system at http://tmrc.mit.edu/sys3/
Thomas O'Reilly
TMRC Governor