by dreinecke » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:03 am
Ok, I'm an IT guy, not an EE major, so bear with me:
My track is AC powered and I love it. One idea I have is to be able to better run ghost cars to give me something to race against. Right now I use a rubber band or tape on the controller in order to power the ghost cars. Due to the trick layout design, this can take quite a bit of fiddling to get right and keep the cars from de-slotting. I usually have to put some painter's tape in a few places to slow the cars down - usually on my worst curves. It works, but is very primitive and hard to get right.
So, I'm planning on perhaps using a standard household dimmer switch for the lanes. This should hopefully allow for faster and finer adjustment.
My thoughts are I would like this a little nicer than just doing a quick jumper on my controller posts. I'd also like to use this to adjust the voltage per lane for newbies. If I could put a digital display reading the voltage, that would be awesome.
Lastly, I want to put a track call button into the mix.
So, I have a rough idea of the circuit, but no idea of what type of display or call switch to use. The ones SCC have are probably what I'd consider using.
My track is hooked up like the diagram on the ac2car.org website. I've only got one tap, and use a central block to distribute power to the track and driver's stations.
I know some of you do some really slick circuit work, so what suggestions might you have?