Sponsored By
Efika 5200B Project
Locomotive controllerin category Hardware
proposed by sberneberg on 21st July 2006 (accepted on 24th July 2006)
Project Summary
No this is not to control full-scale locomotives! As a model railroad hobbyist, control of 1/5 or 1/8 scale locomotives takes some work. As the number of accidents of these hobby locomotives increase, there is an increasing need to monitor speed, load, motor temperature, battery temperature, motor controller temperature,...the list goes on.There a lots of motor controllers available on the market but none include most if any of the safety features needed by todays hobbyist. (Particularly speed!)
It is proposed that a current design for motor control (.5 to 2 HP DC motors) be leveraged into the EFIKA processor. In addition a simple Garmin GPS receiver will montior speed and display that speed for the locomotive engineer to monitor. Temperatures of the various major components can also be montiored and displayed. It is not sufficient to shut down the motor when the temperature of the components become critical. It is necessary to inform the engineer of potential problems before somthing shuts down. (The last thing you want is a train load of people out in the middle of no where with no motive power!) The target locomotive is a GE 45 ton center cab locomotive in 1/5th scale. (Yes, you can ride on these things!)
It is also proposed that design notes be posted so feedback and ideas can be exchanged during the process. I am a hardware engineer so software feedback is especially helpful
Project Blog Entries
Well I have the Garmin GPS receiver ready to go, I have the motor controller design ready to go, I have all the temperature sensors that I could possibly want and I have a wireless system thanks to Atmel. Now, how to I get started with the software???? Compilers? OS? What to do? Suggestions?????