Post by: William Brillinger on October 05, 2015, 07:44:41 PM
Do you support this proposal as presented? Or would you like to see revisions made?
Please post suggested revisions in the comments.
See the attached PDF for details of the proposal.
For reference, our goal is to be able to re-create the effects seen in this video:
You can read the Proposal in this PDF (http://rpug.pdc.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=5.0;attach=4)
Post by: William Brillinger on October 09, 2015, 11:14:44 PM
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:50:35 AM
Hi Bill,
It all looks good. Probably the only thing I would change is the
throttle percentage. We should be able to set our own power levels for
each notch if we wish, not just when 8 is reached.
I just spent a good portion of the last day studying how LokSound
control the logic for their sounds and it's impressive. I would suggest
it's good reading and studying (get the programmer software and one
of their sound projects like the EMD 567 for the FT, both freely
downloadable. a guide on LokSound is here:
http://www.dccsound.com/loksound101.htm) for anyone interested in
controlling sound.
Tim
Land of OZ
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:50:46 AM
Tim,
I thought of that, and it was in the first few drafts of my proposal,
but I concluded that combined auto & manual notching really covers that
for the most part, given that you can override the automatic notching at
any time. It is important however to be able to set the point on the
throttle that notch 8 is reached.
I'm not opposed to including it, but I am concerned that such complexity
will consume valuable program memory.
Does anybody else feel that setting the percentages for each notch is
needed?
- Bill
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:50:56 AM
I am in favor of the items on your list with one possible exception. When operating in Combined Auto & Manual Notching mode I'm not so sure I would want to keep re-enabling manual notching after each time the controller cancelled it due to my throttle movement. Overriding my manual notch setting due to throttle movement is fine, just resume manual notching from there. Notching mode choices would be Full Manual, Combined, and Full Automatic.
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:51:10 AM
Alan,
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying about needing to re-enable manual notching.
The way I see combined notching working is this:
You're working a heavy train:
momentum is set to 10 seconds for high throttle responsiveness:
notch 8 is set at 80% for the sake of easy numbers
Engine is idling, you're ready to move
Set notch 2
Roll the throttle a bit to slowly begin moving
Set notch 8
Slowly work the throttle up 60% (your desired speed)
Set notch 3 ( the train is up to speed and not working very hard)
Train is going too fast, you roll the throttle down to 45%
(notch & sound does not change because you did not go below 30% which is notch 3)
Train is now too slow, you increase power to 50% - Notch auto increases to notch 5 (you needed the power!)
Train is up to speed, manually set back to notch 3.
Time to stop... optionally set notch 1
slowly work the throttle down to zero. If notch 1 was not set, then the notching will decrease with your power reductions.
You're working a light train:
momentum is set to 10 seconds for high throttle responsiveness:
notch 8 is set at 80% for the sake of easy numbers
Engine is idling, you're ready to move
Roll the throttle to 20%, sound increases with your movement
Set notch 1 cause you're coasting.
Roll the throttle up to 30% - auto notch runs up to 3, you needed the power.
Set notch 1 cause you're coasting.
Roll the throttle to 0% to stop.
So the throttle movements would only cancel the manual setting if you passed the threshold (up or down) according to the notch that was currently chosen.
Do you have an example of how this should be different?
- Bill
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:51:27 AM
I'm good with the proposal as it stands. It will probably need small tweaks as we start to use/test the new features. But I think what we've come up with is a good baseline and should take care of most of the things we want.
-Kevin
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:51:42 AM
Bill:
I'm in favor.
Jacob
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:51:50 AM
Bill,
I like your proposal as it is. I'm not running much in the way of diesels these days. I have an old soundtraxx IR throttle I run my diesels with and its kinda cool to notch up the prime mover but only have the train crawling.
With your brake function proposal: if you hold the button down until the train or loco stopped, would it stay stopped until you took some other action? Say touching the brake again or touching the speed button?
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a Rail Pro user(yet) but my brother and I (count 2 separate layouts here) are planning to go with Rail Pro once we have our layouts a little farther along.
Shawn
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:52:00 AM
The Brake features as I propose them currently are only a sound effects.
- Bill
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:52:08 AM
In that case do the momentum settings override the throttle action? In other words if I throttle up or down fast the train speed will change more rapidly than if I use a moderate or slow throttle adjustment.
Shawn
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:52:22 AM
The throttle, under this proposal, would not override the momentum settings.
Like Kevin, I think I would prefer to have total control over the speed by hand and so I would set my momentum low - which would smooth out speed transitions, but not prevent fairly quick transitions when needed.
In my original proposal drafts I covered a throttle balistics option, but it was apparent that it was redundant in the light of combined auto and manual notching.
so... setting the momentum high will allow you to run your train off the end of a siding ;)
imo, the RailPro throttle is so fine that there really is no need for a heavy momentum setting if the sound can respond appropriately.
- Bill
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:52:30 AM
Bill,
I'm in favor of your proposal as of Oct 3. I have always felt that the present notching effect really lacked realism.
Mel
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:52:39 AM
Bill,
I am in favor of your proposal.
Boyd
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:52:47 AM
Fully in favor of this proposal!
Post by: Archive on October 10, 2015, 06:52:56 AM
Hi Bill,
I'm in favor of your proposal. I bought the RailPro system at the Springfield show last January but have not used it yet (I should have some tracks down hopefully by Christmas). I follow the activities of this group with a keen interest and I appreciate the efforts everyone has put toward improving RailPro.
Joel
St-Albert ON
Canada
Post by: Alan on October 10, 2015, 12:05:56 PM
Originally posted by William Brillinger on the RailPro Users Yahoo! Group on Oct 3, 2015
Alan,
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying about needing to re-enable manual notching.
I misunderstood your use of cancel. I took that to mean manual notching no longer available until re-enabled someway. After reading your operation description cancel means override which makes total sense now. Do I understand correctly?
Post by: William Brillinger on October 10, 2015, 12:23:47 PM
I misunderstood your use of cancel. I took that to mean manual notching no longer available until re-enabled someway. After reading your operation description cancel means override which makes total sense now. Do I understand correctly?
Yup, you've got it.
Post by: William Brillinger on October 17, 2015, 07:22:36 AM
I intend to submit this proposal to Ring Engineering on Monday. If you are a RailPro user PLEASE register your vote, for or against. The more participation we show as a group, the stronger our voice will be on this and other topics and in the future.
Thanks!
Post by: G8B4Life on October 17, 2015, 11:05:17 AM
Although I voted some time ago I just reread the document.
Given that there was some confusion over the word cancelled I wonder if it might pay to change the word cancelled to overridden in the combined auto & manual notching part before submission to Ring.
- Tim
Post by: William Brillinger on October 17, 2015, 11:18:55 AM
- IF the user decreased the throttle to 30% auto-notching brings the sound down to notch 3 and manual notching is overridden.
- IF the user increased the throttle to 50% or 60%, notching does not change.
- IF the user increased the throttle to 70%, auto notching increases to notch 7 and manual notching is overridden.
Post by: William Brillinger on October 17, 2015, 11:21:27 AM
2015-10-17 Railpro feature requests - momentum integration.pdf
Post by: Josephbw on October 17, 2015, 12:18:10 PM
Thanks, Joe
Post by: William Brillinger on October 17, 2015, 12:43:01 PM
What we are proposing here is to meld the two together to get a more realistic operation of the prime mover sounds, allowing you to spool all the way up (starting a heavy train) or all the way down (coasting) independent of the throttle setting - BUT to also detect changes to the throttle that indicate the prime mover should be changing.
So if you're coasting (sound at idle) at 50 mph, and drop to 35, the sound does not change, but when you decide to increase to 45mph, the sound will automatically ramp back up without any action beyond increasing the throttle.
Post by: Josephbw on October 17, 2015, 01:41:08 PM
Post by: William Brillinger on October 17, 2015, 02:02:00 PM
Using the knob will be just like it is now, until you hit the notch up or down button.
..so to start your movement at notch 6, you use the notch up button to go to notch 6 (that's just a sound) then you use the knob to slowly increase your speed.
IF your speed gets to be fast enough that your throttle is "faster than notch 6" in auto notching, then auto notching takes over.
Notch up and Notch down override the automatic sound settings where appropriate, and vice versa.
Post by: William Brillinger on October 17, 2015, 02:07:41 PM
You're working a heavy train:
momentum is set to 10 seconds for high throttle responsiveness:
notch 8 is set at 80% for the sake of easy numbers
1. Engine is idling, you're ready to move
2. Manually set notch 2
3. Roll the throttle a bit to slowly begin moving
4. Manually set notch 8
5. Slowly work the throttle up 60% (your desired speed)
6. Manually set notch 3 ( the train is up to speed and not working very hard)
7. Train is going too fast, you roll the throttle down to 45%
(notch & sound does not change because you did not go below 30% which is notch 3)
8. Train is now too slow, you increase power to 50% - Notch auto increases to notch 5 (you needed the power!)
9. Train is up to speed, manually set back to notch 3.
10. Time to stop... optionally set notch 1
11. slowly work the throttle down to zero. If notch 1 was not set, then the notching will decrease
with your power reductions.
You're working a light train:
momentum is set to 10 seconds for high throttle responsiveness:
notch 8 is set at 80% for the sake of easy numbers
1. Engine is idling, you're ready to move
2. Roll the throttle to 20%, sound increases with your movement
3. Manually set notch 1 since you're coasting.
4. Roll the throttle up to 30% - auto notch runs up to 3, you needed the power.
5. Manually set notch 1 since you're coasting.
6. Roll the throttle to 0% to stop.
Post by: Josephbw on October 17, 2015, 06:28:33 PM
Post by: William Brillinger on October 19, 2015, 02:49:28 PM
I would encourage anyone who is interested to contact Tim Ring directly ( support@ringengineering.com ) and voice your support.
Cheers!
Post by: William Brillinger on October 20, 2015, 06:08:05 PM
Quote
Hi Bill,
Thanks for the input!
We will take a look and get back to you.
Tim
Ring Engineering Inc.
Post by: KPack on October 20, 2015, 09:58:07 PM
-Kevin
Post by: CPRail on November 15, 2015, 06:39:31 PM
Full Disclosure:
Currently a DC Cab Control guy who dabbled in DCC about 14 years ago and didn't like the whole CV thing. Tried Bill's RailPro for the first time a week or so ago (I'm the guy in the purple shirt in his Op Session video) and I'm seriously considering RailPro vs. DC Cab Control, especially as I'm at the point of starting wiring!
Ian Lisakowski
Modelling CP Rail & VIA in the early 80's in Winnipeg
Post by: G8B4Life on November 16, 2015, 04:35:00 AM
Yes, too late to be counted for the proposal but certainly not too late to continue having fun with RailPro.
From the video and the account given by Bill you guys had a great time having relaxed fun, and I rekon RailPro had a part to play in that.
Your in the prime position for RailPro, no existing control system that you've already bought and about to start wiring plus you've been able to use it hands on so jump straight in and ask any questions and whatnot, we're here to help.
- Tim