I have only been actively involved with garden railroading for a little over one year but have found it to be a wonderful way to use the skills and interests that I have developed over the years in other hobbies. For example, I used my love of woodworking to help me design and construct two scratch built bridges and nearly 100 trestle bents to sup
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port much of the 200 foot main line on the railway. My interests in photography, computers and web pages allowed me to document the work on the railway and share it with my friends and family, wherever they may live. (see: ) My latest collaboration between hobbies involves using my work with programming small, single board microprocessors and using them to control devices and sense things around them. For many years I have worked with small Basic Stamp microprocessors (see: ). I have used the Basic Stamp to sense and react to temperature changes, monitor and control the charging of batteries, record the acceleration of model rockets and to operate small, autonomous robots. This project is a logical extension of my work with robotics as it involves using a similar microprocessor to control a battery operated railroad engine. The system is designed to have the engine slowly accelerate from a complete stop and then cruise at a preset speed until it passes over a magnet located on the track. When this happens a reed switch closes and the microprocessor gently slows the engine to a full stop. After a short pause the engine reverses and starts up again until it passes over another magnet when the process repeats. Although the original objective of the system was the auto-reverse system as described above, the hardware is capable of much more sophisticated operation by modifying the software. It could, for example, have a train...
This project fits more for custom made battery casing that can have more space to hide things inside. This switch with few alterations can be used for any other project as well but is designed based on e-bike needs! This project use a clever functionality of....
The circuit described here uses ultrasonic oscillations and operates based on the propagation velocity of these oscillations in the air. Thus, we can easily determine the distance of two points if the time within which the wave travels this distance is....
Sometimes the precious metals are hidden too deep and are not detected except with complicated devices. In many cases, however, small pieces of precious metal buried near the surface can be detected by relatively simple means. Everyone is very attractive to....
Many times for various reasons we forget or can not water the plants that we have in our homes. And many humidity sensors units just notify us with a beeping sound or with a flashing light, that the pot needs watering. But what if we are away from home? This....
The principle behind a metal detector is really very simple. Proof of this is the circuit that follows, in which it proves that the construction of a metal detector can be done in the minute, with few components that we find very easily everywhere. With the....
The sub-harmonic bass generator is a sound producing unit for guitars. The sound it produces looks very much like that of the bass guitar. The octave generator is sometimes quite unusual since it does not produce any of the usual ways of coloring the sound,....
In the past the sounding (sea bottom measurement) was done with the "bullet", that is, with a heavy lead object that the seamen plucked into the sea hung from a calibrated rope. As soon as the "bullet" reached the bottom, the depth appeared directly from the....
This Amplifier was designed to have the following specifications: Distortion less than 0.1% at full power of 100W even at 20KHz. Power has to be attributed to an extended bandwidth. The output transistors must be protected against short circuits. The power....
A series of LEDs serve to alert the gardener when plants need water. Using two conventional digital integrated LEDs and a series of LEDs, we make a very useful device for gardening. The device detects the amount of water in the pot and alerts the grower.....
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