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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2022 15:32:53 GMT -5
Finally I found an appropriate vocabulary (!) ; I tested the system on an evaluation board (Kanda STK200) with the layout powered (i.e the carnival activated) and even a "blow heater", with the lavalier mike it is unsensitive to the noises. I assumed that my town is located in Massachusetts somewhere on a line between "Northampton" and "Pittsfield", so if I say one of these words the railcar is programmed to start to the right or left ; the expressions "freight" and "gravel transportation" are self-explanatory. Now to the itinerary. With "unbroken" (turn) the railcar will run from the town through the village station without stopping (express mode) and come back to the town ; in "stop" mode it will stop in the village for about 11 (!) seconds and go on ; in "special" (mode) it is the same but it changes direction and runs back. It cannot permanently stop in the village. Now concerning the freight and the gravel train : in "special"(mode) they will run to the "other" station and stop on the deviant track (and "lock" the other freight train) ; in "stop" mode it is the same but they will push back into their dead end track (and perform the loading/unloading sequence of the gravel train) and the other freight train can run ; "unbroken" (turn) is the same but they will do this in their initial station after running through the other station without stopping. Now I must modify the hardware and software.
Sorry, I cannot overlook my former life in Information Technology ...
I found various circuits on the net (the "bay" and Alixxx), but most of them are delivered without any available manual or software for configuration (or only in Chinese ! ), and so are finally useless ; or like the HLK-V20 : this one is sold in a demo version with a pre-programmed vocabulary to control a light and an air conditioner ( demo on YouTube), but it can be delivered with a custom vocabulary (programmed in factory) ... if You order at least 200 ! A new bargain on the bay : "Selling voice recognition module, programmed to control a model railroad layout ; more than 195 available ... " The EasyVR3 is a fine circuit, in speaker dependent mode, i.e. with training ; there is a software to create a speaker independent vocabulary but the licence costs more than 150 bucks. Audeme's MOVI seems interesting but it is not really cheap and needs 7.5 V, which are not available on my layout without voltage drop down from 12V ; in fact it seems dedicated to the Arduino (programmable in a variant of C, my nightmare ! ) and needs a "wake up" word.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2022 5:57:24 GMT -5
Everything went perfect until I noticed that, despite of careful choice of the keywords, the system sometimes rejected or confused words . So I think that finally voice recognition modules are not (yet) reliable enough for real use, nothing is more fatal than a failure during a demonstration. The best thing is the "Sound of Silence" !
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Post by markm on May 4, 2022 10:10:17 GMT -5
Just a thought: have you considered using an old cell phone for the voice command and use it to control an IoT device into your layout?
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2022 11:30:32 GMT -5
I have no old cellphone and presently only a "basic" one which allows phone calls and SMS, not a smartphone ...
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2022 23:01:40 GMT -5
I noticed that the modeller who controls his trains by voice recognition (and DCC ! ) uses a speaker dependent system, i.e. with training with his own voice ; Windows itself is speaker dependent (at least the version 7), one must say several sentences for about 10 minutes before using it. Issues caused by special pronunciation or accents were already described in a (SciFi) short story by Theodore STURGEON in 1973, long before these features became really available : "Agnes, accent and access" ; since I am in France and try to speak English, maybe that my accent can lead to misunderstanding by the (speaker independent) module ...
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2022 13:28:31 GMT -5
The last post about this subject of voice. I tested EasyVR3 (used by the other modeller, speaker dependent with training), the voice recognition is "satisfying" but the sound playback is sometimes absolutely NOT understandable, even with the lowest rate of compression (68000 bits/sec). Now, explain to a kid that he has first to train the system i.e. repeat 10 keywords twice (perhaps more due to failures) and he will say that with the "fine" Alexa he has not to do this (always forgetting that Big Brother can hear everything in the home). The "only a little bit" really usable is the SimpleVR (speaker independent in English, even if it understands sometimes a wrong command) with a "Lavalier" mike : with a headset there are extraneous triggers due to breathing. For feedback, the AdaFruit board could be adequate. I noted that the audio feedback is absolutely needed, control leds are not so good, but the "beeps" and words spoken by the board become rapidly BORING ! So I say finally : FORGET IT ! For those people who are interested : the whole system runs on an Atmel processor and was written by me in Great Cow Basic (!), an open source language looking like Microsoft Basic (about 10 pages of source code). I attach the present version in text format, sorry but the comments and variable names are in French.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2022 21:36:56 GMT -5
Its' better to laugh about ... Yesterday I had to call the French postal service concerning a delivery (my NYC PA1 from Case Hobbies). I was asked to dictate a tracking code, which begun with "CY". I must explain that in French "Y" is spoken as "I-grec" (Greek I). I said the code and got the answer : "Did You say CI ? " ... "No" ! "Please say the first two characters of the code" ... "CY". "Did You say CI ? " ... "No" ! "We are sorry, we can't understand Your code ; look first for Your correct code. Or do You wanna speak to an operator ? ". No comment. And I think this prog is running on a mainframe, like Siri, Alexa, etc, and not on a cheap module for about 40 bucks ! So, using such a gadget to control our layouts is at least "questionable", one should not be surprised if his trains don't obey to him ... and the layout should be already protected against accidents if a "wrong" train tries to start (in fact, mine is), because it's not possible to rely on the wisdom of the supervisor. In the past, I read this : "Under perfectly controlled conditions of temperature and pression, a computer will do what HE wants anyway ! "
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Post by markm on Jun 25, 2022 8:05:25 GMT -5
I’ve been trying to find good voice recognition for decades (1990s ViaVoice onwards) and question it’s accuracy. For years the California road information phone service wouldn’t give me information for highway 88. It would alternately give me highway 80 or highway 8 but never 88.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2022 9:44:35 GMT -5
Here is the new ("vintage look") control panel, with interlocking switches as used in the past for range selection on radio receivers.
But I wonder if it would not be more interesting (despite of the fact that it would be less "coherent" with the era of the layout) to use a touch sensitive panel, so it would be easier to add or modify functions simply via the software ...
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Post by markm on Jul 8, 2022 11:41:50 GMT -5
It's a nice clean design, however I always think of train control panels having many visual cues, toggle switch positions and/or lights.
I think a display panel would be a good idea, you could have a schematic of your layout with the status of all turnouts and possibly train locations. Not sure about the need for touch, but I just like big old switches.
For some ideas, you might want to watch the Doris Day movie "It Happened to Jane." A lot of good northeastern train stuff and the last 30 minutes includes a 1960-era train control center that might be fun to model.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2022 15:31:57 GMT -5
I wanted to make a layout where all movements are widely automated, avoiding turnouts in the wrong position, etc ... In fact, every train movement is considered as a "macro", controlled via a sequencer. For example, let's consider the gravel train, running from the dead end track of one station to the other. There are pauses between the various actions. - First, the deviant track is selected by the turnouts on the main track and the dead end track is "opened", putting the turnout into the correct position (the other dead end being closed). Then the train starts till it reaches the end of the deviant track and stops. - Now the initial track is "closed", so the train has no issues when it reaches the other station (the corresponding turnouts in both stations are connected in parallel, so there are only 3 groups for 8 turnouts). Now the convoy starts and reaches the predefined speed inside the station. - When it reaches the track outside of the station, it accelerates to the corresponding speed (upwards or downwards). - Now it comes near the other station, it decelerates to minimal speed, until it reaches the end of the deviant track, where it stops. - The dead end track is "opened" again, the train pushes back until the first car (near the loco) reaches the (un)loading position, where it stops. - 10 Seconds later, the train advances till the second car reaches its position, stops, and so on. - When the cycle is finished, the train advances to the signal at the entrance of the dead end track, stops, and the complete sequence is considered as finished.
Main advantage : such sequences (there are presently 3 possible itineraries for each of the 4 trains, railcar counting for 2 trains because of 2 possible directions) can be selected and triggered by random numbers, reading a 6 MHz counter when a train has finished its run (the black "auto" button, second position from right). And so the trains should go on running without anybody at the console, I can walk around and show some details to visitors, my "ghost" starts the trains.
I know this is not the common usage, but I had this possibility already on my previous N layout in the eighties, the only difference was that several trains could run simultaneously (there was a block system on double tracks), and the layout was supervised by a Commodore 64 ; now the micrcontroller (AVR) is embedded into the console and manages all the safety functions.
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Post by Rob Albritton on Jul 9, 2022 14:55:12 GMT -5
I’m enjoying watching you build this layout. Your method for automation is what I had originally planned to do many many years ago. I never got much past the planning stage because I realized that my ambitions were larger than my ability to create the controls myself - so I went with more “off the shelf” solutions, but even that required heavy modification to work reliably.
I did retrofit another older layout to use computer controlled analog blocks (one computer controlled throttle per block) which was quite a bit of fun as the locomotives did not need modification. It was a very reliable layout, but the computer controlled throttle maker went out of business (Oak Tree System) or at least they disappeared. So as cards failed, the layout went back into storage.
Please keep us updated with your progress!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2022 23:11:02 GMT -5
There is only one general "analog" throttle, since only one train runs at once ; it uses an analog 16 to 1 multiplexer CD4067, there is a choice between stop and 4 preset speeds for each train (waiting for stop, running through the station, downwards and upwards) ; these speeds are defined by trimmers, for the freight trains on cards which can be plugged in so I can swap a loco and use its preset speeds. Then the so selected voltage goes (after buffering) through an integrating RC cell for acc/deceleration, the resistor (trimmer) is selected according to the train by another multiplexer CD4051 (finally I used the same value for all, but I can set it to minimum so I have an immediate reaction during presetting speeds, or by software for special purposes using the third bit of CD4051). And now the so processed voltage controls a power OPA547 with a current limitation of about 100 mA (enough for a 2 locos or 2 RDC's consist, but not enough to damage anything in case of a short circuit). The "supervising calculator" is a DIY board, not an Arduino or Raspberry, with an ATMega8515 at 6 MHz. It is programmed with Great Cow Basic (Mooooh !), presently the complete program uses less than 3KB, but it can grow if I add some functions.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2022 22:53:23 GMT -5
Tuesday 19th I got a touch screen (7", resistive) ; meanwhile I wrote the prog to control my layout, with various menues and screens, it works, but I am still hesitating to migrate ; the screen needs a rather strong pressure to trigger (it's the same with mechanical switches), but this would be a question of habit ; in fact, it's not a "touch screen" but rather a "hit screen" ; more annoying is the same issue as with all touch screens (including smartphones and tablets), and that I didn't think of : after a while of using, the screen looks rather dirty, covered with fingerprints ; I know that pushbuttons are sensitive to fingerprints, too, but ... it's less visible ! So ...
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2022 14:04:35 GMT -5
And I am afraid that cleaning a resistive screen would damage (scratch) it after a while, the surface seems to be a kind of polycarbonate. I found a capacitive screen on the Web but, despite of the fact that the seller answered me that the surface of the capacitive screens is made of glass (so less risk to scratch), I will stay with my mechanical switches which have the "look" of the railroad's era (1965) ; a touch screen would only make my control panel look like a contemporary smartphone (with the same dirty fingerprints ! ) and I must add here : I HATE smartphones ...
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