Comment by IIAOPSW | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IIAOPSW | Hacker News Reader

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I'm going to do the opposite of shooting you down in flames.

If there were a website where people with VR headsets could login to being a passenger on a model railroad running through someones home, or simulate being an ant-sized train engineer trying to keep to schedule on the old Kitchen Carpet and Foyer line, that would be killer. It also doubles as a nice gimmick to show off a local business. Imagine getting a model rail passenger tour of the novelty hotel room you just booked.

This is brilliant and you should do it. Stop being intimidated by electricity. A drone controller is overkill. A model train is just a DC motor and speed control is just how much voltage you apply to the tracks. Wire up the tracks to a Raspberry Pi and just script it all in Python, don't waste effort trying to jerryrig a drone into something that its not. For the camera, a standard home security IP cam will do the trick, or just an APP that turns any old disused phone into an IP cam.

Thanks for your genuine enthusiasm.

The Eureka I am plucking out of your kind words is to make it work as an online app, something that can be shared.

I am going to enjoy the iterations on this. It would also be good to innovate 'the Nintendo way' by using tried and tested hardware that is affordable.

Maybe Raspberry Pi is also worthy of study because that has kick started a whole sector and not been overrun by competition. Maybe it is possible to do the same for model railways, to have a standard locomotion unit that people can build their projects around, to share as you described.

I have decided against powered tracks. I like the idea of minimal tracks that look more like an aluminium curtain rail, embedded in the floor, and I don't want track cleaning to be necessary at the electrical level. Imagine a helix hidden under the stairs or in a disused chimney that enabled a train to climb upstairs, albeit taking quite a while to get there. It could exit into a properly modelled station but the journey there could be an AR trek across the countryside as far as the shared view is concerned.

I can also start with a 'reference design' kit for some of these cool controllers that have the bits on that I want. It is going to be fun getting there, but 'shared' is a must!

I'm going to double down on the suggestion of powering the rails simply on account of the fact the main product is VR camera on a train and a web service built around it. Reinventing the way model rail systems work from the ground up will get you side tracked. You can always figure out how to construct battery based, wifi enabled smart locomotives later on. There's already a ton of standardization and interoperability in model train building. You don't have to reinvent it unless you insist on avoiding track electrification.

That said, if you're really committed to designing from scratch and are looking at the ability to climb steep grades like stairs and chimneys, and if you happen to be in San Fransisco (as many here are), I strongly recommend the cable car museum. Admission is free and its extremely educational. The cable cars are a marvel of engineering. A wholly modern rapid transit built before there was even electricity. The way they accomplished this was by having a cable underneath the tracks that is constantly moving (powered by steam in the main depot). When the cable car operator wants to start moving, they pull a lever which holds the car to a fixed point on the cable (in the exact same manner as the friction brake holds it to a fixed place in the ground). The cable car museum shows in stunning detail how this system accomplished things all the basic railroad operations like turns, tracks crossing, and track switching. You might find some inspiration in seeing how they did it.

I'm not sure if you've seen it, but there's a game called Rolling Line that works the same way, but with a virtual model railway.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/754150/Rolling_Line/

I saw a letsplay of it once, and on some weird youtube niche documentary rabbit hole I learned that train simulators have been entwined with the model building community since the start (late 90s) and the concept of having track layout planning, control over signals and interlockings, and first person simulation, all wrapped into a single piece of software is nothing new.

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