First WiFi Loco-Nodes, ready for fabrication/assembly


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Side frames. Ready to order. 90 bucks. Thank you, no. I've seen this movie, I know how it ends.

So so let me see if I have this correct, you have some boards that do some pwm lighting, require a battery that won't fit into an ho gp40 unless you go about removing most of the weight to install, and won't likely pull 20 cars with lights and sound for more than a few minutes, then requiring 30-45 minutes of charge, unless you run it below 3.7v per cell, at which time the battery becomes unrepairable junk, and there's no provision to accommodate that. You can't use the product with any of the existing fleet, the software after 2 years isn't even close to complete, hasn't been subjected to alpha, beta, or any degree of field testing, and the support model suggests that it won't be subjected to any generally accepted design process, but that will all be circumvented because purchasers will be required to pay for access to support. Oh, and the fact that your nas boxes, or any other wifi device on the network will not be accessible while this thing is running doesn't matter.

It it might be a good solution for g scale in the garden, but the effort put forth in an ho world is a little lacking in my opinion. Then again, maybe I'm biased. It's certainly been interesting watching the unending development process.
 
meriachee said:
So so let me see if I have this correct, you have some boards that do some pwm lighting, require a battery that won't fit into an ho gp40 unless you go about removing most of the weight to install, and won't likely pull 20 cars with lights and sound for more than a few minutes, then requiring 30-45 minutes of charge, unless you run it below 3.7v per cell, at which time the battery becomes unrepairable junk, and there's no provision to accommodate that. You can't use the product with any of the existing fleet, the software after 2 years isn't even close to complete, hasn't been subjected to alpha, beta, or any degree of field testing, and the support model suggests that it won't be subjected to any generally accepted design process, but that will all be circumvented because purchasers will be required to pay for access to support. Oh, and the fact that your nas boxes, or any other wifi device on the network will not be accessible while this thing is running doesn't matter.
Click to expand...

Interesting summary.

When this whole thing started I thought the process was a little odd. All of my electronic devices started life as a single hand wired "perf board" device. No circuit boards were even considered until at the very least the basic functional design was complete and working.

Then the idea of using Linux seemed like massive overkill.

But everybody approaches life in their own unique way.

And that is what makes life "interesting".
 
meriachee said:
Side frames. Ready to order. 90 bucks. Thank you, no. I've seen this movie, I know how it ends.

So so let me see if I have this correct, you have some boards that do some pwm lighting, require a battery that won't fit into an ho gp40 unless you go about removing most of the weight to install, and won't likely pull 20 cars with lights and sound for more than a few minutes, then requiring 30-45 minutes of charge, unless you run it below 3.7v per cell, at which time the battery becomes unrepairable junk, and there's no provision to accommodate that. You can't use the product with any of the existing fleet, the software after 2 years isn't even close to complete, hasn't been subjected to alpha, beta, or any degree of field testing, and the support model suggests that it won't be subjected to any generally accepted design process, but that will all be circumvented because purchasers will be required to pay for access to support. Oh, and the fact that your nas boxes, or any other wifi device on the network will not be accessible while this thing is running doesn't matter.

It it might be a good solution for g scale in the garden, but the effort put forth in an ho world is a little lacking in my opinion. Then again, maybe I'm biased. It's certainly been interesting watching the unending development process.
Click to expand...

Interesting, do you even know what you are talking about?
 
Let's try to debug this.

Sideframes, yes been posted for a few months to a few weeks on Shapeways depending the type. As somebody who ordered from Railflyer or alleges to, this is great news

What data are you using for your assumptions? It's not supported by anything I have posted in regards to specifiactions

Let's assume you use the stock motor

You have 3-4 hours of dead track operation before recharge

The battery support is 7.4 Volts, two cell

Not sure where the 3.7 V per cell comment and junked battery comes in. The 0001 and 0003 boards fully support recharge and balancing. It will also recharge during operation

Yes there is a full LED based light package and prototype lighting effects as shown in the videos I have posted

We've been testing, the hardware is ready to ship

Block 0 software is almost ready which is more than enough to better DCC

The operating file Loco-Node is done

Already demo'd the mesh in a noisy environment over a year ago, your comment on "nas" or whatever you intended to say has no relevance

There are a lot of battery sizes available for the application and the size of which will determine your mA rating and run time but the system is hybrid, it will recharge and run at the same time off DC track power or AC if you have it
 
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oddly enough there may be people out there who do know a thing or two, have been around the block more than once and could offer constructive input to maybe provide a small degree of consideration to some of the glaring issues that seem so apparent.
That must be some battery that will allow a 12v motor to draw 1/2 amp of current for 4 hours, particularly when it's only getting 7v, or roughly 3/4 of the voltage it was designed to run at. Not to mention driving even a couple of LEDs at between 10 and 20 mils, and maybe a sound system cranking out 1watt. I dunno, maybe after the demise of the 8086 I must have lost the ability to add, cuz this doesn't add up. And while its in a totally different league, my 6 motor drone has 2 5000mah, 15.5 v batteries, and without aggressive flying it only lasts for 15 minutes before requiring almost an hour of charge time.
The dead track scenario doesn't fly, so I'd say, with all due respect, instead of raining on commentary, quit with the dumb screen shots, and prove it.
Who cares about all the part numbers, and microcode. Put a board IN an engine, and not the biggest chassis you can get your hands on, a gp40, with a battery, sound and lights, and run it for 4 hours on a loop of track without power, and film it from the start to the finish. And before the argument about posting a 4 hour video, go look up time lapse. You can look up nas too, it's where the files get stored, and had nothing to do with noise, and everything to do with channel utilization.
 
meriachee said:
oddly enough there may be people out there who do know a thing or two, have been around the block more than once and could offer constructive input to maybe provide a small degree of consideration to some of the glaring issues that seem so apparent.
That must be some battery that will allow a 12v motor to draw 1/2 amp of current for 4 hours, particularly when it's only getting 7v, or roughly 3/4 of the voltage it was designed to run at. Not to mention driving even a couple of LEDs at between 10 and 20 mils, and maybe a sound system cranking out 1watt. I dunno, maybe after the demise of the 8086 I must have lost the ability to add, cuz this doesn't add up. And while its in a totally different league, my 6 motor drone has 2 5000mah, 15.5 v batteries, and without aggressive flying it only lasts for 15 minutes before requiring almost an hour of charge time.
The dead track scenario doesn't fly, so I'd say, with all due respect, instead of raining on commentary, quit with the dumb screen shots, and prove it.
Who cares about all the part numbers, and microcode. Put a board IN an engine, and not the biggest chassis you can get your hands on, a gp40, with a battery, sound and lights, and run it for 4 hours on a loop of track without power, and film it from the start to the finish. And before the argument about posting a 4 hour video, go look up time lapse. You can look up nas too, it's where the files get stored, and had nothing to do with noise, and everything to do with channel utilization.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
 
the two outstanding issues with the V1.5 Loco-Node were booting and audio

we fixed both of them, moving on with more tests and throwing together the production software

here is the new production ready V1.6 board doing an audio test with raw output from the SPU

next up will be audio amp active gain, compression, and other functions for the amplifier

[video=youtube_share;Gw1Lpa7SvNA]https://youtu.be/Gw1Lpa7SvNA[/video]
 
FYI - there are two audio outputs, each @ 8 ohms, approx 1 - 1.2 watts each

full Linux ALSA Audio effects, plus the amp has its own protections, active gain, compression

32 sound channels, 16 bit PCM, up to 48,000 kHz bit rate
 
troll. Interesting response to a request for qualification, turn it around and throw it back. Whatever. Have fun with this latest venture, I hope it works out ok for you.
 
layout-ioe said:
...here is the new production ready V1.6 board doing an audio test with raw output from the SPU

next up will be audio amp active gain, compression, and other functions for the amplifier...
Click to expand...

Your working environment does not inspire a lot of confidence.
 
Fri, 2012-10-05 03:44 — joef
Federal Trade Commission rules for placing online, mail, or phone orders - the merchandise must be delivered within 30 days or the customer must be contacted.
The customer contact after 30 days must provide the customer with the new expected delivery date or offer them a refund. If they want a refund, the refund must be given. If they decline the refund, they have agreed to the new date. Stringing people along is absolutely illegal and considered fraud.
The FTC law also states that an indefinite date is not legal - a new delivery date within 30 days must be given and the customer again must be notified on the new date if no product has yet been shipped and given the same refund option again.
However, Railflyer is in Canada, so the FTC rules do not apply directly. But the FTC does have an international arm for the purposes of dealing with "cross border business fraud" particularly in the case of online businesses.
In short, were Railflyer in the US, they would be in serious violation of FTC law. Because they are in Canada, the path of recourse is not so clear, but ethically, they have violated the spirit of the US FTC law, and I would expect Canada would side with the FTC in pressing charges against the company for violation of ethical business practices at this point.
Legally speaking, Chris is in hot water, and the Canadian authorities could come after him if made aware of what's going on.
Once again, I don't like to sink anyone's business, but if you're on legal thin ice, you either need to wake up and do what's right, or face the consequences.
MRH will not be a party to any business that is conducting business illegally, no matter how noble the product goals.
[h=3]Joe Fugate
Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine[/h]
 
Happy Curmudgeon said:
Fri, 2012-10-05 03:44 — joef
Federal Trade Commission rules for placing online, mail, or phone orders - the merchandise must be delivered within 30 days or the customer must be contacted.
The customer contact after 30 days must provide the customer with the new expected delivery date or offer them a refund. If they want a refund, the refund must be given. If they decline the refund, they have agreed to the new date. Stringing people along is absolutely illegal and considered fraud.
The FTC law also states that an indefinite date is not legal - a new delivery date within 30 days must be given and the customer again must be notified on the new date if no product has yet been shipped and given the same refund option again.
However, Railflyer is in Canada, so the FTC rules do not apply directly. But the FTC does have an international arm for the purposes of dealing with "cross border business fraud" particularly in the case of online businesses.
In short, were Railflyer in the US, they would be in serious violation of FTC law. Because they are in Canada, the path of recourse is not so clear, but ethically, they have violated the spirit of the US FTC law, and I would expect Canada would side with the FTC in pressing charges against the company for violation of ethical business practices at this point.
Legally speaking, Chris is in hot water, and the Canadian authorities could come after him if made aware of what's going on.
Once again, I don't like to sink anyone's business, but if you're on legal thin ice, you either need to wake up and do what's right, or face the consequences.
MRH will not be a party to any business that is conducting business illegally, no matter how noble the product goals.
[h=3]Joe Fugate
Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine[/h]
Click to expand...

Yes, these customers purchased from Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.

I am a separate legal entity and as stated repeatably am not responsible for losses due to libel which caused excessive economic damages and prevented Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc from continuing operation

All orders on www.layout-ioe.com are in good standing

Nobody ever purchased goods or services from me personally directly, thus any attempt to impare my reputation is libel

I would like to add Joe, your publication interviewed me at least twice with the parts in question present
 
today's fun is finding the WiFi bug

this was the output from one of the manufacturer dev kits last June, the WiFi came up OK

tx_thread starts running...
MAC address: 68:9c:5e:fe:c4:5c
[MT5931]: InitP2P, Ifname: ap%d, Mode: AP
[MT5931]: P2P register to wlan
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 68:9C:5E:FE:C4:5C
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 68:9C:5E:FE:C4:5C
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

this is the output from LN0001S-V1.6 today

tx_thread starts running...
MAC address: 9c:65:f9:13:0d:56Remove wlan!
tx_thread should stop now...

and using our newer dev kit from the manufacturer

tx_thread starts running...
MAC address: 9c:65:f9:13:15:d9Remove wlan!
tx_thread should stop now...


 
on the topic of seeing my stuff or not seeing it

Harry Wong had an article in RMC a few months ago with some of my parts, he's placed a number of orders from www.layout-ioe.com

another modeler also sent me this image a few weeks ago of the Shapeways order he got printed, and shipped direct to him

this stuff does not sell through dealers, only a few would ever carry it in the first place because RTR is the thing. detail parts don't sell enough to justify the cost of tooling and dealers don't want to spend money on something that sits on the shelf

Evan does some of the CAD, I do the majority of it

The same amount of attention in the design of the parts is going into this WiFi project, its gotta be perfect when its shipped - because I will have my rear handed to my by the trolls if its not...

image1.jpg
 
That's Enough, the purpose of these forums is fellowship and to help one another. Please note that it is not a platform for advertising selling on a commercial basis unless you are paying for that privilege. There are times that the Administrator will allow a very small manufactured product run by a member to show his work for sale if there is an advantage for the fellow members and that it is Model rail related.
The members so far have been keeping these forums running smoothly, thus the moderators rarely have to take action, we like it that way. Please do not change it.
Willis
 
CBCNSfan said:
That's Enough, the purpose of these forums is fellowship and to help one another. Please note that it is not a platform for advertising selling on a commercial basis unless you are paying for that privilege. There are times that the Administrator will allow a very small manufactured product run by a member to show his work for sale if there is an advantage for the fellow members and that it is Model rail related.
The members so far have been keeping these forums running smoothly, thus the moderators rarely have to take action, we like it that way. Please do not change it.
Willis
Click to expand...

And when the Administrator does have to get involved, he gets grumpy.

I've deleted a bunch of total BS, name calling, and personal attacks. This crap will stop right now. If I see it again, people are going to be banned. Time to grow up and start acting professionally.

Attacking your customers in a public forum is probably not the best approach for gaining their trust and respect. It's one thing to say "I need some supporting documentation to process your claim." But name calling and personal attacks? Get real.

As for the customers, if you have a complaint with this vendor, by all means, take the appropriate actions. Contact him, your credit card company, Paypal, whatever. But getting into a shouting match here won't resolve anything, especially given his rather confrontational attitude.
 
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layout-ioe said:
Yes, these customers purchased from Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.

I am a separate legal entity and as stated repeatably am not responsible for losses due to libel which caused excessive economic damages and prevented Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc from continuing operation

All orders on www.layout-ioe.com are in good standing

Nobody ever purchased goods or services from me personally directly, thus any attempt to impare my reputation is libel

I would like to add Joe, your publication interviewed me at least twice with the parts in question present
Click to expand...

It's only libel if it's false and done maliciously. I'd suggest not tossing around threats and legal terms without first consulting an attorney for guidance.
 
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