Hello from the Netherlands! (Eastern border)

[dreezy73]

Just joining the forum, so here’s a quick intro before I start throwing photos and wires at you:


I’m a 52-year-old model railroader who prefers soldering over shopping. Most of what you’ll see on my layout is scratch-built, kitbashed, or somehow cobbled together using questionable engineering and too much superglue.


My layout is N scale, squeezed into a modest 170x65 cm space (that’s about 67x25 inches for those using freedom units ). Space constraints made N scale the obvious choice — more train, less table!


I’ve got a dedicated hobby room (a.k.a. the land of lost hobby knives), and I focus more on building and experimenting than on replicating real-life operations. My signals, for example, are entirely my own invention — function over prototype!


If you're curious to see more of the chaos I call a layout, I document most of my projects (including videos) on my personal website:
https://modelbouw.kloppenburgweb.nl
It’s in Dutch, but don’t worry — trains speak a universal language.
There’s also a built-in translation option on the site, just in case your Dutch is a little... rusty.

Looking forward to trading tips, tricks, and the occasional “why isn’t this working?” moment with you all.

Greetx Dreezy(73)

 

[Canalligator]

Welcome! I will browse your site. Ik sprekt een beetje Nederlands… keine beetje… so I will be translating it. I hope to build a diorama of a small town NS station someday, inspired by a place I visited last year on a cycling trip.

 

[Old 97]

Welcome home!!!!

 

[migalyto]

Welcome to the group Dreezy.

Glad to have you with us!

 

[Guilford Railman]

Welcome aboard!

 

[dreezy73]

Thank you all so much for the warm welcome!
I still have to use a translator quite often, but I'm doing my best to keep trying.

@Canalligator – Funny that you want to recreate a piece of the Dutch Railways (NS)!

 

[Canalligator]

I looked through my navigation record and found the station which I’d ridden through, it was Ravenstein in North Brabant. The fietspad (cycle path) goes through the middle of the station. I found it very attractive. My companion and I saw that a train was coming, so we stopped to watch it.

 

[dreezy73]

You mean this one.. This is the old version of the station

This is some newer. Its a nice station in my opinion. Especially the older one

 

[dreezy73]

Ok, I have a question. I bought ir sensors for train detection, but there is a problem with those things. I have a sketch to read them with the Arduino, but every time I read them, or restart the arduino, they behave differently,

sensor without attachement

sensor with attachement

This is a picture of how the sensors look now and are directly between the sleepers of the track. They radiate straight up and in my opinion it should work. Only it still doesn't work properly.Exactly what I said, one moment the sensor behaves in such a way that when a train drives over the track, it detects it. And after a reset of the arduino, the behavior is exactly the other way around. Then it detects a train when there is nothing and when the train drives over it, then according to the sensor there is nothing!

 

[ctclibby]

Dreezy: First guess - take a look at the PCB's; the top device and the bottom device have a different discrete component count. No clue if that will make a difference or not - same model number? Next is when they reset, they go back to full power and the 'beam' probably is reflecting off that attachment and/or the ceiling. I too have been playing with IR's made for TV remotes. They can Tx/Rx close to 30 Meters given a quiet environment. A coupler or car/engine frame is about 1.5 inches from the ties ( HO ) and not much power at all is needed to detect something. Try turning the power down in the device setup, then remember to save it. You should be able to find out if they beam power sideways - get another sensor and point it at the 1st sensor without it's attachment - try the 2nd up close, then move it back and see when it looses the 1st sensor beam. Might be possible to put a small plastic tube or straw around the detector so it only has an upward view.

L8r

 

[dreezy73]

Seems like a plausible explanation. What I also have is a number of LDRs. I'm going to try that and then with different light intensities such as sunny during the day, rainy during the day, evening etc.

 

[traiNscale]

Hup Holland!

welcome to the forum. so your living in the country where mifoshape and martin wellberg is ccoming from. i did some orders from holland.

cheers from switzerland!

Marco

 

[Jim at BSME]

Ok, I have a question. I bought ir sensors for train detection, but there is a problem with those things. I have a sketch to read them with the Arduino, but every time I read them, or restart the arduino, they behave differently,

You might want to move this to the Electronics forum, you might get more eyes on the question. (https://modelrailroadforums.com/forum/index.php?forums/wiring-electronics-and-dcc.46/)

As for the problem, can you tell us more about where you are using these? What lighting you have and I don't recall if you mentioned what scale you are working in. Maybe a link to the product description, and if you can read the part number on the chip as well.

 

[dreezy73]

sorry, this is not the thread where i put my things.. this is only for my introduction....

My other threat is here

 

[Jacob Z]

Ok, I have a question. I bought ir sensors for train detection, but there is a problem with those things. I have a sketch to read them with the Arduino, but every time I read them, or restart the arduino, they behave differently,

View attachment 217379

sensor without attachement

View attachment 217380
sensor with attachement

This is a picture of how the sensors look now and are directly between the sleepers of the track. They radiate straight up and in my opinion it should work. Only it still doesn't work properly.Exactly what I said, one moment the sensor behaves in such a way that when a train drives over the track, it detects it. And after a reset of the arduino, the behavior is exactly the other way around. Then it detects a train when there is nothing and when the train drives over it, then according to the sensor there is nothing!

One wild guess: you might have a "floating voltage" somewhere, that can always cause weird behavior - especially with an electric motor passing over the top!

I assume your code is very straightforward, but maybe you can post it anyway? If I had a dollar for every time my "straightforward" code had an obvious error (uninitialized variable, race condition, ...) I would $187.25

 

[NorthBrit]

Welcome on board, dreezy.

David