Servo driven turnouts

[Rich_Ros]

Here's another entry in the simplest circuit contest! This time it's another little 8-pin micro, ATTiny13A, driving one of the little SG-90 servos. It uses a 2-wire bus to allow a whole bunch of LED position indicator lights plus two-button controls for the turnouts (including centering the servo when both buttons are pressed. All that with just two wires? Two pots are included to adjust the servo to just close the shuttle and then a little more to give it over-travel to hold lock it in place. I'll bet nobody's seen anything like this! And you won't believe the price!

Oh yeah, this can be a 'top mount' too......

I haven't figured out how to post a message into this group yet, but I posted a bunch of pix on my website and even a movie! Look under the "Turnout Motor" tab.

 

[wombat457]

Sounds good as I will be using servo's on my HO layout. Can you post a link for this thing for us to see and red about?

 

[Rich_Ros]

Hi Tony;

Since you asked, try http://railroadmicro.com/

I don't dare offer something publicly without having sufficient inventory to cover any orders. Experience has shown there's almost no interest in anything other than plug-and-play stuff. I just can't believe that the people that do such incredible modeling of buildings and scenery can't handle a soldering iron to build these simple circuits, especially with me standing by to offer any help I can.

Privately though, I do have a small parts inventory and can offer the reflective sensor version of the flasher, the bell attachment, and the turnout servo controller. I'd rather you bought your own servos but I have a few laying around that I'd sell for a price just so you can check it out.

Take a good look through my website, ask questions, whatever. I you see stuff you want then contact me via the webpage and we'll see what we can do.

 

[marriedshades]

Never heard of them before.

 

[Rich_Ros]

You have now! Take a look around. I'm not one of the 'big guys' and you don't have to pay those enormous prices. Mine is superior to anything on the market and at a fraction of the price.......

 

[josephbw]

Hi Rich,
I posted a question for you on your website under the turnout section.
Thanks, Joe

 

[OldGuyHO]

Are you planning to package this in a tight container (like, but not like Tortoise), or are you waving your DIY flag throughout? It looks interesting, as do the servo and electronics for crossings. Hope it goes well for you.

 

[Rich_Ros]

From one old guy to another: Yes! I proudly wave the DIY flag! You can make your own servo mounting bracket for next to nothing or buy a pre-assembled plastic bracket for $7.99 that's only good for one configuration. For those that are looking for a pre-assembled, ready-to-run layout I wish them well but I'm not in that market.

Thanks for your well wishes, but it's not going well at all. I'm obviously looking in the wrong places, everyone here is either only interested in the operational aspects or already has everything that I'm offering. I see that there are counterparts to everything that I have, but they're very expensive and in my opinion they're way behind in technology. Could you advise me how I might reach those that are on a tighter budget and would be interested in animating their layouts?

 

[marriedshades]

Rich I'm in the planing phase of my layout. And use code 100 track I'm slow to by thing and like to have lots of info before I spend my money. So do you have some videos to see.

 

[wombat457]

Rich,

After reading you initial post, I got the impression you had come across this item searching for turnout motors and were just bringing it to every ones attention. There certainly wasn't anything in it to suggest that you were the maker of the item and trying to sell it. That may well have made some people a little wary.

You are right when you say that most people, who have established layouts, already have turnout motors (for example) for their layouts and don't need any more. However, there are people who are still in the process of designing and building their layouts who might and they, I would assume, would be the people who may be interested in what you have to offer.

marriedshades is also right, people will not buy something without being able to see what it is they are buying and/or without that thing being proven against its competitors. So far, no one has seen what you are offering let alone seen it working.

In my honest opinion, if you want to gain peoples interest in your products, and confidence in them, show them here - where your intended market is. Essentially, if you have something to sell and you want to try to sell it here - detail it here, fully and completely. You need to do anything and everything to show integrity and to make it easy for your intended customers. Don't talk something up here, then expect your intended market to go chasing you, on another site, for all the nitty gritty.

As you said, everything you seem to be offering, albeit at a lower price, already exists in the market place. People have choices and they will make their choices based on what has been proven, not simply on some ones word that what they have is better, let alone the maker of the item.

Best advice I can give you though is this - be 110% up front on here and give the people here who are looking, something to look at without having to go to other places for that information. Posting a link to another site "might" boost that sites "hit ratio" but it wont sell the item.

Finally, I am interested (in a curiosity sense) about what you have. I don't need them though as I have other products that do the same the same job in so far as turn out machines are concerned anyway. You, therefore, need to prove to me that what you have is better than what I have and I think that is what marriedshades was alluding to and what a lot of people will want.

 

[OldGuyHO]

I agree with Tony. Show the stuff, not everyone has their layout built out (I'm one of them. Waiting for room to become available...again.)

The problem I see in not designing a more contained turnout package, is that the underside of a layout can get pretty crowded, with two or three wiring busses, feeders, etc. Adding to that with a turnout control that takes up a lot of space doesn't appeal to me. I have purchased a six pack of Tortoise turnouts, but I'll need maybe a dozen more before I'm done. Give me something tight, and cheaper and I'd be a buyer.

I am interested in your crossing bar control, but again, no pictures, it didn't happen.

Keep going.

 

[josephbw]

First of all Rich, thanks for answering my question on your website. I am in the construction of my basement phase, with at least a months work of work before I can start the benchwork. I am also in the information gathering mode right now in order to make the most intelligent decision for a smooth, easy to run layout. I plan to hold operating sessions eventually, and I need easy to learn, robust, realistic equipment to facilitate that goal. Most of us that will be operating are from mid 60's to early 80's, so I don't want to subject everyone to techno shock.

My plan is to use tablets at the yards and maybe also at the towns for local switch control, in conjunction with JMRI Panel Pro, or capacitive resistance control buttons on a typical switch control panel. I've been spoiled with the diode matrix system I built for our club layout, which will allow you to align all the switches in a ladder track to get to one particular track, with the push of one button. I don't know if JMRI will accommodate those desires, or I will have to seek other methods to accomplish this. I am very interested in your system, if I can find a way to control multiple switches.

Thanks, Joe

 

[Rich_Ros]

Hi Tony and glad to here from you again. Your points are all valid, especially the first!

P#1 - I never learned to say a lot in a little note and It never occurred to me that anyone might think I'm just re-selling somebody else's stuff! I just assumed they would go to my website and there's a whole bunch of info there.

P#2 - Many have turnout motors, some with those solenoid actuators that are next to junk. Others have Tortoise motors, better by far but how would you equip them with signal lights? How many control panels can you have? How difficult are they to wire up and adjust? I'm sure there are some with indicator lights, although I haven't seen any yet. I've heard of some that build their own flashers and track detectprs with photo-resistors, it looks like they'll only flash while blocked and you have to re-adjust if you dim your lights. Others seek to build their own with bits and piece parts, maybe they even use IR track detection, but how is it possible to include "logic" the way I do with the micro's. My Bell stands alone. The closest anyone can come is with an mp3 module that can play back a recording. No logic, just on or off. Back up a moment to the flasher, I have two types, one with an above the board light beam that can cover a 5 foot span of track and the other that's buried between the ties in the cork roadbed. Both have excellent performing, nearing 100% coverage.
(All this is spelled out on the website.) Maybe it's time to upgrade?

#3 is VERY important, although I'm really not convinced that a movie is necessary to show a flashing light! There's a whole bunch of pictures, schematics, movies, technical and performance narrative, etc. on the website, far more than I could post here. The really big issue though is that "nobody here has seen......" and that hits the nail right square on the head. Nobody else in any of the groups has every seen any of this stuff! A year or so ago some no-nothings in this group were accusing me of lying and fraud and they knew absolutely nothing about me or my products, but they thought it was their duty to warn everybody. I make a post about my bell, 89 views but NO replies and NO contacts. Am I blacklisted? There's just one member of this group that has tried one of my products, way back when. He had a little difficult building it, one error because he didn't pay attention to the instructions, (his words) a second because I didnt' go into detail on where to locate the sensors, then finally he didn't know what the micro was for and it wasn't plugged in. Otherwise, it worked just fine and he seemed pleased. He even made a movie clip and posted it here, but he didn't say a word about where he got it. I've made postings on other groups too, and NONE have tried anything, even when I just about give away the store!

P#4 I'd like to post a link to my website, but I've been banned for that in other groups. I respond immediately when somebody asks for it. I guess that's safe. If you reread my initial post, I tried to describe the turnout motor in a single paragraph. The old saw that "This is the age of the half read page" is no longer valid, people now days only read the bold print and only look at the pictures. (I blew the last sentence, I intended to say I didn't know how to post a pix here.)

P$5 I'm sure (almost) everything that I've done has been done by somebody else. Mine is better! (I've done work for GM that the Delco engineers couldn't handle. Same for Boeing Aerospace, Toastmaster, Decatur Radar, and NACCO (Hyster/Yale)., they all had their own engineering staff, but their engineers couldn't do
what I do and didn't understand it when I was done.) I can't prove any thing works here because nobody here will even try it!

P#6 How can I do that here? There's just so much you can say in a paragraph or two. Beyond that nobody would read it.

P#7 is my favorite! Do you care enough and do you have the time and inclination to build some of this stuff and share your opinion based on facts? I've pleaded with some that cared enough to respond privately and all but gave away the store if they'd just try it. Would you believe, one seemed to want to buy a flasher kit since that was the only thing that I had sufficient stock to handle a bunch of orders. I told him if he bought one I'd send him a second full kit for the other type of sensor and throw in a bell kit complete with an audio amp, all for the price of the first! He never replied. If you really want to help, contact me privately through the website. Otherwise, do you know of someone that might?

I'm really getting tired of knocking myself out trying with zero results. I hate to give up because I still think there are a lot of people out there that would like this sort of thing and can't afford to pay way over $50 bucks just to have a flashing lite. They buy those bang-bang turnout solenoids for $13 bucks that don't work very well and don't last long, simply because they can't afford to spend a bunch more and don't know they could have mine for less. They look to the old-timers on the web for help and they find nothing except some jerk that say's "I wouldn't buy anything on the internet unless they had full page ads in Model Railroader". (Real story!) One of these days I'll get smart and just shut down. In the meantime there's a couple of other projects that I'd still like to do. I may just post a movie and not try to share it........

Rich USN-Ret, CEO & Chief Engineer of RailroadMicro

p.s. I have a copywrite on each of my designs, plus each micro is programmed to be unreadable once it leaves my hands.

 

[wombat457]

Rich,

We're going around in circles, and I'm getting dizzy. This is really very simple, people will only buy what they can see - we haven't seen anything other than your own words about how good your stuff is, and that wont cut it in today's society. You can write a single paragraph or a bloody book and it wont matter one iota.

So you say,

"...If you really want to help, contact me privately through the website. Otherwise, do you know of someone that might?..."

Help with what?
Making your stuff?
Marketing your stuff?
Putting money in your pocket by buying it?
Telling you the best way to go about getting customers for it?

What do you want help with?

Some how, I don't think it will matter what your response to that will be as people have offered very good advice here, and in a previous similar post of yours, and you are unwilling to heed it. Even potential customers have asked for certain things, and you argue against them or say things such as:

"...I'm really not convinced that a movie is necessary to show a flashing light!...

Doesn't matter what you think - it DOES matter what the potential customer thinks. So, if your only willing to do what you think is necessary then I would suggest you get out of any business and stick with a hobby where the only person you need to please is yourself.

I will say this in conclusion though - you have been successful at one thing, alienating me as a potential customer, now and in the future.

 

[Rich_Ros]

Tony;

I'm very sorry if I've offended you. You don't seem to have paid any heed to anything I've said other than to find fault. You know nothing about what I've done, you won't look around my webpage, you wouldn't consider evaluating my product. You tell me to show pictures and movies but I don't see how that could be done here yet you keep repeating that. If you would look at my web site you'll find lots of that, but instead you'll shell out big bucks for some foreign stuff with no doc's whatever, no movies, no wiring diagrams, not even a decent description of what it does! Do they have any kind of help line?

Congratulations, you have succeeded in turning me away. I'm sure the big bucks people will appreciate that.