I need a park and ride bus for my shopping centre and wanted to use a Tomytec chassis without using the Tomytec roadway and bus stop. So I copied the layout of the Tomytec bus stop, and laid a steering wire using some Faller road system steel wire. This video shows the result.
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The layout of the bus stop is shown below. Two magnets are required as well as a 45mm length of steel wire which allows the bus to stop and for the timer circuit to be activated giving about 10 seconds of stop time. Then the bus moves off again. For the demonstration in the video the steering guide wire was taped to the underside of the test roadway which is a piece of 0.5mm card. I used small pieces of flexible magnet stuck to the underside of the roadway observing the polarity for the black magnet (about 2mm x 2 mm), and the opposite polarity for the long magnet (about 15mm x 2mm). I then loaded these with 2mm diameter x 1 mm thick neodymium magnets until I got the field strength just enough for the bus to stop, but not so strong that they pulled the bus off the steering wire. The black magnet has one neodymium in the centre, and the red magnet has one neodymium at each end. Using the flexible magnet stuck to the underside of the card gave a positive location for the neodymiums which would otherwise prefer to spin away to the steering guide wire or the stop control wire. So far so good, and with two almost worn out LR44 batteries on board the bus has a suitable slow speed for a shopping area.
(http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/42/thumb_15006.bmp) (http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=15006)
Mike, the video comes up marked as "Private", you need to change the permissions for us to see it.
Thanks Caz. Hopefully I have a fixed it now.
Working fine now Mike, wish they did earlier style buses as it must look great have the traffic move as well.
Nice work I have often thought of having moving vehicles on my layouts but there never seems to be enough in the piggy bank for them and my railway purchases.
Quote from: Only Me on August 19, 2014, 06:35:28 PM
Hi mike, quick question why do yoy need a 45mm control wire ? I am confused!
I havent put the stops in for tormouth yet but the way I read the instructions is you put a magnet to one side of the bus and it it speeds up or slows down depending on magnet polarity and on the other side of the bus you place a magnet (polatity dependant) and it automatically stops for ten seconds once it passes the magnet? You have me worried now as i have all my road laid... I was just intending to drill some small magnet holes :(
Paul
The control wire has something to do with having a sufficient magnetic flux over a distance to operate the two field effect transistors (i think) which need opposite polarities. I could not get it to work without the control wire. The speed up/slow down magnets just work on the rear transistor. In the presence of the long magnet, and the control wire alone, the transistor in the middle of the bus just stops the bus, and does not activate the timer circuit.
I copied the layout from the Tomytec bus stop, including the control wire. It works and can be installed in a few minutes, so since I always want the bus to stop at the same point everytime, it fits the bill for me.
Quote from: Only Me on August 19, 2014, 09:51:19 PM
Could you add the distances between the magnets to your diagram for me please?
15mm is the common dimension. Small magnet to end of control wire= large magnet to end of control wire = length of long magnet.
HTH.