Quote from: NeMo on June 29, 2015, 09:34:20 PM
Should be totally freestanding. Causes no problems on my Windows XP installation.
,
where do you draw the line???

Thanks
,
yep, exactly so, then it gets so big that it needs a manual as well and peeps complain they cant understand it all 

I think I'll leave it simple like this a while, then maybe do a version with radio buttons to choose between maybe 4 length options.

I dunno if anyone noticed ! but last night  I removed my magnum opus,
intending to replace with a different version to take account of the length vs. accuracy issue.
Well I suffered a little computational difficulty aka incompetence ! but I think I am now proud to announce a new version ( we are only up to ver. 8g !!! )
In which you can choose either 120mm, 240mm or 480mm.
(there may be a variable one along later, but I am allergic to variable variables in experiments, maybe I am (borderline?) OCD ?  lol!  )
play here

Quote from: austinbob on June 29, 2015, 08:02:37 PM
I'm gonna give that  a try just out of curiosity.

Did you ? I think you may be a rare breed, dunno if anyone else did, loadsa views tho'
Find any holes ? any faux pas ?

Wots the plural of "faux pas" ?
ok Zebedee >>>

Quote from: NeMo on June 29, 2015, 08:59:53 PM

I pretty much left the user to do the timing aspect..

Cheers, NeMo

Now I will have to dig out my stopwatch, or count the seconds - (one kangaroo, two kangaroo, three Kangaroo  (or elephants)) etc.
Who remembers doing that?

Quote from: MalcolmAL on June 30, 2015, 11:02:34 PM

Did you ? I think you may be a rare breed, dunno if anyone else did, loadsa views tho'
Find any holes ? any faux pas ?

Wots the plural of "faux pas" ?
ok Zebedee >>>

Unfortunately Malcolm my grand daughter broke my laptop and my desktop is downstairs with test track upstairs so I'm stuffed for the moment.

In one of his very rare 'silly comments' about model railways (well, it might work with O gauge or larger but in N or smaller    )  Cyril J Freezer recommended in his book "1001 model railway questions and answers" (number 950/ page 210) that if you count the revolutions of the wheels and they exactly match the prototype then the speed will match.
Try doing that across the speed range in N   

Rather more helpfully in his excellent publication "Railway Modelling" Norman Simmons gives a table on page 250 which I quote only for N ( - other scales are available -) as the one which most interests us here.

In N gauge the following applies:

Feet per minute = SCALE MPH

6   = 10
12 = 20
18 = 30
24 = 40
30 = 50
36 = 60
42 = 70
48 = 80
54 = 90

and so on. From this table it can be seen that you can work out quite easily to the nearest 5 mph (eg. 15 mph would be 9 feet per minute) and I imagine that's quite a close enough estimation for most people.

Of course, very few of us are lucky enough to have layouts 54 feet long (if only  ) but we can always shorten the distance. For example, a scale 80 mph means a train moves forward 12 feet every 15 seconds or 6 feet every 7.5 seconds.

I have long worked to these times and feel they are quite realistic looking.
I hope this helps.
Greg.

Quote from: austinbob on July 01, 2015, 08:19:02 AM
Unfortunately Malcolm my grand daughter broke my laptop and my desktop is downstairs with test track upstairs so I'm stuffed for the moment.

Argh ! I feel your pain   
We really do need a bod with an arduino and two sensors then !

I've just had a thought - I've still got some BeebBs, now they were proper computers dead easy to interface with real world sensors via the UserPort, hmmmmmmm,
hands-up, how many of you would find that interesting if I were to whizz up a prog for that, if I can still remember 6502hex

Quote from: colpatben on July 01, 2015, 07:38:00 AM
Now I will have to dig out my stopwatch, or count the seconds - (one kangaroo, two kangaroo, three Kangaroo  (or elephants)) etc.
Who remembers doing that?

!! Not me, I was taught "one thousand and 1" "one thousand and 2"

T-shirt

Really fun thread this one....just to reiterate I have used the trainspeed software to fix the scale speeds to my NCE Procab settings....it takes quite a bit of time to set the speed curve cv values but I have got my locos running within +/- 1 mph of the cab settings.... the hardest part is setting up the first curve for a new loco type say a Farish Class 47...but once one is done then another loco of the same type and make with the same motors etc takes a lot less effort as you just need to tweak the odd setting to reflect the slight differences between motors...I set the speed curves up and test in both forward and reverse directions as some locos definately run a little faster or slower for the same power setting when running in different directions....to be honest it is a good bit of fun getting them all speed matched and then when running double headed they all run nicely together irrespective of speed settings so getting the scale speed accurate is important to avoid straining the locos when double heading....all the settings are stored on my pc and backed up. 

Quote from: sparky on July 01, 2015, 11:04:26 AM
Really fun thread this one

Well done that man, well spotted, that is in fact what I had in mind 

Quote from: Only Me on July 01, 2015, 11:15:01 AM
I use the rule

I cant resist :-
I was wondering how long before someone brought their slide-rule to the party
computers, bah! who needs 'em

"roughly" and a decimal place, I luv it 

Time for anuther cuppa >>

Hmmmm is this code freeware? I'm asking because I could translate this to python and run it in the Raspberry PI to create a real speedometer with two hall sensors and a digital display 

Quote from: sparky on July 01, 2015, 11:04:26 AM
Really fun thread this one....just to reiterate I have used the trainspeed software to fix the scale speeds to my NCE Procab settings....it takes quite a bit of time to set the speed curve cv values but I have got my locos running within +/- 1 mph of the cab settings.... the hardest part is setting up the first curve for a new loco type say a Farish Class 47...but once one is done then another loco of the same type and make with the same motors etc takes a lot less effort as you just need to tweak the odd setting to reflect the slight differences between motors...I set the speed curves up and test in both forward and reverse directions as some locos definately run a little faster or slower for the same power setting when running in different directions....to be honest it is a good bit of fun getting them all speed matched and then when running double headed they all run nicely together irrespective of speed settings so getting the scale speed accurate is important to avoid straining the locos when double heading....all the settings are stored on my pc and backed up.

I hate to mention this but your models are probably better calibrated re speedos than many a real train in Britain where an allowance of up to 5 mph is (at least was) made in the cases of 'overspeeding' by drivers for speedometers giving false readings.

Quote from: MalcolmAL on July 01, 2015, 11:33:25 AM

Quote from: Only Me on July 01, 2015, 11:15:01 AM
I use the rule

I cant resist :-
I was wondering how long before someone brought their slide-rule to the party
computers, bah! who needs 'em

"roughly" and a decimal place, I luv it 

Time for anuther cuppa >>

  I totally agree Malcolm. Next we'll be having someone work it out to the 0.0000001% of accuracy!
OK, I exaggerate but it does seem to be, in the immortal words of "Monty Python", "All getting a bit silly" now.

On the other hand, what is life without a bit of light relief? 

Quote from: deibid on July 01, 2015, 11:51:47 AM
Hmmmm is this code freeware? I'm asking because I could translate this to python and run it in the Raspberry PI to create a real speedometer with two hall sensors and a digital display 

Why bother with a RasPi when you could put it onto a PIC ?  Smaller, neater & allows the RasPi to be used for more important things 

Quote from: MikeDunn on July 01, 2015, 01:40:33 PM

Quote from: deibid on July 01, 2015, 11:51:47 AM
Hmmmm is this code freeware? I'm asking because I could translate this to python and run it in the Raspberry PI to create a real speedometer with two hall sensors and a digital display 

Why bother with a RasPi when you could put it onto a PIC ?  Smaller, neater & allows the RasPi to be used for more important things 

Clear answer: because the PI makes things (important and unimportant) way easier !

Quote from: deibid on July 01, 2015, 01:53:27 PM

Quote from: MikeDunn on July 01, 2015, 01:40:33 PM

Quote from: deibid on July 01, 2015, 11:51:47 AM
Hmmmm is this code freeware? I'm asking because I could translate this to python and run it in the Raspberry PI to create a real speedometer with two hall sensors and a digital display 

Why bother with a RasPi when you could put it onto a PIC ?  Smaller, neater & allows the RasPi to be used for more important things 

Clear answer: because the PI makes things (important and unimportant) way easier !

and because it is meant to introduce kids to programing just like the good ol BeeB did
On the other hand a PicAxe could be used and Basic ( the fact that it is Interpreted shouldnt worry our levels of timing accuracy ??)  also, way easier to program than the naked Pic, but I still have a Pic assembler round here somewhere when I got tired of writing  them in hex, gosh that was tedius

Deibid > sorry I didnt reply earlier, I've been playing   demo-ing N gauge to/with my daughter, (she has 00 ) we may have a new convert to the fold
where was I ?
ah freeware,
as far as I am concerned yes,
some I have cut and choped from the web as one does,
some I have adapted from stuff on the web,
and some ( the messy bits of code obviously !! ) is my own.
So no worries, good luck.