@cdswindell posted:@BillYo414, happy to have an email conversation. The code in its current form can definitely generate events in response to an engine (or car with an IR transmitter) traveling over a sensor track. The event packet contains the ID of the activated sensor track, the direction of travel, the engine/train ID passing over, and a bunch of what I call simulated state (fuel/water level, odometer, total runtime, etc.)
You could write code that “subscribes” to sensor track events. That code would then receive these updates and could go from there. You can also access current engine speed and direction from other components of my system and/or by subscribing to engine/train events.
I don’t currently have any code to sense engine position (other than the sensor track), so I’m not sure how you would tell when a car was next to/underneath your steel mill stuff. My code gives you fine control over train speed (absolute speed step control), as well as commands to immediately stop engine motion immediately. In fact, I’ve implemented all of the TMCC commands in the public Lionel spec (except those to build/tear down train consists)!
— Dave
Wow I was just in the middle of implementing a project that uses industrial communication modules(modbus rtu) RS485 to capture the occupancy of all the blocks on a large scale 6,000 sqft layout and was just envisioning tracking engine IDs along the way by tacking them onto the continuous chain of block occupancy that passes over a sensor track.
