BlueRail Trains

Don,

Just saw your mail from the other forum about your MTH 0-8-0 and thought I'd post here.

Sorry it took so long, I haven't been on that forum lately.

On my MTH 0-6-0, I dremeled out the cast-on coal load (die cast tender) and made a styrene floor along with a black foam rubber coal load to replace it:

The charging jack is underneath, mounted on the floor.  On my other installs the on/off switches are mounted so that when turned on they point towards the front of the engine, but because of lack of space on this tender, I had to turn the on/off module around to make it fit and have enough space for the battery.  I may eventually try to relocate the charging jack (wish the water hatch opened).

Sorry Stephen for hi-jacking your topic.

Yes, I am keeping tabs on the Bachmann EZ App and BlueRail devices, pretty cool stuff.

I got an iPad Air as a gift for Christmas, so if/when the time comes I'll be ready

My main concern is the lack of "feel" there is with a touch screen vice a knob, just a matter of getting used to I guess.  Hopefully the slow-speed control will be there on the touch screen and they'll quickly incorporate battery and maybe even sound (I'd prefer just diesel engine and steam chuff sounds, maybe bell, whistle/horn).  IMO basic lighting (headlight and backup light) doesn't need to be made controllable, just constant and directional.

The bluerails looks to be an interesting system. The phone app looks to be suitable for someone like me who likes big knobs and switches having that big screen slider and buttons.

Looks to be finally what I wanted the RailLynx system to be all those years ago when the infra-red link was the deal killer for me so I went DCC.

Need more info on the battery option like can it take power from either source so the battery can mainly act as a big stay alive if I want to use it that way.

Multiple operators, transferring control ?

Current handling capacity of the module?

Pricing??

The first board is two amps constant, ive already asked that queston of blue rail.The sound can just play on your mobil device, or blue ray speaker system, which can be realy small or full home entertainment size, you can make the whole room shake if you like. There is a vidio of a three rail O scale loco running on lithiam batteries at 11.1 volts. I run DCS  two rail at this piot and plan to use 2.4 and Bluerail 2.4 for my other loco,s, its all compatible, no need to drop your other systems.            cTr...( Choose the Right )

Thanks Stephen... 2A is good.

 I found the answer on another forum for the stay alive question... it does not charge the battery but does treat it like a stay alive if picking up power from the rails. Circa $75 seems to be the intended starting price.

Back when I still had PS2 installed in my steamers, my Williams N&W J 611 measured around 1.5-1.75 amps, all the others were under 1amp.

The RCS Australia system I use now is rated at 3 amps and should be plenty.  Currently all I have hooked up inside the engine is the dc can motor, headlight, and back up light.  I do have 1 steamer (RailKing 2-8-0) that has a MyLocoSound card installed along with the RCS system, but I'm not sure what the power draw is, only because I can't figure out how to measure it (the loco has to be moving so I'd have to mount the meter on the engine somehow to get a reading).

The J weighs 14.2 lbs with the lead weight installed and around 12 lbs without.  I've pulled over a dozen passenger cars with it (approx 2lbs each) without any issues of it shutting down.

Hi Bob, thanks for the photos.  I will post my install of the MTH soon.

A quick way to measure amperage draw is to use the RCS charge jack to measure amperage. Take another battery attach a cable with the 2.5mm plug. You will place the battery in series with the meter positive probe. Connect the plus side of the battery  to your digital meter red probe, then use the meter black probe to connect to the positive wire of the 2.5mm plug going into the charge jack. If it is wired the RCS way,  this battery will drive the loco while you are measuring the current draw.  Cool. If not wired this way, then you need to break the connection at the inside battery plus terminal going to the on/off switch.

Hope this helps. 

Don

Thanks Don!  I do have some stationary rollers and should be able to test one of the engines on them.

Here's on board sound for Bluerail            cTr....(Choose the Right)

I bought one of the speakers yesterday to play around with.

To clarify, it's only a speaker, sounds not included.  From the video I "assume" the BlueRail app has sounds as well as control programmed into it, or is the sound coming from the module inside the engine?

The speaker button not only turns on/off the speaker, it also is used to increase the volume.

It requires a micro USB charging cord that's not included.

I sat it on top of the tender on my BPRC RailKing 2-8-0 and initial tests tell me it's not loud enough to overcome the noises an O scale train makes going round the track, but I'm still playing with it.  What I was doing was playing a Youtube video on my ipad thru the cube speaker as it ran around the layout.  Could have been the quality of the video.

Hopefully BlueRail will do us o-scalers right with a robust setup.

Bob  Your right the sound comes from the APP, I guess it won't be long before someone develops an app with a library of sound fills for loco;s, with the computing power of your device, and two way feed back, the control system can tell the sounds what to do. I mean that is what Bluerail has done. It becomes more about software, the hardware is really already with us, and more to come.       cTr...(choose the Right)    PS BR have the boards as available on the 1 feb 2016 hope there on time!!

I'm not sure just adding a BlueTooth speaker would produce any sounds when running the BRT/E-Z App. I suspect the app would need to be written to accommodate a separate speaker. I tried this with a friend's blue tooth speaker and got no sounds, but we didn't investigate beyond just trying it.

Bill in FtL

Let's hope they make a concerted effort for O-scale, downloadable "characteristics" for each engine would be cool, but make sure we have slow-speed control and other basic functions.

Heck, if they can give us product so you can turn on/off house lights and lock/unlock doors (or see who's at the front door) from your ipad/iphone, just think of the possibilities!!!

The Insignia cube speaker I got even states you can press the Power button and it'll send a command to your ipad/iphone to take a photo.

I just downloaded Bachmann's E-Z App on my iPad.  It's free so why not?

Even without an engine there's horn/whistle sounds and kinda nice.  Sitting at my desk it's plenty loud on the iPad and on the Bluetooth speaker.  I'll try it with the cube speaker sitting on one of my engines to see how it does with all the track noise.

According to the User Guide, you can change the acceleration/deceleration settings, top speed, and speed via "Throttle Tap" (1 tap moves the throttle 1 speed step, double tap moves it 5 speed steps).

Firmware updates will be available by alerting you on your device.

Will BlueRail have their own app (I think so)?