Hi, I am working on creating a small circuit board that you can splice into your existing conventional trains and get computer-style performance operated from an iphone. Its actually going really well and I'm excited.
Right now I'm trying to understand accessories (besides the motor) that might be interesting to control. Three things that come to mind are headlamps, whistle/bell and possibly RailSounds (which I don't know too much about). So I am trying to understand the power needs (volts/watts) of these potential accessories.
Lights: My basic Lionel Penn Flyer 8602 has a 14v 240ma light bulb. Can I expect that to vary from train to train? or is there any kind of standardization of that? A second question, do the bulbs have any uniformity in how they are threaded? (ie, could I offer people a safe 18 v bulb that I knew could screw into most or all situations?
Whistle/Bell: I understand that you send 2.5 DC volts to the middle rail to activate whistles (and -2.5 for bells) but does anyone know is this 2.5v actually just a control signal, as opposed to the actual voltage (amps) required to run the standard whistle motor itself? I'm trying to understand if I can offer a standard lead that will operate whistles/bells, which to me means running the whistle motor. I'm trying to understand if there is a spec for uniform voltage/amps on this, or if every model of train is going to have different voltage requirements.
RailSounds: I don't know much about this, so anything anyone could tell me on how to run one of these I'd appreciate. Is this just a soundcard that you can activate (with a specific voltage/wattage) or is there more going on here?
I know these are a lot of techy questions, but I'd appreciate any insight anyone has.
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