Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

Back in March I mused that summer production with the new inverter should produce a nice rounded curve with the sun higher up in the sky. And indeed it does. After months of waiting, the Tesla Gateway has finally arrived. As much as I dislike the Tesla app, and Tesla's decision to make the app the only place where one can access the solar system's data, it is nice to check in on production from the comfort of the couch.

Back in 2007 , we installed our rooftop solar system. The SolarCity installer told us that we should plan on replacing the Xantrex Inverter after about 10-12 years. It lasted 13 years and finally died last fall. Tesla gave us a pretty good deal on a replacement inverter and in early February, our new Delta inverter went online. I'm still waiting for the Tesla gateway to arrive so we can set up remote monitoring. Meanwhile, I'm checking in on the system from my phone using the inverter's Bluetooth connection. The app I use is called Delta M Professional. It is quite bare bones, but gets the job done. Our system is still producing 3 kW at peak, the panels are holding up well in year 14. In the afternoon we have some shading from one of the trees in the backyard, hence the uneven downswing of the power production curve. This will get better in the summer months when the sun is higher in the sky during the afternoon. Yesterday was a pretty good day with clear skies and we produ...

I spent most of the day today at Silicon Valley Lines tending to deferred computer maintenance. I upgraded the computer running DecoderPro at the programming track, and the layout computer to Catalina which is the latest version of MacOS X that will run on these somewhat old machines. Downloading OS versions, installing them, and applying point updates took a loooong time. Once the OS was updated, I double-checked the JMRI installation. I needed updated drivers for the USB to serial converters built into the NCE USB interface and the LCCBuffer USB, but that was easily accomplished, once I figured out which exact drivers I needed. I upgraded JMRI to version 4.22 on both computers through a couple intermediate steps at 4.12, 4.18, and 4.20 as recommended in the release notes. The upgrade process itself -- while boring -- went off mostly without problems.  JMRI changed behavior in the JSON interface with regards to notifications around version 4.15, which breaks the integration of the...

Maerklin's 37180 model of BR94 in early era IV livery is a beautiful model. In addition, it's lettered for BD Stuttgart, Bw Crailsheim which makes it perfect for use on the projected Murrbahn layout. Even though I don't have any photographic evidence that a BR94 was operated between Backnang and Gaildorf/West in the early 1970's, the opportunity to pick up a model that could have been running at least nearby was too good to pass up. Meanwhile, it's a great switching engine for sessions on the Welztalbahn. There's only one catch: The power pickup seems to be a bit finicky and there is minimal run-out distance on my model, despite the motor having an -- admittedly small -- flywheel.  Other modelers reported not having any problems, so maybe I'm particularly picky, or the pickup shoe needs some love. In any case, I want to use this engine in situations that require slow switching moves and nothing is more annoying than the locomotive getting stuck on a yard l...

One of my projects today: I'm finally building a LocoNet cable tester. This is a design created for FREMO . While putting the kit together, I watched more footage from yesterday's NMRAx event . There isn't a whole lot of space on the circuit board, and orientation of a couple parts is not obvious from the board, so it's important to follow the instructions carefully. I hot-glued the LocoNet sockets into the box and added more screws for additional stability. I also used the opportunity to build LocoNet boxes by HOfine . These are commonly used at FREMO modular meets for plugin throttles. I put the cable tester to good use on the boxes.

  Last Friday I went to the club layout and tested the Web Throttle code. The code worked, but video quality was terrible. As soon as I tried to get two video feeds off the camera to WebThrottle and OBS respectively, the video streams produced only one image every 10 seconds at best. That's clearly not acceptable for what we are trying to do here. I experimented with camera settings over the weekend at home. My theory was that due to the difficult Wifi conditions in the layout room, we're simply not getting the network throughput we need to get stable video streams. When running two streams at home I found that the PiZero kept a network send queue of more than two Megabyte or more, i.e. mjpg_streamer is stuffing bytes into the network queue, but they are not making it off the device fast enough. Eventually, buffers will overflow, the network code backs off, the queue drains out, and we see skipped video. In tunnel sections on the Welztalbahn, the queue dropped to about one Mega...

In preparation for the upcoming Virtual Open House at Silicon Valley Lines, I have been toying with the JMRI Web Throttle code to integrate a video view. I also somewhat limited Web Throttle functionality to meet the needs of the Open House setup. It's not perfect, but seems to work reasonably well on the Welztalbahn. The real test will be Friday evening, when I'll try this out at the club. Contrary to the earlier tests I did , this version's video link URL and locomotive name are set dynamically in JMRI, so that it works correctly even for remote operators out on the Internet.

A little while ago, I ordered a Piko BR221. Very nice model, but doesn't come with sound, so I also ordered a Loksound5 and asked the dealer to program it with the V200.1 sound package. Usually that works flawlessly, but not this time. I got an empty Loksound5 with only the default sounds, and a note that it was programmed. Urgh. No point to send this back to Germany. To fix the programming I borrowed an ESU LokProgrammer from another ETE member. The unit had been rarely used and mostly sat on a shelf since 2011. The LokProgrammer comes with a serial port. It took me a while to hash out problems with the USB/Serial cable that was in the box. ESU ships USB/Serial cables with a chipset from FTDI, but the cable I had came up as Prolific and the driver refused to function. I eventually determined that this was not an original ESU cable and tried using an USB/Serial cable with a FTDI chipset I had at hand. That worked and the LokProgrammer software was able to detect the LokProgrammer. ...

When I last played with connecting an FRS radio to the computer , I didn't connect the radio directly to the computer, because a) I didn't know what the pin-out of the radio was, b) I read that connecting line out to microphone input can blow the microphone circuit, and c) I didn't have enough time to test things out. In the meantime I learned that connecting output to microphone input works if you are careful with volume levels. I also found out what the pinout of the headset plug in my Motorola Talkabout EM1000R is. Hence, tonight I sat down and butchered some cables. The wiring is very simple: The Motorola EM1000R FRS radio has a 2.5mm plug with a shorter than normal shaft, i.e. only 2.5mm plugs specifically designed for this (and similar) radio fit. I solved that problem by cutting the plug off my crappy and uncomfortable Motorola headset purchased years ago. The photo below shows the cable in operation with separate microphone and stereo 3.5mm plugs. The wiring works s...

[ CabCam posts ] When mounting a camera on a flat car for layout videos or remote operators, a common approach is to set the camera close to the front of the flat car, since we want to give the illusion of being in a locomotive cab. Seeing the front of the flat car destroys that illusion. However, doing this has an unfortunate side-effect: Depending on the length of the flat car used viewers now complain that they can't see as much of the scenery along the track as they had hoped. Especially in tighter curves there is a distinct lack of scenery visible on the inside of the curve. The camera doesn't "look around the corner". Part of the reason for this is basic geometry: The car rides on a curve. The center of the camera view is on a tangent off the center of the curved track. Hence, the center line of the camera image and the center line of the track diverge. The tighter the curve, the larger the divergence, the more scenery on the outside of the curve is taking up s...

My eye sight used to be better. I guess I'm getting older ... Working with small detail parts or soldering in tight quarters is a bit of a gamble. The  Brightech LightView PRO is a 5 inch magnifying glass with built in LED light. The arm mounts to the work bench.  I tested it with soldering the parts for the SWD Fredi . It takes a little bit practice to get used to the magnifying glass, but then it's a real joy to work with. 

Tonight I built my first SWD Fredi . The instructions are easy to follow, but only accessible to FREMO members. I have two kits. One was built tonight. I guess I'll do the other one tomorrow. The main board comes partially assembled. All the SMD parts are installed, and I just need to do the regular sized parts like connectors, LEDs, and buttons. LEDs are soldered to the board. Moving on to the buttons. Finally, I work on the direction switch and the speed knob.  A locomotive gets assigned to the Fredi by dispatching it from another throttle connected to LocoNet. Hold Shift + Emergency Stop on the Fredi and the locomotive address is programmed. I tried this out with an UT4 on the Welztalbahn and it worked just fine. The next time I'll attend a FREMO meet, I can contribute to the meet with a locomotive or two. Meanwhile, the SWD Fredi is a great throttle for the switching jobs on the Welztalbahn where changing of loco address is not required. Update July 18, 2020: The other Fre...

I've been playing with OBS a lot lately. Today I tried something different: use a green screen to spiff up a virtual presentation. Instead of just screen-sharing the presentation, I'd use the laptop camera to film the room with me and a green screen in the background. Using the Chroma Key filter the green screen becomes transparent and shows the underlying window grab from Key Note in the OBS stack. Here's my test arrangement. Screen-grabbing video into Zoom or Meet tends to be somewhat problematic, and I didn't get the details right yet. However, getting the weatherman effect is cool and fun. I'm sure, I'll find more uses for this.

[ CabCam posts ] For tonight's club meeting I brought the camera to the layout, so that we could test more of the applicability of this on the actual layout. It worked well. Here is James running the train on the layout from his home in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The camera opens up new perspectives for ops. Here's a screenshot taken by another member participating in the video conference. This time I set up in a much more comfortable location in the layout room.

[ CabCam posts ] We're still tuning the software and streaming setup, but the hardware looks feasible. This is a Raspberry Pi Zero W with the Zero Spy Cam and a Juicebox Zero battery board connected to a 2000mAh Li-Ion battery. A completely self-contained camera setup that easily fits on a HO flat car and can stream video over existing Wifi. If I stack the components more intelligently, it fits on a much shorter car, too. During the Show&Tell at tonight's club meeting, we demonstrated the setup at the workbench and on the Welztalbahn. Members on the video conference were able to observe the trip with only a few seconds delay. This worked much better than expected. So far, so good. The real test will be trying this out at the club.

In normal times, Silicon Valley Lines runs one operating session per month. In these times ... not so much. Density of people in the layout room is the main problem with social distancing. Cutting down on the number of people, wearing masks, proper hand santitation, and keeping social distance is a requirement in these times. What would it take to have a remote dispatcher patched into the FRS radios used by the engineers in the layout room? Video Conferencing solutions like Google Meet, Zoom, Skype, and others bridge the long-distance connection easily. However, how do I connect a FRS radio to a computer? Should be easy: Connect the headphone speaker of a radio to the microphone in on the laptop, and the line out of the laptop to the microphone of the radio. Not so fast! The voltage levels between line, speaker, and microphone vary quite a bit. It's not just about plugging stuff together with the correct wires, but rather needs some circuitry to translate the signals properly in b...

I'm playing with old smart phones as IP webcams, Open Broadcaster Software to stream video to Youtube Live, FRS radio to computer audio, ... This might be going somewhere useful.

Test Setup Every now and then I'm at shows running trains with the HOm swiss narrow gauge group of the ETE San Francisco Bay chapter . The operating scheme is straight-forward: The layout is set up with a single track main line, a couple intermediate stations, and staging at each end of the layout. The typical setup consists of staging with a return loop at one end, two intermediate stations, and a simple staging yard at the other end. Operators are positioned at the stations or staging yards and verbally hand-off trains from station to station. A typical conversation between two neighboring stations goes like this: - "Can I send you another train?" - "Yes, go ahead. Once that's here, I'll send you a train back." - "Ok."  This works quite well. However, problems arise at shows with lots of visitors since the noise level makes communication, or even getting the attention of the other operator, difficult. Especially when the layout is arranged...

Yesterday I did some behind the scenes work to fix a long-standing problem with the panel. In fact, this problem has been there ever since I added the panel in 2012 (!) The buttons for the turnout into the Lokstation and the two lower buttons on the yard ladder were not connected to anything. This wasn't really much of an issue, the Lokstation turnout was used only a couple times during a session and could be actuated with a mouse click from JMRI.  The Yard ladder buttons are not strictly needed and operators just used the black buttons for the respective turnouts. The reason why they were not connected was that the Team Digital SRC16 stationary decoder driving this panel only has 16 inputs and I have 19 buttons. Since I now added the button for the route to Untergroeningen (on the far left in the picture above, compare to the panel in the post from 2012), I decided to clean up the other buttons, too. I have a couple Digitrax DS64 stationary decoders installed nearby, which have 4...

After the business meeting today I spent some time with our signal server configuration. I added routes for the two uninitialized signal heads in Dayton, as well as fixed some minor bugs in the routes at the north end of Dayton. The Dayton panel shows the state of the signals, at least as far as what the computer thinks the state should be ... ... and the signal heads reflect the state, too.