¡Hola amigos!

Community General Discussion
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Hello guys!

I just registered last week and I have been browsing and posted a couple of times in some other threads.

I am a Mexican citizen living in Monterrey, México and I apologize for not introducing me before. I just did not want to post in the incorrect forum. If I am in the wrong forum, please move this topic to the proper place. I wish you do not do that since I think you are very nice helping guys for Arduino newbies, like me.

I am a mechanical-industrial engineer from the ITESM (Monterrey Tech) and a MS in Industrial Engineering from the UofM, Ann Arbor, MI.

I have been in software since 1966 starting with IBM 1401 Autocoder, punched cards and the works. So assembler, COBOL, RPG, FORTRAN PL/1, Snobol, Basic, QuickBasic, C++, Java Power Builder, FreeBasic and ... Spanish :D, are no problem at all.

I bought my first Arduino UNO as part of the SparkFun's Inventor's Kit and another one from Adafruit Industries. I also bought their cool Ice Tube Clock kit, fantastic.

My intention is to control my model railroad layout from my PC using Windows XP & FreeBasic using a UNO to monitor up to 16 sensor tracks and report them to the host computer (working), and to have 16 relays using K-108 modules (non-Arduino) to turn lights and accessories on/off at certain times (also working).

A good friend of mine in N.Y. was very kind to post photos of my layout from 1997-2007. Unfortunaly he does not update his site anymore:

http://www.z-world.com/operations/gbremer/

I enjoy being here with you, guys!

I am Guillermo (not ABC's), but you and my friends call me Billy :slight_smile:

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Hola Guillermo, welcome to the forum.

What are your Arduino ideas?

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Hola CrossRoads,

I have just modified my initial post since it was 'cut' the first time (somehow???). Please read it again.

My hobby is model railroading but my main interest is electronics.

I think I solved my design for the trains, programming is done (wiring is not, he he!) :). So, next step is to design something for making some money :).

Thank you for welcoming me. I am pretty sure I will learn a lot from you guys and I will be glad to help anybody if I can, gladly.

Saludos, amigo.

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Adios for now amigo.

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Yes,

It's very late & worse for U!

Children of the night. Vat musik they make!

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next step is to design something for making some money

An Arduino-controlled printing press, that should be doable, but where will you get the right paper :slight_smile:

I'm a model railway wannabe, have been for about 40 years, in fact it was MRs that got me interested in electronics in the first place. But will never build one I think.

Rob

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Hi Rob,

Yes, I know what you mean, It really takes a lot of work and time, but maybe you could start with something very simple, maybe just a loop of track with a some electrical turnouts (switches) and a couple of accessories with lights or some kind of motion. A very simple thing, but then you try to interface it to a PC or directly to an Arduino.

Same as you :), I actually got started in digital electronics back in 1975 learning all about TTL´s and designing digital controls to operate an imaginary (wannabuild :D) train layout which I was planning to build. Never built it though. I started this other one I'm working on in 1997 and it is far from finished and it will never be. I have many things to add (electronics and some trees) in my mind, but time is a constraint.

Start a simple thing and you'll get a lot of satisfacion when your PC sends a command to start a train or activate an electrical or electronic accessory. I have the feeling that you will do it and will go to the hobby shop and get a starter ready-to-run train set and start some project with your Arduinos while you add a couple of extra things to you train setup.

When I started this thread yesterday I forgot to mention that I had a slight problem in opening my Arduino UNO using COM2 serial port on my Netbook, because when you issue an Open COM command in QuickBasic or Freebasic the DTR lline is asserted (no way to avoid that) and it causes the Arduino to Auto-Reset. It took me a lot of reading and several days to figure out the trivial solution. Auto-Reset is fine, great because you start fresh, but the trick was just to "wait for it to finish", so a delay of 2 seconds before trying to do any I/O thru the port was the simplest solution in the world and I was breaking my hard head looking for complicated solutions. KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid Billy. I even use those couple of seconds to initialize variables, tables and stuff that my program use. I call it the ABKON for Automatische Bahn KONtrolle. I've already written over 1K lines of FreeBasic code. BTW if anybody is using some of the QuickBasics, change to FreeBasic, it is Open Software with many libraries and very easy to download and install. With QuickBasic, I could not open any other serial ports than COM1 and COM2. In FreeBasic any valid COM port is fine. Currently I am using only 2 of them but I have as many as I wish.

Get started with that simple train set, Rob. 007 lives twice, but we only live once! :slight_smile:

¡Saludos a todos desde México!

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It's a bit difficult for me at present because I live in a motorhome (hence the user name), but I have land I'll settle on one day.

I gather you use N gauge, I could possibly do that even in a motorhome :), I've seen some amazing layouts in the smallest of spaces with N gauge.

EDIT: No I just noticed, Z gauge, even smaller.

I did make some scenery and trestle bridges once, even had a train and about 3 feet of track. There was a fern around where I was living at the time that looked very much like an HO scale fir tree branch so I made a lot of trees as well.

Truth is I got more interested in the electronics and that's still the case, I have so many ideas I'd like to play with in that field I'm good for maybe the next 10 years.

Start a simple thing and you'll get a lot of satisfacion when your PC sends a command to start a train or activate an electrical or electronic accessory.

Yes that's what I love about embedded electronics, I spent years designing building control systems and I always loved the idea of the amplification involved when a single RAM cell flips and a 3-tonne lift (elevator) moves as a result.

The auto reset is necessary of course for programming but they should have put a jumper in. With some applications you don't want a fresh start every time the PC hiccups.

Is the girl in the 1997 photo the same one as in the 2007 photo?

but we only live once!

Ain't that the truth, that's why I retired at 45 and hit the road, life's too short for working :slight_smile:

Rob

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motorhome

Copy that, Graynomad.

I gather you use N gauge, I could possibly do that even in a motorhome , I've seen some amazing layouts in the smallest of spaces with N gauge.

I was modeling in N scale (1:160) before. This particular layout I'm building now is Märklin's Mini-Club Z scale (1:220). The whole thing you saw in my pictures substituted a 3-place sofa I had there. Very compact. My program will control 6 trains on 3 mainlines only. 2 trains on each of the outermost mainlines following each other (I have an automatic block control with Märklin light signals and some custom made DIP DPDT 2-coil latching relay modules that I had to build since Märklin's equivalents just did not work. 2 other train alternate on the inner mainline by using the passing siding at München Hauptbahhof. The program displays the position of the each train on a graphics control panel of my NetBook PC screen, via my host FreeBasic program.

The auto reset is necessary of course for programming but they should have put a jumper in. With some applications you don't want a fresh start every time the PC hiccups.

I agree with that. But, it seems to be many varieties of Arduinos out there. I have 2 UNO's (that sounds strange in Spanish because uno is 1) one from SparkFun, the other from AdaFruit and both DO HAVE a couple of solder points joined by a tiny, almost invisible (forgot the word) PC line, which you can cut, and maybe, even mount a couple of little pins and a jumper or maybe a simple SPST on/off switch.

Is the girl in the 1997 photo the same one as in the 2007 photo?

Yes of course, the "Little Princess" is our "baby" daughter Estefanía. She loved to "help me" build the trains. She liked to use my portable mini-vacuum cleaner to pick all the plastic stuff from the wires I was stripping. She's 19 now and studying Law (college). You do not want to argue with her, she always wins, somehow???. The rest of my family are also in the photos, wife Magdalena, older daughter Sofía and son Adrián. I also have a daughter and a son from a previous marriage. 4 grandchildren there. One of them loves my trains and mysteriously tells me: "I'mmmmmmm waaaatching U!" Funny guy, just like his grand dad.

Ain't that the truth, that's why I retired at 45 and hit the road, life's too short for working

True, true. I am suppposed to be retired (65 years here in México) but I keep going to the office.

One more thing, Rob, thank you for spending some time watching my photos on my friend's site. I have many newer photos of work in progress which are not there, after 2007.

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I keep going to the office.

Do what I did, leave town :slight_smile:

I have many newer photos of work in progress which are not there, after 2007.

Set up your own site.

Rob

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Leave town. I can't do that, just yet. I still have to much load over my shoulders. But I'm ok. Maybe, just maybe, one day I could join you in the Aussie outbacks (is that correct?) over there ]:D. Never been to the greatest island-continent in the World.

My own site, yea. 2 much trouble to maintain, I'll rather use my time on Arduino and related fantastic things that we now have try and enjoy.

¡Salud!

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Aussie outbacks

Very close, no "s", just outback.

Rob

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Muchas gracias, but now, what is the outback? I do not really know, I just heard it before.

Hey, Rob, I really like this forum. Muchos amigos including my Aussie nomad friend !!! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

BTW: U'r avatar is great!

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what is the outback?

Essentially the arrid central region of Australia. Probably 80% of the continent and 2% of the people. We spend a lot of time there.

U'r avatar is great!

Better than a photo I can assure you :slight_smile:

Rob

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Welcome, amigo, and GO BLUE!

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Essentially the arrid central region of Australia. Probably 80% of the continent and 2% of the people. We spend a lot of time there.

Must be great being out there, Rob.

Welcome, amigo, and GO BLUE!

Thanks, Jack.

Wolverines, Wolverines, Wolverines!!! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

I was in AA from 1969-1971. Loved it !