Recent Blogs Posts

Saw this on one of my discord channels and thought I'd share...

So, a while back, I found a guy on Ebay in China who made n scale traffic signals for road traffic. The assemblies themselves are very nice, and everything I have purchased so far just works.

https://www.ebay.com/usr/wehonest_us

So, I decided to control them with a micro so I could make it act like a US traffic intersection. The video included shows the results. Works like a charm. For this, I used an Adafruit Raspberry Pi Pico in the feather form factor, and created a ...

Tags: electronics, microcontroller, traffic lights

Categories

'N' Scale Related , General (as off-topic as you want)

So I gotta say, I love the WS Just Plug led system. The lamps themselves look very nice to scale, and are very easy to use. Overall, the system is a solution to making a layout pop. However, it has some downsides. The controllers are pretty big, require a big power supply, and need to be manually interacted with to turn them on and off. What if you could turn them on and off just using your wifi network at home? That's what I decided to do.

I put together a feather form factor daughter ...

Tags: electronics, led, scenery

Categories

General (as off-topic as you want)

Growing up in Central (New) Jersey, the echoes of the Revolutionary War surrounded us. Washington had his winter headquarters in my home town. While I have a more particular interest in the Industrial Revolution, especially NJ railroad history, I am fascinated by history of almost any era/location.

In late 1778, leaders chose the Watchung Mountains of Central Jersey to set camp for the winter. The main Continental Army in Middlebrook, ideally suited to keep the British in check in NY, ...

We recently moved, and as part of that, we got an enormous basement space. Some of which, I have been able to finagle into usable train space. I'm starting out with a 4x8 layout which can the be added to a larger layout in the same space, allowing me to learn and grow as I go. This layout will be a small double reverse layout with about 2 inches of elevation change. I have a single tunnel, and plan to run a highway bridge out over the back above the parallel main tracks.

My goals for ...