Safety car pit area with yellow leds activated when car leaves
Does anyone know how to configure yellow l.e.d.s to come on when safety car leaves pit i have to pit sensor track and three BB IF PARTS ARE NEEDED thanks marc.God bless
This might be a good starting point for ideas on how to do it.
I am not sure how they do it, but if you go to www homegrandprix they do have something like that.
Scroll down to the middle of the page, its in german so you will have to tranlate it with bing or something.
Randy
I use Reed switches, yellow LEDs, and a PC with a parallel port on my layout. I wrote a C# program to monitor the parallel port. As the car passes over the Reed switch (a magnetic switch), a bit on the port goes high. When this happens, I send out a bit pattern on the port, which turns on the LEDs. There are various sites that discuss how to control LEDs from a PC.
To activate the yellow LEDs I was thinking if we can use/adapt the systems used by train modelers. I have seen in hobby train shops how trains activate different light systems when passing a certain point.
Hey guys thanks a bunch i have been pondering this all day and since my two week vacation starts tommorow i will have time. I was thinking if i too one of my chips and programmed it with the pace car i could wire it with the track and then attach my leds to the lighting plugs on the chip itself.
As simple as it sounds that might work but I don't think the chip would handle too many lights around the track though. Plus they would be solid yellow all the time unless you hooked it up to a PD/Safety car chip but I don't know if it would produce the desired flashing yellow or not.
Interesting thought though....
Seb (Rubirosa) has wired a relay in his track which reduces track voltage when the pace car leaves the pit, and restores normal votage when it returns to the pit. You could easily adapt it to turn on yellow lights. There are hooks in my software to accomplish this through a parallel port relay board, and the presence of one of the new pit lane adapters in the pace car pit. The parallel port relay board is how I (and Seb) cut power to the track for track calls and for race end. I added the pace car hook at Seb's request. I haven't documented it, as very few people have taken advantage of the existing, documented power relay code.
Last edited by b.yingling; 07-31-2012 at 06:31 AM.
I would love to do exactly what you and Seb have done is there anyway to give me instructions on what and how you accomplished this, I had and ho scale layout with a lapcounter that i purchased off ebay I found the j-45/printer port hook up but i think i am missing a few things please advise and thanks a bunch for the response.God Bless...marc
I did manage to hook up the yellow leds TO A CHIP i HAD THIS CHIP THAT HAD THE DOUBLE BLINKING HOOK UPS ON IT WHICH I HOOKED UP 6 LEDS ON EACH AND IT DOES WORK BUT IT IS NOT IN SYNC WITH THE SAFETY CAR. I HAVE A WIRELESS CONTROLL SET OF 4 AND THEY TELL YOU TO LEAVE THE SECOND CONTROLLER INPUT FREE ,WHAT I DID WAS USE THAT CONTROLLER PORT TO CONFIGURE THE CHIP AND THE BEST I COULD DO WAS DOUBLE CLICK AND ALL 12 LEDS BLINK BACK AND FOURTH,ONCE THEY WERE BLINKING i DISCONNECTED THAT CONTROLLER FROM THE NUMBER 2 PORT AND THEY WILL BLINK UNTIL YOU HOOK THE CONTROLLER BACK INTO PORT 2 AND TURN THEM OFF, I PROGRAMMED SEVERAL OTHER CARS TO SEE WOULD THIS EFFECT THE BLINKING LIGHTS AND THEY WERE NOT EFFECTED IT LOOKS VERY NICE BUT I WANT THE SAME AS THE OTHER TWO GENTS ARE USING, NOW WHAT THEY ARE USING IS A TRUE CAUTION SCENERIO.
You have to connect your D1XX track to a computer (with a parallel port!) to make use of this. So you need the new CU (to make the pit lane adapter work) and the appropriate cable. The relay board used, some basic wiring instructions for it, and the necessary settings to enable power control are available at my software website.
SCI is very hyper about hyperlinks, so go to Google and google 'Yingling software'. Should be the first link that comes up.
If you undertsand all that, and want to go forward, I'll PM you the procedure required to enable the pace car bits. You can also contact SCI member 'Rubirosa' (Seb), as he has actually done the wiring and track mods necessary for the pace car trick. I am not making use of this on my track, I just included hooks in my software to recognize when the pace car has left/entered the pit and, as a result, fire off user supplied data to the parallel port.
Last edited by b.yingling; 07-31-2012 at 01:38 PM.
Mr.yingling i have gathered all items needed, i did pm slotfiend about the cable and soon as he responds i will purchase said cable, i will also need the informatin from you for configuration and setup thanks ..marc
When you get everything together, I'll send you the necssary lines of text you'll need to add to the setup file for the software.
Again- I recommend you contact SCI member Rubirosa, as he did the physical modifications to enable this feature on his track. All I did was include hooks in my software to integrate it with the racing.
Last edited by b.yingling; 08-02-2012 at 10:11 AM.
Does anyone know how to configure yellow l.e.d.s to come on when safety car leaves pit i have to pit sensor track and three BB IF PARTS ARE NEEDED thanks marc.God bless
If you use another chip permantily connected to the track you can programme it as a pace car, connect your lights to the mtor connections and when to pace car comes out your lights will work, rememeber to wire a switch in the supply to the chip otherwise it will recode with any coding you do. If you use a lot of lights you can switch a relay with the chip and switch your lights with the relay via a seperate power pack, to add to this you can connect green lights to the NC contact of the relay and the track will be green when the pace car is in its pit.
As above i was thinking the same thing! I have now found out that this option DOES NOT work. The CU thinks there are 2 SC's - causes confusion.
The best way is to either use light dependant resistors or magnetic reed switches (car magnet will trigger the switch).
Have one at the entrance and exit of the SC's pit area. The exit LDR or MRS will complete a circuit (seperate to the entire track - ie, seperate power supply) threfore turning on a hold-in contact (use the NO) causing the lights to flash. Once the SC returns it will trigger the entrance LDR or MRS causing a second hold-in contact (that is in series and before the first contact) to turn on, (use the NC) cutting the power supply to the first contact.
Haven't set it up yet myself, but that's the path i'm going down. You can also modify the circuit to have permanent green lights when under "racing" and turn off when SC comes out.
Safety car pit area with yellow leds activated when car leaves
but I don't think the chip would handle too many lights around the track though. Plus they would be solid yellow all the time unless you hooked it up to a PD/Safety car chip but I don't know if it would produce the desired flashing yellow or not.
Linear Mode
