Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Philips HUE illumination system with Rocrail (2/2)

Before you continue reading, it is assumed that you have your Philips HUE Bridge installed and working with some lights, and it has a fixed IP Address that you know. Also, the bridge must connected to the same local network (same router or Wi-Fi) than the computer running Rocrail. If not, you can check the previous post here.

The first thing you have to do in your track plan is to open the Rocrail Properties under the File menu and add a new command station of type "HUE":


In hostname field put the IP address of your HUE bridge, and leave the User ID blank for the moment. This is explained also in the wiki of Rocrail: https://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php?id=philips:hue-en

Next step is to create in the HUE bridge a user name to allow Rocrail to access to it and manage the lights, but for that Rocrail has implemented a special functionality. Go the the tab of decoder programming, write in the IID field the name of the newly created controller and press the PT button. This will get a new user from the HUE bridge and the User ID field of the image above will be automatically filled in. At the time of writing this post the instructions of Rocrail were not updated, so be careful if you try to follow the instructions from here.

There is also a very useful configuration screen for Philips HUE under the Programming menu. From there you can see the Bridge configuration and the lights linked with the address number that you will use for the weather configuration:

Next step is to create the light objects in rocrail, one for each physical light linked to the HUE Bridge. For each light you have to identify the interface (the name of the new controller you created) and the address that you checked in the screen corresponding to the image above. Define these output objects as type "lights". You can set in the "Value" field the desired intensity for this light:


And finally, you can setup the weather functionality. The complete description can be found on Rocrail wiki: https://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php?id=weather-en

Basically, you have to select Weather under Tables menus and write the name of your recently created lights in the Outputs field (comma separated). I suggest you to use the "Colour table" and load one of the profiles already included in rocrail specially for HUE lights. Try to change some parameters to set the illumination you like, and test also the Theme tab where you can create storm effects if you have a white HUE lamp also linked to the bridge for lightning effects. I hope you enjoy it!!











Monday, December 28, 2020

Philips HUE illumination system with Rocrail (1/2)

Some time ago I published the following article explaining how to make an illumination system for the layout, compatible with the weather functionality of Rocrail:

http://www.clubncaldes.com/2016/01/layout-illumination-and-weather.html

But for those who don't want to use Arduino and make their own electronics, I'll show you how to use the Philips HUE system, much easier and professional, but a little bit more expensive. Anyway I'll show you also cheaper lamps to use than the original ones from Philips.

The first thing you will need is a Philips HUE bridge, this is what you will connect to your network (and to Rocrail) and manages all the lights you want to install:


HUE Bridge


You will need also some compatible RGB colour lights. There are kits including the bridge and some light bulbs, or a remote switch. Depending on the layout size, disposition, environment light or on the number of lights you want to install there are different options. Basically you have the following options:


GU10

GU10 lights: these are spot lights, so I do not recommend them or you will need to install a lot of them to cover all the layout with a light in an uniform way.


E27

E27 lights: these bulbs make a more diffuse light, but they should be installed not close to the layout. This is a very good option, but on a long layout you will need many of them and they are not cheap.


Led Strip

Led Strips: this is a cheaper option as you can illuminate a long section in an uniform way. In my case, my layout is composed of modules, so it's narrow but long. I would need many bulbs to illuminate it in a homogeneous way, on the other hand the led strips must be placed quite close to the layout. But I have a shelf at 50cm from the top of the modules all along the layout, so I just had to stick three 5 meters long led strips under the shelf instead of installing a dozen of light bulbs.


ZIGBEE compatible led strip

Any other ZIGBEE compatible lights
: Philips HUE lights are awesome by the intensity of the light and the colours, but they are also expensive. So you can use any ZIGBEE compatible light. Just make sure it is specified they are compatible with Philips HUE (check the icon under the image) and support the ZIGBEE protocol. I bought these led strips for my layout in Aliexpress, search for the following description: "Zigbee-minicontrolador RGBCW, 1-5M DC12V 5050 RGB + CCT 90leds/m, Kit de luces de tira LED para ZIGBEE 3,0 HUB hu-e Echo Plus APP"


So you will have to test and find the best (and cheapest) combination of lights for your layout, in my case I used 3 led strips (5 meters long each one) and one E27 light for a corner that missed more light.


Before starting the Rocrail configuration and the weather functionality setup, make sure your light are working with the mobile Philips HUE application in your smartphone. Follow the Philips instructions to pair the lights with the HUE bridge, it's really simple as you only have to press the button on the led strip and the bridge, or introduce the serial number of the bulb in the application.

Another important thing is to assign a fixed IP address to the bridge. This can be done using the smartphone HUE application as explained here: https://huetips.com/help/how-to-find-my-bridge-ip-address/



Once you have the lights working you have to setup Rocrail, but this will be explained in the following post.




Sunday, November 1, 2020

Kato 3060-3 EF65-500 DCC Install

This model is prety much the same than the previous DCC Install published for the Kato 3061-4 EF65-2000, so you can check the previous post here for more detailed information. It is basically the same locomotive with the same hull and space where to install the decoder, and almost the same light board. I just found one small difference in the capacitor compenent.




You can see in the following photo that light board capacitor is so small that is almost imperceptible. This is the only difference I found with the light board of EF65-2000 model:



Strategy used will be the same, so the previous schema to prepare the light board for a wired decoder is still valid:


Red arrows inticate where to cut the cooper tracks:
  • I personally prefer to remove capacitors and coils from the board as I had extrange behaviours in the past in some models where I kept them. So first of all I removed the capacitor at point 8. Don't confuse the resistor in the middle (we need it where it is!!) with the capacitor in one of the sides of the board. Capacitor is extremelly small in this board!
  • Four cuts are needed to isolate the contact with the motor. I will solder orange and gray wires to points (1) and (2)
  • Red and black wires (track current) will be soldered in points (3) and (4)
  • This time I didn't solder the white wire to point (5) and I soldered it directly to the negative lead of the led light. The positive side of the right led is already connected to the resistor.
  • For the left led (as it is in the photo) you have to bridge the positive side of the led to the resistor track by soldering a small wire between points (7) and (8). You will need to scratch a litle bit the cooper track of the point (8) as the pad is small as the capacitor. The yellow wire will be soldered directly to the negative side of the led (6).

Here you can see the decoder already soldered and how to fit it in the hull. The same milling is required like for the EF65-2000 that you can check with more detail in the previous post:







 I hope that you found this useful!






Saturday, October 24, 2020

Kato 3061-4 EF65 2000 DCC Install


This locomotive has been in a shelf for a long time because I felt it quite difficult to install in a first inspection. It seems not to have enough space for a decoder, and the light board is not one of those I am used to install. But finally I found a workaround that worked prety well for me. You will see it takes some time to install, but it's not difficult.




First tricky part is to find a place for decoder. The best place I found is under the roof. You can un-clip the roof from the body and also un-clip from this roof the two pieces in the middle. Under the biggest piece there is place enough for a small decoder (ZIMO MX616R Nano in my case) with the help of some drilling:




You can see here how the decoder now fits and shell can be closed:



Now that I found the place, let's go for the tricky part which is always the light board. My basic strategy is always:

  • Remove capacitors
  • Isolate the motor contacts
  • Reroute the positive lead of the lights to the existing resistor, which is feeded from the track current
  • Isolate the negative lead of the lights to connect here the white and yellow wires from the decoder

One easy tip to find the positive and negative side of leds is to use a multimeter. Select the continuity checking position (that one that beeps when there is continuity). When you put the red tip in the positive side and the black tip in the negative side the led will glow, and there is no danger to blow the led.


I made the following diagram:


Red arrows inticate where to cut the cooper tracks:

  • I personally prefer to remove capacitors and coils from the board as I had extrange behaviours in the past in some models where I kept them. So first of all I removed the capacitor at point 8. Don't confuse the resistor in the middle (we need it where it is!!) with the capacitor in one of the sides of the board.
  • Four cuts are needed to isolate the contact with the motor. I will solder orange and gray wires to points (1) and (2)
  • Red and black wires (track current) will be soldered in points (3) and (4)
  • Point (5) is connected to the negative side of the right led and here I will solder the white wire. You can directly solder it to the negative side of the led if you prefer. The positive side of the right led is already connected to the resistor.
  • For the left led (as it is in the photo) you have to bridge the positive side of the led to the resistor track by soldering a small wire between points (7) and (8). The yellow wire will be soldered directly to the negative side of the led (6).

Here you can see the board ready to solder the decoder:



And finally, mount the body taking care to retoure the wires properly, then the roof y finally the top parts of the roof:



That's all, I hope that you found this useful!





Sunday, August 9, 2020

Battle of Hoth module

Another of my passions, apart from model railroading, is mounting and painting plastic kits. I especially like those old Star Wars plastic kits that were sold as merchandising at the same time that movies were released. I collect all MPC and AMT/ERTL kits sold during the eighties and nineties and when I feel I need a rest from trains, I use to take one of the pending boxes I have and I build the model.


I was in total lack of inspiration to decorate an end loop for my modular layout after I did the "Rice fields" and "Mine" modules, so I decided to make a break and mount the following kit about the Battle of Hoth:

When I opened the box I realized all figures were really small, they could match with our N scale train models. Searched in internet, and this is a 1:156 scale kit. So... why not to mount this diorama in my loop?

These are all the pieces in this kit, very easy to assemble as most of them are complete and you only need to cut them from the blister:


The most time consuming task was to paint each figure:


I was missing some important parts to be represented in the diorama, but thanks to thingiverse.com and the designs made by other people I 3D printed the following pieces:

Tunnel portal and Echo base entrance: designed by my own



Then I started building the "Echo base" as a kind of box, including illumination, RGB leds which allow me to make some nice special effects, and the Millenium Falcon, X-Wing and a couple of Snow Speeders:



And started planning the disposition of all elements:



Mountains reliefs were created using cardboard strips and hot glue, and all covered with plaster cloth. To make the rock walls you can put plaster and, while it is still soft, press with a crumpled aluminum fold:


I wanted this module to be interactive and very visual, so I installed red micro leds in the tip of the AT-AT Walker heads and a green one in the tip of the Ion Cannon:

I also tried for the first time to simulate explosions, fire and smoke following this guide: https://spikeybits.com/2014/10/hobby-how-to-make-explosions-smoke.html

Basically you need filling/stuffing material, normally used for stuffing for soft toys. Craft shops have this, but I bought a pillow in a poundshop which was filled of this material. To shape these fibers I made first a structure with chicken-wire. After painting it with black, yellow, orange and red paint insert a tea candle light. These tea candles are available in ebay and aliexpress and they are very cheap. The final result surprised me:

With everything in place, I covered the whole layout with Woodland Scenics Flex Paste together with Soft Flake Snow. You can check this video demonstrating the application of these products:



I installed an Arduino UNO and connected all lights plus a sound shield to it, and programmed everything to reproduce short scenes of the Battle of Hoth when a train passes or you move closer your hand to the front of the module like "using the force". Sorry because this video was recorded when the module was not finished yet:




Here you have some photos of the finished module: