CCR - Journal for January

Below are several journal entries that record my progress or frustration throughout this project. These will be updated when events occur or on a weekly basis pending progress.

NOT GOOD.

I just got back after testing out the trains and it looks like there are a few issues that I'm going to have to sort out before I can really get into doing what this project entails. I spent over two and a half hours playing around with these trains and found the following issues:


1.	I wasn't able to successfully run Steve's code. The project has all of the files included and I've followed his documentation but after it says that the threads have been initialized and it looks like the pipes are set up, it doesn't have any control over the trains. I've tried to re-program them to make sure that the addresses are set up and still nothing works. Manually with the NCE controller things are fine, but so far no luck with his code.

2.	Some parts of the track cause derailment. Some of the turnouts don't seem to be closing all of the way and the segments that bridge the gaps where the track can be taken apart are weak. I've also got to figure out some sort of way to get a single magnet to sit on a train so that things are consistent. Beyond these things, it looks like I'm going to have to enforce a speed limit near the deadends.

3.	Two of the turnouts have the same address of 1. This is causing some confusion as they should all be separate and I'll most likely have to re-program them but I'm not exactly sure how to do that yet as it's not an option on the main track with the manual NCE controller.

All in all, it wasn't a very successful night but I did get the track layout mapped out for the new system and have the location of all of the sensors and turnouts spotted. Now it's just to really get into this stuff to figure out sensor names, fix the track, turnouts, and then see if I can get Steve's program to run.

I've been working pretty heavily on trying to get a consistent and near-finalized form of my website done. I don't want to have to worry about this towards the end of my project and so the more I get done with it now, the better.

I've also been looking through quite a bit of documentation and formalizing differnet ideas on how multiple devices can communicate with the CCR. I plan on looking at the trains further on Sunday night and will see how much I can get working from the old code that former CS projects have created. I already know that there are some bugs with those versions and hopefully I will be able to get that straightened out to insert OS concepts to make this project more dynamic.

I've also been looking at ways that a mobile device (phone) can control the train and it looks like Windows Mobile or Java Me might be an option to create an application that phones can run. Windows Mobile would be the preferred system to use but I don't have a phone right now that can run this... we'll have to see about this further once I get multiple computers working with the railroad.

More to come pending how testing goes with the trains on Sunday night and hopefully I'll have some drawings up for how these things will work together.

A Senior Capstone Project - Brice Hilgemann 2010