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Good News and Bad News
Bad News: My laptop's video card died and my laptop is going to be out of commission for 5-9 days. I don't have access to my graphics program to assist with this site or my program and my thought to be published website updates are on hold too.
Good News: I recently backed up my program code and should be able to use my fiance's laptop in the meantime to at least do some C# coding. Therefore I still have all the code I need and will just have to deal with speed and not having all of the other things I'm used to for a bit of time. I am SO happy I did that.
In other news, I've also been dealing with interviews and job searching but now things are looking like I can switch back to focusing on the project. Hopefully more details will be presented this week and I will officially have a job in May. YES!
Back to the Project: Dr. Pankratz has been nice enough to now replace the 'BlackBox' attached to the railroad that the server uses to communicate with the train. This was because the older box was running a dated version from 1999 and AIU processing isn't even supposed to be available until 2003 versions.
I have tested this box with running trains and switching turnouts manually and everything appears to be working. I have also checked the version of it and it is March 1, 2007 - much better than the version from 1999. Beyond this, I have also tested out Steve's program and it looks as though turnouts and moving
the train should still work with Kratz's old method - good to know in case I still need to use this method. I now just need to get Visual Studio on my fiance's computer to test my code and see if I can introduce the new protocol of commands on this newer box. I have also tested out Steve's AIU processing to see how
things work on this newer version worked and the numbers are not only different in his displays, it also doesn't appear to change when magnets are over the sensors. I'm VERY interested to see if I can get things working and just need to get this laptop over to the room to test my code on it and other things.
To Do List:
- Perform Maintenance on Track (glue now available)
- Introduce New Protocol
- Perform Documentation
- Introduce Blocked Trains Logic
- Confirm and Finalize Turnout Switches and Train Acceleration, Deceleration, and Stopping
- Perform Documentation
- Modify Client Display with Suggestions from Walkthrough
- Continue Testing... |
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There have been many issues and complications with using Kratz's code to handle processing with the railroad. All of the direct communication is done through there and feedback is somewhat poor on seeing if things went through correctly. If the USB is disconnected from the computer, commands can still be sent to the railroad and there is no distinction to whether or not a command was truly successful. Any COM port can also be selected and this will be assumed that it can send messages through it to the railroad.
After talking over these issues with Dr. Pankratz and explaining the issues with receiving AIU information. We began to do a little more research and found that AIU processing is something that was fully developed in 2003. Documentation and other information rests on this date and the box that we are currently using is from 1999. This will most likely need to be replaced to successfully get AIU updates. A bonus to doing this would be that new commands and processing would have the potential to be correct. This also means more work for me in which I am going to have to take over direct control of communication and verification. This has the potential to open this project up a bit more and make things faster, but a little more complicated. More research will first have to be done and the Box switched first. Looking forward to this change and the challenges ahead - hopefully the deadline doesn't approach too soon.
Stay tuned... |
