Signaling techniques for DC track powered model railroads

Abstract

Electronic circuits and methods are provided for remote control of a locomotive in a model railroad layout having an interruptible DC power supply coupled to the railroad track. The locomotive motor is isolated from the track so as to allow use of polarity reversals on the track power signal for controlling remote effects in the locomotive such as sound effects. An on-board electronic state generator is provided in the locomotive for maintaining one at a time of a predetermined set of states, at least one of the states having a corresponding remote effect associated therewith. Remote control signals such as a reverse in polarity of the DC track power signal are used to clock the state generator to a desired state, thereby permitting control of a plurality of remote effects using only the traditional DC power supply interface. The locomotive motor is controlled by a motor reverse unit so that the motor direction is controllable independently of the polarity of the DC power signal applied to the track. Accordingly, both motor direction and remote effects are controllable using only the throttle and polarity reversal switch which are available in known DC model railroad power supplies.

Description

[0001]This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Ser. No. 08 / 012,364, filed Feb. 1, 1993 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,394,068, which is a division of U.S. Ser. No. 07 / 480,078, filed Feb. 14, 1990, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,048, which is a division of U.S. Ser. No. 07 / 037,721, filed Apr. 13, 1987, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,914,431 which is a division of Ser. No. 06 / 672,397, filed Nov. 16, 1984, now abandoned. ©Copyright Frederick Severson and Patrick Quinn 1993: The disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owners have no objection to facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserve all copyrights whatsoever.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention describes ways to extend the controls and features of the model railroad train control and sound system described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,914,431. In particul...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0045]The only difficulty with the second method is that all engines, cars and accessories that are used on the layout must be equipped with the new on-board system or have universal AC/DC motors or on-board bridge rectifiers to convert applied AC track power to DC for the DC motors. Since many operators have many engines with DC “can” motors and have already made considerable investment in DC power supplies, this can be a deterrent to converting to AC power. It is always an advantage to come up with new control systems that already use existing power packs, e

Problems solved by technology

In this way, the number of different remote control effects is only lim

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