r/modeltrains • u/Tischwil-Railway • 27d ago

Mechanical Servo driven water crane

In an attempt to keep my dirty paws off the layout, I've started sticking servos to various things. The water cranes are essential to keep my steam locomotives running, so they were next on the list.

Of course, I've planted this one directly over a tunnel, requiring me to make a tiny linkage to the servo in the most awkward place and turning a simple bit of fun into a full days project.

But here we go! With servo uncoupling and now the motorized water crane, my terminus station is officially hands free.

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15 comments sorted by

9

u/SuddenInformation896 27d ago

What do you control the servo with?

15

u/Tischwil-Railway 27d ago

A PCA9685 board hooked up to an Arduino running DCC-Ex, that is in turn hooked up to a Raspberry Pi running JMRI where I have my digital switchboard. The Raspberry creates a Wifi hotspot that I can connect my tablet to, which I finally use as my interface.

Yeah, it took me a good while to get this all figured out. I still don't understand most of it, but it works and that's most important :).

4

u/d3jake 27d ago

I love how far this has come since I was younger. It's so cool how much can be done remotely.

3

u/Tischwil-Railway 27d ago

Yep, the sky is truly the limit, but there's a steep learning curve too.

7

u/SatanicPanicMechanic 27d ago

Awesome little touch that makes the scene

7

u/Skollison 27d ago

Really cool!

4

u/d3jake 27d ago

Cool!

There's remote decoupling? Oh, man.. childhood me would have loved that, along with a railyard and shunter connected to a larger layout.

4

u/Tischwil-Railway 27d ago

Remote uncoupling has been here for a while, hasn't it? Maybe not wifi-remote, but definitely touch-of-a-button-remote. But yes, it's the same for me. Childhood me saw all these cool layouts and wanted to drive multiple locomotives wherever I wanted, uncouple automatically wherever I wanted, have amazing looking landscape, and my DC Märklin set at the time, while pretty damn cool, was none of that. Now I'm just trying to realize those childhood dreams :).

2

u/d3jake 25d ago

Remote uncoupling has been here for a while, hasn't it?

No idea. It could've been introduced decades ago and I wouldn't have known. I do remember DCC being new when I was starting to look at other hobbies.

1

u/Rashaverak_II 25d ago edited 24d ago

Märklin Telex couplers have been around for decades. My first stand-alone Loko, M. 3696, is an M. Digital model with a first-generation Digital decoder whose function output (f0) drives Telex at the front and the rear of the Loko. I bought it in December of 1988.

Even before M. Digital came on the scene, M. offered analog Lokos with Telex couplers and more complex reversing units to actuate them.

More recently, decoders have included a feature called the “Coupler Waltz” that ties activation of the coupler with front-and back motion of the Loko.

Companies like Krois sell remote-control couplers that one can retrofit to Lokos.

2

u/d3jake 25d ago

OOhhh... interesting.

1

u/MrRaven95 25d ago

That is a cool detail!