Container Cranes And Computer Control On Mike's Layout - Model Train Help BlogModel Train Help Blog

October 31, 2008

Container Cranes And Computer Control On Mike’s Layout

Mike has a z scale layout and shares some information on his progress:

I am building my first and only 99 percent totally automated layout in z scale. Everything will be loading/unloading,movable, working, playing, and awesome!

I am starting my z scale layout with a 5 foot by 5 foot open pit mine. I have made a rotary digger that actually digs into the cat litter like walls of the pit. There are other smaller diggers moving all over the place shoveling the ore back and forth. The ore ends up on long conveyors that are movable to the four rock crushing stations, finally into the trucks, and train cars. The trucks have their own area to go up and pour their loads, which actually works. The trains take it straight to the 23 spur lines to be taken to the foundry.

There are just to many things being loaded and unloaded to tell about them all. I have 3 ships at a shipping yard. One ship loads ore which is silently vacuumed back to the mine loaders, the other two are container ships.

The container cranes actually work. I designed a laser system for turning on a very small electromagnet on the end of the crane. I molded over 1800+ containers, each with a small metal disk in the center. As the magnet connects, it turns on, picking up the container. It moves to where the 4 – 25 car spline cars I made are located. It moves slowly so its ready to receive the load.

Everything on the layout is connected to a main computer I built. Some master boards I had to build from scratch to do the things I wanted it to do. I have over a terrawatt, and 6 Pentium2 chips, making sure everything once it hits a reed switch does what it is suppose to do. Over 500 small lasers keep everything running smoothly. If you lose a car, that area stops until it is fixed.

I am still designing the layout as it grows. I am constructing new buildings daily and adding every detail. I am also trying new things with smaller motors, getting the fine tuning on things. I still need a full city with transit stations, moving cars and trucks with the lights, and I am even playing with moving people around a block. This gives the effect that every time you look there are different people on every street. There is still lots of work to do. I don’t have any pictures until I am finished.