How is the Throttle Direction inverted? On idle, the Throttle Handle should be facing the Front Cab Wall, and when throttling up, the Handle should be pulled toward the driver. Why? This is a safety thing: If You ever find Yourself in a panicked situation where the train has to stop quickly, You can just shove all the levers forwards which will set the throttle to Idle & apply brakes.
Very cool project, will admit I'd love to have a crack at making something like this myself, just not very electronics savvy. Personally would like to make a desktop unit based on a steam engine, basic functionality would be much the same but I'd like to have some added bits like some sort of sensor in the mini firebox that'd trip the keyboard command when you poke the shovel past it for firing, maybe have some kind of chute so there could be little nuggets of coal, they'd just tumble down from the firebox to the bunker opening in an endless circle as you shoveled for effect.
That would be nice project to make! You are right, this is not "electronically heavy". And your idea would have some interesting mechanical problems to overcome. Myself, at some point, made drawing (very basic) of a stem locomotive controller but wasn't happy with a look so didn't took this any further. You should explore your idea and may only suggest to use Sketchup (or similar program) at some point as it helped me with my project
@@anoxoldhide9813 Well, the main thing holding me back is how to convert the movements of the mechanical levers, valves, etc. into keyboard presses/simulator commands. What electronics to use, and how to program them if necessary? As for a design, I was thinking of doing a scaled down backhead and cab, almost like a cutaway model. The controls might be a little overscaled to make them easier to use, but the idea is to have a portable unit. The firebox would have some sort of screen or flame bulb for the fire effect, and a clear piece of plexiglass or plastic to deflect the nuggets of coal down the chute and avoid breaking the screen or bulb when stoking. If I can't have a sensor to trip when the shovel passes by it, another way would be to put the trigger for the stoking command into the foot pedal for the firedoors, the actual shoveling could then just be for show. Either way, the coal access would be on the side of the boiler from a bunker hatch instead of the back of the cab to keep the chute arrangement simple, possibly with some sort of access door for "raking the grates" to clear any blockages. Be neat to have a working water glass, but without any feedback from the sim it could just be on some sort of randomizer circuit to make it go up and down randomly every so often. I've seen a unit with real water in it, but for simplicity's sake I think I'd just like to put a series of blue LEDs inside the water glass housing.
I don't know in what part of the world you are but I highly recommend Leo Bodnar BBI-32 www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=205 Than just use free software like I do to assign commands to your controller joytokey.net/en/ My other video may be helpful as well (?)
Thats awesome! I use the raildriver right now but some of the controls are getting worn out and not as sensitive as it used to be. Thinking about tearing it apart and making something like this but get new dials for the controls.
Software is a Joytokey free download. And I'm using rotary encoders to emulate key presses. Whole thing is connected to Leo Bodnar Electronics BBI-32 universal USB controller. For actual axis you will need to use potentiometers and different product: BU0836X
Actually the reverser lever is prepared for dynamic brake (it even has a sticker made for it). As the game currently doesn't support dynamic break, I set this up for reverser. This controller emulate key presses so you can assign any function to any lever or button
Outstanding from concept to actually building the model and interfacing it to the software. Great to see a 'thinker' here on RU-vid! Do the gauges indicate engine RPM, trainline air pressure, etc?
Hi Jim, sorry I have missed your comment and Thank you for yours. My controller do not have any physical gouges however Game (Derail Valley) has working indicators as per your enquiry...
hmm can not get my axis to work on JoytoKey. It just pushes the brake or throttle to full within the first inch of movement. Can not find a video on how to program an axis.
Hi, thanks for your comment. I do not have plans available, project happen spontaneously and started with simple drawing "how I would like a train sim controller to look" sort of approach. After that just started gathering bits and assembling... Already few viewers are interested in making one for themselves and I would love to assist (always was hoping that I will be able to make a video on how to but finding a hard time to find free time those days). Would list of materials and components be any good for you?
Hi, thank you for your comment It took me 3 days to complete this controller (not including the designing part, however the initial drawing popped in to my head fairly quickly and then I have spend some time, 3-4h in SketchUp to visualize the design), that was long weekend and I mean looong weekend, roughly 36 working hours.
I just built one of these using a lot of 3d printed parts, programmed all the buttons but cannot get it to appear in any of my games, any thoughts, thanks
Hello Can Windows "see" the Button Box Interface? (Game Controllers setting) Did you used BBI-32 Button Box Interface ? What games are you using? Are you sure that game is supporting controllers (any)? For Derail Valley you need to use external program (free) like JoytoKey that emulates key presses. You said "programmed all the buttons" Was that done via JoytoKey ?
@@anoxoldhide9813 I am using BBI-32 windows recognizes it all functions work in the in the windows testing, I am using ts2020 also open rails cannot get BBI32 to show up in any of these games, any help would be appreciated, thanks
joytokey.net/en/ use this.... Are you using this external program to assign your buttons? If no ten use this as a background running program. This is how I'm using it with Derail Valley
@@anoxoldhide9813 I am using joy to key, I worked at the config settings and I got it to work mostly, I will have to tweek a few settings. Thank you for the replies
