Tom, this is not a personal attack at all. i don't know you, but I know that your products have an excellent reputation, and I also see that you work very hard to reach out to us, find out our wants and needs and supply them, and generally keep our scene moving forward in a positive way. You are worthy of my respect and you have it. I just happen to disagree with you about something.
It is not true that an electronic system is better than an electric or electromagnetic system, merely because it is electronic. It is true that there are several devices on the market that will reverse a DC handcar electronically. I am sure the one you offer is excellent, as these things go. Dallee makes one, for example. I believe some of them offer added features such as an adjustable delay, slowing at starting and stopping, and so forth. (Incidentally, slowing the handcar before it strikes a bumper can be accomplished in my proposed system by adding two 40� resistors and cutting two gaps in the rail.) BUT some of us are cheap, some of us have nothing better to do, and some of us are cheap and have nothing better to do. The system I propose wuold be roughly half the cost of yours. I have to take issue with your presenting an "all electronic" device as 1) likely to "last forever", which is simply not true, and 2), as superior to an electromechanical device for toy train use. 1). An electronic device such as yours is basically composed of many tiny transistors,capacitors, resistors, and other components that are essentially microscopically thin tiny films of metal or semiconductor, connected by more thin metal film. Yet you propose to use such a device in a semi-obsolete electrical environment where brief power surges of 80 to 100 volts commonly occur. Good luck with that! Really! Because good luck is what one will need to keep it viable over the long term. Murphy's law is not a joke, unfortunately. In addition, with all the best intentions, which I am sure you have, the components which you have miraculously adapted into a Flyer friendly device are the products of an industrial philosophy based on...PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE. That is, these components were originally designed to be used in products that would have a relatively short life span and then be discarded and replaced, rather than repaired. They were designed to be as small as possible and as cheap as possible. They were NOT designed to be as rugged as possible. There is not a snowball's chance in hell that such a device will last for 50 years the way my Gilbert products have. At least, not in a New York City apartment. Of course, I am not gonna last another 50 years myself. There is that. 2) With an electromagnetic system, a layman can tweak and adjust relays, contact switches and such things until they perform to his satisfaction. An individual component can be replaced, should it fail. With a solid state device, failure means that the only choice left to the repair oriented user is which wall to throw it at. Then of course there is the issue of aesthetics. Some of us prefer sparks and ozone. Heavy metal! There are some electronic devices that ARE better than their electromagnetic equivalents. Modern current detectors are vastly superior to the Gilbert #670 track trip, and optical detectors are superior to the little #696 track trip, and the risk of failure is probably actually lower too. DCC and TMCC certainly have strong appeal as well. However, my point, again, is that an electronic system is not necessarily superior to an electromagnetic system, just because it is electronic. A system such as I proposed offers definite advantages in price, durability, and 'repairability' to those of us who are cheap and/or have nothing better to do. Tom Jarcho P.S.: Since my previous post, I have adapted this circuit to permit continuous automatic operation in a DC reverse loop - to - reverse loop system, in which the track switches are thrown automatically in front of the train and the relay controls the polarity of the track power. S-Trains list sponsor: http://www.americanflyertrains.com All the Flyer you desire...books and accessories too! To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list send a note to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
