Largest model railway launches inductive Formula 1 circuit [video] | Hacker News Reader

Largest model railway launches inductive Formula 1 circuit [video]

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113 pointsjoeig10 comments

For anyone even remotely interested in model trains I highly suggest checking out their YouTube channel if not a trip to Hamburg to see it in person.

I had the fortune to visit The Miniature Wunderland back in 2014. Spent a good day and a half there. The behind the scenes tour was great. Particularly how they handled the airplanes after landing and their system for charging the hundreds of trucks and automobiles on the layout.

The planning behind things is really incredible. One example each mainline has two trains. One running and one on a siding. This is because the motors of the engines can over heat. In the staging area every 24 inches or so they had a separate smoke detector. At the time they had around 300 full time employees and they have grown a good deal since.

Link to two of their Monaco Videos https://youtu.be/CqT0u6QDJtg?si=rkDysgDH_4USflmN

https://youtu.be/EwLr4LOgi_U?si=oK9Lij3-PUmDkHNp

My N-scale office layout in 2011 pales in comparison. https://youtu.be/DBJIwmpYzY4?si=DRgr6O-7CZUJm-gs

Ironically I ended my tour of Europe at the Monaco Grand Prix. (Thank you Starwood points.)

From all the YouTube videos, I learnt they started in 2001 (middle of August, about 4 weeks before 9/11, where for a few days afterwards very few people showed up), and their "Car-System" (which drives the cars, and even planes) is written in Pascal. For the F1 races, Gerrit (the boss who had the dream of having these races) said he wanted a real software-driven race, and thought, "Wait a minute, we have 20 cars, nowadays CPUs have more cores than that, so just give each car a core of the CPU".

In some videos you see glimpses of computer screens that control the cars, the UI looks very fascinating (lots of checkboxes, and status lines).

Very nice.

It's a 2D linear motor. That's been tried for robotics a few times. Here's a theory paper.[1] The Minatur Wunderland version doesn't use coils, just straight PCB traces, which is simpler but draws more current. The duty cycle is low, since there aren't that many cars for the amount of track space. They probably have an intermittent overheating problem with the track, the drivers, or both.

Here's a Hackaday version of a 2D linear motor.[2]

Festo has a commercial version that's maglev, too, for moving small stuff around in factories, but it hasn't sold much. It's one of those ideas that's cool, but rarely useful.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095741582...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjkw7rKhPfc

Planar Motors makes a spiffy, but not exactly low power, system. I have no idea whether they’ve sold many.

Better video

https://old.reddit.com/r/formuladank/comments/1ayuttc/they_m...

I think OP video is the same what’s linked above.

If you just want to get a quick 15 second gist of it, watch the video above.

Thank you. That's a great summary video which showcases the track. OP was too long for me and I couldn't easily skip through transcript to what I wanted to see: the track.

“At night, I’m my own boss. There’s no better time for programming. And it’s so much fun because I’m making progress.”

Love that! For me, there’s nothing quite like having a programming project you are excited about to get in the flow and have time melt satisfying by.

Man, it's super pretty.

My dumb engineering mind couldn't help but think - maybe solve the full-scale technical problems before you add all the bushes. Makes servicing so much harder.

But man, it's super pretty.

Wow, am so impressed at where they have gotten to. Such details oriented work, over such a long period.

they have been working on this for years, amazing they got it working

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