Hello,

I have an idea I'd like to share with you.

While digital control of trains, block control etc. today is very well developed and rather cheap, actual control of where one specific loco is on the track is more difficult. The commercial systems availiable are rather expensive and have limitations.

Here is my idea for an alternative.

Barcodes seems like a very nice way to go.

Rolling stock: Print some cheap labels with a unique number to put under every loc and wagon. On long locs you can put two if you want.

Layout: Install barcode scanners under the layout at the places you want to check for the trains. Connect those to a computer.

So far the limiting step in this is the barcode scanner. Most are expensive (€200+) and I have no idea how easy it would be to connect several to a computer and still be able to easilly from which one of the (potentially very many) scanners the signals comes from.

Untill the other day when I by pure coincidence found this on ebay:
http://search.ebay.com/cue-cat

The cue cat barcode scanners were given away for free at some point as advertising. The idea was to connect the cue cat barcode scanner to your computer. Scan interesting ads in magazines and stuff and the website would pop up on you computer.

Now, this concept failed and the cue cats are being used as cheap scanners for all sort of stuff.

As you can see, they are cheap, less then $10 per piece, so it will actually be possible to buy a lot to get many detection spots on your layout.

The cue cat connects to your computer via the keyboard (PS2 or USB) and sends a string of numbers when a barcode is scanned.

Furthermore it seems like the cue cats have some internal serial number (used in the advertising project for tracking of users) that is sends with the barcode number. This is ideal for this purpose because it will enable easy discrimination between a lot of scanners.

Some software then needs to be written that translates the number sent via the keyboard into a specific loc/wagon and position on the layout.

My plan is to buy a handfull or so of these devices from ebay and see how far I can get with this project. Perhaps some of you have some hints or prior experiences using barcode scanners?

I'll keep you posted on how this adventure turns out, but it might take a while to get set up.

/Brian

Brian:

Interesting project. Do keep us informed of your progress. I had considered that type of approach but didn't pursue it past the dream stage because of the difficulties I could forsee in setting it up.

This is certainly a topic which did not get much attention mostly for reasons previously stated. Looking at the barcode readers it appears that the unit will have to be moved across the barcode for it to be read as apposed to just holding the barcode reader and letting the beam do the scanning.

This will definetly be a detailed challenge in getting the kinks worked out but the knowledge gathered will always be priceless.