Radio Control by BlueRailTrains

[Horatio]

BlueRailTrains (BRT) are developing a new system of radio control for model railways. Bachmann have bought into this system and some of their US locos are available off the shelf with BRT radio control. I think this system has a better chance than most of becoming an industry standard given the size of the North Amercian market and the backing of Bachmann.

This system does not need intermediate boxes like DCC. It connects directly from your phone/tablet (either Android or Apple) directly to the locomotive

A few key features: the Bluetooth Smart technology it uses is universal; range of about 100ft; can take power from the track or battery or both ie use the battery as a reserve supply; decoder has 1A continuous rating (2A stall)

There is an informative website - BlueRail Trains – Bluetooth Smart Train Control . The first decoders are shipping in North America only.

I have been signed up to receive news on BRT for the past few months and received the email below (partially edited by me) a couple of weeks ago


Hello from BlueRail Trains.

We have been shipping a lot boards (which is great). If you reserved a Dead Rail kit we are moving through the reservation list and will have reached everybody by the end of next week.

We submitted the BlueRail iOS app to Apple yesterday (usually 7 days to approve) and are still on track for our first BlueRail Android beta around May 7.

International response has been good. We need 15-20 more reservations from UK, Eur, Aus & NZ before we have enough to complete emissions testing. (We are looking into Brazil as well.) Please encourage a few friends if you know anyone who might be interested.

I don't like to send a lot of emails to this list. Please follow us on Facebook or look for posts on the website to stay informed. This week (in addition to Android) we are working on Chuff-rate calibration interface and consisting.

Thank you for being part of this.

David Rees
BlueRail Trains

Now I know that new control systems are not everybody's cup of tea but this system appears to have a lot of scope - not least for garden railways. It would be great if this system were licensed for UK (and Europe). The email says that a few more interested parties are needed to begin the licensing process.

So if you have the slightest interest in new control systems please could you register with BRT website as an interested party.

 

[Hobbyhorse]

I talked to David Rees on Model Rail Radio a couple of weeks ago, he is currently looking for a UK distributor which he has one in mind which strangely was one I suggested.
His is looking of more UK modellers to sign up for the email news, to give an idea of demand before he gets the licensing sorted for UK and Europe.
My interest as discussed with him is Garden rail 16mm and 7/8ths, which given the flexibility of the system should be very interesting.

Simon

 

[Hobbyhorse]

These are some shots of the dead-rail kit from Bluerail which I'm Beta testing for them.

Its an amazing bit of kit which I just connected to a 16mm scale loco that I'm working on at the moment, and away it went. Yes I've not set it up properly and yes its got US sounds but WOW very simple to use.

Once my charger arrives it'll be fitted to some of my O gauge locos and given a spin on Bucks Hill, will report back on that.



Short clip of testing the board,

Sorry the link didn't appear, this should work.

Bluetooth testing










Simon

 

[Hobbyhorse]

Dave Rees has announced that CoastalDCC will be supplying these boards.

Simon

 

[BrianG]

Simon,
I'm signed up for this with Bachmann, but in this thread there's talk of 'licensing for UK and Europe'. Am I misunderstanding the context here and you're talking about commercial licensing of the Bachmann products, or is it radio licensing? I believe there's is no UK radio licensing requirement as it's operating over a Low Energy Bluetooth link, which uses specific channels in the general 2.45GHz band as part of the 'internet of things'.

 

[Hobbyhorse]

These boards are by Bluerailtrains, owned by Dave Rees. Which Dave has licensed for Europe. I've no knowledge of the Bachmann product, sorry.

Simon

 

[BrianG]

FYI, Bluerailtrains is the separate company name of the manufacturers of the hardware (as supported by Bachmann). Bachmann support the control application software called EZ-App for the various Android smart phones/tablets on which to run it, but are also now fitting the hardware to their own HO gauge models. Here's a video link to them introducing the rationale behind the whole thing:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6xoL6NY83g

The Bluerailtrains hardware uses one of the many radio modules available for BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) applications. In your video, that's the green sub-circuit board with the big white chip on it , made in this case by Rigado LLC.
As a retired electronics engineer I had considered building a up a system of my own, using another make of radio module, but I found that the software development time required conflicted seriously with building the models on which to use it! With a big hitter like Bachmann now in the game, it becomes pointless to re-invent the wheel, so I eagerly await the kit becoming readily available in the UK.

Brian

 

[Horatio]

Coastal DCC are already listing these boards and I ordered 2 this morning. I ordered the £80 version because it already has two wires soldered on to connect to the battery. With the £70 version you need to solder on your own leads which I assume is a straightforward job if you are used to soldering electronic components, which I am not.

These boards are designed to run from track power or battery power or both. So it should be possible to wire the straight track and leave junctions unwired. As the loco runs into the junction pointwork and loses track power it will take it from the battery. In this way the battery will be working for quite short periods and should last for many hours of running before need a recharge. Whether the changeover from track to battery is seamless is one of the first things I will be testing.

My understanding, which has been gathered from reading published material (I have no inside track), is that this technology has been developed by David Rees aka BlueRailTrains (BRT). The technology was picked up early by Backmann and they have incorporated it in a few American outline locos for a number of months, under the branding E-Z App. Presumably the 'App’ bit refers to the App that sits on your phone/tablet (and you download free from an App Store), to control the loco. Both Apple and Android Apps are available but it appears that the Apple App is developed first and the Android App follows afterwards.

From my reading, product development remains with BRT. Sales of standalone boards remain with BRT and now their appointed overseas distributors eg CoastalDCC. I have no idea what formal arrangements exist between Bachmann and BlueRailTrains. However, if a Big Boy like Bachmann are backing the technology that should be good news for purchasers of the standalone boards in terms of continued development, security of supply etc

As I said in my first post, for anyone remotely interested in future train control systems the BlueRailTrains product looks very exciting. If you go to BlueRail Trains – Bluetooth Smart Train Control, you will spend very pleasant hour learning a lot more about it.

 

[Hobbyhorse]

Having them available now is good news, anyone who preordered them with Dave should be getting an email from CoastalDCC. With my initial testing its going to make the garden rail a lot easier to run.
Dave has appeared on ModelRail Radio and talked more about the technology.

Simon

 

[Hobbyhorse]

My Finney A1 running on battery power with the BlueRail board, I'm amazed with this technology and this is only just the start.

Simon

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The diesel sounds good at the end - especially the Nathan chime horn with a bit of reverb.

This method of control is something I'll have to have a look at. I have a few questions though.

What battery pack did you use in the A1. If it's the Blue Rail supplied battery is there an equivalent which can be purchased in the UK?
Did you plug a sound decoder into or does the board come with sound?

 

[Hobbyhorse]

Dave,

The battery is the lithium one from the states, but you can make up your own using three 3.7 volts batterys linked together giving 11.1 volts.
The sound as it comes is played either via the iPad, iPhone or iPod etc or via a Bluetooth speaker, in the not to distance future one of the updates will enable the fitting of a dcc sound chip to the board that will enable our U.K. Sounds to be played.
It's still early days with these boards, but as my testing on Buck Hill shows the loco ran for over a hour hauling a good size train without any problems.
Hope this helps.

Simon

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Thanks Simon.

I think I'll have to get one of these boards for experiment.

 

[mickoo]

The days of track pick are rapidly, thankfully, coming to an end.

A guy in the Sudbury club has also developed his own version using phone apps to control the loco and has fully interfaced with DCC sound chips already functioning. Haven't seen him for the last four months but it was near ready to go commercial.

Either way I'm not bothering to worry about pick ups any more, in a few years time this will all be ready off the shelf kit and change the face of control much like DCC did.

Exciting times.

MD

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

A guy in the Sudbury club has also developed his own version using phone apps to control the loco and has fully interfaced with DCC sound chips already functioning.

That is interesting and worth pursuing.

I like the idea of on board power supplies and to able to charge the battery by parking the loco up over a wireless charging station i.e. on shed.

 

[Aeromole]

Out of interest, have you looked at Access ProtoCab?
Acc+Ess Protocab
Looks smaller than the one discussed above.
Pete