John, what a delight to see the end result! A very creative scene that goes far beyond the usual static scenery of a model! Bravo, sir! Although I have other areas in which my creativity is focused I can appreciate that you had to plan, design, test, tweak and work a lot to make the finished product. God bless you, John! Well done!!

@johnsminiatures8955

4 жыл бұрын

Andrew, thanks for your kind comments. If you appreciated this video, I'm certain you'll like the next one that is going to be even more unusual and innovative. But it will take me about 4 months to make the new model.

@TimberSurf

4 жыл бұрын

@@johnsminiatures8955 Can't wait!

OMG ! John, thank you SO much for 'introducing' me to this ! - I had absolutely NO knowledge of Magnorail... I did some work for Gerry Anderson on Thunderbirds (a very long time ago!) and know he, as I am now, would have been stunned at how useful this could have been !!! Take care, Mike

Started watching these videos intrigued by the creativity . THEN i recognised then I recognised your voice. Thank you for so much joy over the years

No idea how or why I'm here on this channel, but thanks KZread! This is just amazing! Mad skills on so many levels! Looks like fun, but no way I'd have the patience for all this.

Interesting to see this now. A few years ago, we used this system for a professional exhibit. But we used hall sensors and replaced the DC motors with servo stepper motors, so we could get synchronized travel, repeatable speed and just used one hall sensor per track as a reset point. Also used a fast Arduino Due.

@conorstewart2214

10 ай бұрын

For something basic you don’t need a fast microcontroller. The classic arduinos are slow but are definitely fast enough for models like this, people have even made drones with classic arduinos and they require a lot more precise timing and computation than a model. If you find you need a more powerful microcontroller for something basic it generally means you have inefficient or lazy code. You should also use everything available to you. Driving stepper motors directly from microcontrollers is a waste (not saying you did but just pointing it out). Just get a cheap stepper driver and then all you need is a signal to tell it the direction you want and a signal to tell it to step and the stepper driver will handle the actual motor movements and can do things like microstepping to get smaller steps or if using “silent” stepper drivers then the motor itself won’t make any noise.

@graealex

10 ай бұрын

@@conorstewart2214 For each level of micro stepping for example, you also need to provide double as many pulses to the stepper driver, for the same amount of rotation. So again having a fast micro is advantageous. Actually a lot of examples where the good old 8-bitters CAN perform, but DON'T particularly well. And there is no reason to optimize software to run on an underpowered micro if you're doing a one-off.

What an incredibly beautiful diorama with Magnorail. Thank you for your explanations. Best model railway greetings from Germany and thanks for sharing!

@Mike_Hughes

11 ай бұрын

Guten Tag von Wales!

Hi folks, I suggest using needle nose pliers or similar to hold the reed switch wires between the bend and the glass to further minimise the risk of damage. This action model looks wonderful does n't it!

that's on a whole other level mate, congrats!

I love this little scene, so well thought out and executed.

Absolutely superb modelling - one of the most interesting videos I have watched in a long time. Thank you!

Wow the finished product is amazing to watch. Just love it.

This is incredible!! Absolutely beautiful and breathes life into a scene

What a delightfull masterpiece! A big compliment to you Sir from the Model Railway Club Deventer MSCD!

First of all, this is a very good scene and takes Magnorail way further than I have seen before. Here's a suggestion though, something that would add a bit more realism would be to extend this concept to also control the speed of the Magnorail motor slowing it down so it's more realistic when vehicles go round corners.

The diorama is really brilliant.

Brilliant! You confirm the discussion I had with a model maker-integralist: for him the models shouldn't be mobile, but all fixed! Evidently ten years ago I could already see far! But your model; very nice... only ever seen such a curved short bridge!!! 😊

The final result is wonderful 🤩 you did a great job 👍

I like those "howto's" with technics as Arduino's. Thanks for sharing.. the video is well explained en the scenery is outstanding. Till next time!

just happened across this. you have a wonderful talent, and the diarama obviously tells a story... great work!

What a fantastic addition, more tips tricks and special effects please.

@johnsminiatures8955

4 жыл бұрын

I'm starting work on a brand new model in the new year which I think will intrigue people! If you subscribe to my channel you will be notified when the video goes on line. Thanks for your interest.

Wow! The action model is wonderful! I now want to see all of them.

Absolutely brilliant work. I love this idea and the craftsmanship. Greetings from Germany.

This is the coolest thing I've seen all day! That's amazing work on many levels!

Fantástico. Você é um mestre! Parabéns

Never seen something like this. Amazing. Thanks voor sharing

THAT WAS WONDERFUL!!!!! Reminds me of a major accident or two that I had on my bike when I was a kid. Except no ambulance.

fantastic love te animation look forward to more videos

Nice video John very informative 👍

i was impressed untill the bike crash.... then i was blown away, that was very unexpected, and well done.

The accident effect is very nice!

Great job! Thanks for sharing.

Great looking diorama!

Man this is an absolute masterpiece

Brilliant stuff- need more please

Very clear and informative thank you

That's fantastic, what a great application of the magnarail and arduino's

I love the mechanisms ised to illustrate the bicycle crash. Very clever 👍

That "motion" is so increadably smoooooooth. It's really quite breath·tak·ing. Thank you for the video. Cheers from So.CA.USA 3rd House On the Right

Wow, such amazing work, thank you for sharing!

Wunderschöne Idee und sehr gut gemacht.

What a fantastic job! Respect!

Never seen something like this. Amazing. Thanks voor sharing👍

Absolutely brilliant

First time i have seen this and its most interesting.

jeez, its almost like you've been a special effects expert for years and designed roller coasters or something 😉😂

@jaystocky4845

4 жыл бұрын

we got em bois

@johnsminiatures8955

4 жыл бұрын

Who would have thought it 🤔

@jaystocky4845

4 жыл бұрын

@@johnsminiatures8955 nice to see you're enjoying you're retirement John.

Amazing work!!! Wow

Do you know about state machine programming? It's where you have a place in the code for every combination of events. So, the initial state would be "motors off". The next state would be "bicycle running before accident". The next state would be "bicycle stopped, rider thrown". Etc. The transition between the states is driven by the inputs, or a timer. So you would have a timer with a random timeout (so the scenario gets run at random intervals), which gets set when entering State 0 (motors off). When that timer fires, it sets the state to State 1 (bicycle running before accident) and turns on the motor for the bicycle magnorail track. It stays in State 1 until the reed switch fires saying that the bicyclist has reached his doom, then it enters State 2. Etc. It makes it very easy to make a script, because once you have created the engine that drives the state machine, the states themselves are like Lego(tm) bricks. If you want to change the script, just move the states and their actions and their triggers around.

@Mike_Hughes

11 ай бұрын

This sounds brilliant! Thank you.

brilliant work👍

4:55 You don't need the external pull-down resistor. The Arduino's I/O pins already have an internal pull-down resistor that's takes effect when you configure the pin with INPUT_PULLDOWN.

@gblargg

11 ай бұрын

Earlier Atmega CPUs don't have that, just internal pull-ups. Of course he can just wire the reed switches to connect to ground and invert the meaning of the inputs.

@conorstewart2214

10 ай бұрын

@@gblargg all of the arduino clones I have used have had both pull ups and pull downs so I would imagine the genuine arduinos are probably the same.

@gblargg

10 ай бұрын

@@conorstewart2214 Take a look at e.g. the Pro Micro schematic and the Atmega32u4 datasheet. No pull-down resistors.

Amazing work. Thanks for sharing.

Very, very cool !!! Well done !!!

Incredible GREAT JOB!!

Very impressing!👍

Very cool. I can only imagine how many hours of work went into this. I did a project some years ago where we wanted to demo something at a convention so we built a slot car track and we wanted to time the laps and have a board with the information in real time. We started with reed switches but couldn't get them to measure the passing cars accurately. I don't know if there was lots of electrical interference from the slot or if the car just went by too fast but we had to go with another solution. I did not know at the time that the orientation of the reed switch was important. We had an intern at the time doing the electronics and I wonder if he knew, he was really smart so he might have. If I ever bump into him I will have to find out. Maybe that was a reason for the problems we encountered.

Well done!

Very nice video and I'm interested in knowing more about the special effects

haha how cool is that bike, I love the little crash scene mate, very well done

Awesome job sir

Thank you for posting

Very nice! Thank you for sharing.

This is very educational as we learn also how the vehicles move on the Thomas the Tank Engine model series. I was wondering myself how the make vehicles like Bertie the Bus move or how sometimes the trucks or lorries move. And this is how it's done!

It is great! It is a cool story in the one little village! Decorations very cool! I mean you can add traffic light and other! Very cool!

Thank you for sharing this.

Now Scale it up from a Mini-Miniaturwunderland to a Miniaturwunderland. This little piece really leaves you in awe of what the guys in Hamburg have created.

4 Years late, but it is still brilliant in 2023.

That’s very clever. 👍

Loved it, the scene was very funny.

Thank you very much amazing creation. I love it

Great channel! Amazing job! I just subscribed.

great help bro. thanks. dbs from INDIA

This was FRICKIN COOL!

Marvellous stuff! Something to delight me as a 50 year old, but the 'magic' of it would have fascinated my (former) 5 year old self even more! Could vehicles designed for the Faller Car System work? Advantage being having working lights (though no doubt functionality would be limited versus a proper Faller road system), but maybe the front steering would function more like a real vehicle. Obviously the vehicle would need the motor to be removed or mechanically isolated. Problem with the Faller system seems to be that the vehicles need to be quite large to accomodate the drive system and battery, meaning that you are restricted mostly to commercial vehicles. With Magnorail, normal cars, as well as bikes and presumably motorbikes, could be used- but not as autonomously, since all vehicles on a chain would start and stop together. But I bet both systems could at least be used side-by-side.

The cheery music while panning up to reveal a freshly dug grave is some Monty Python level humor

Super model diorama Nice!

Would have liked to see more about the assembly, configuration, and operation of the track underneath. I suppose I should see if can look that up. Anyway, very charming scenario for the sequence.

ingenious. Well done.

This is amazing model building

that looks Neat!

great stuff here

That's fantastic!

this is so awesome!!!

Whoaow. That's amazing...

The best idea

Very impressive.

I'd never heard of Magnarail before watching this, and I', so fascinated! :O The thumbnail looked particularly wild, like a robotic looking spin fossilised in stone :O Regarding Arduinos, I have a few genuine ones I got from Maplin years back (remember Maplin? :O) and I used those with the ISP program to problam bare chips. I can make incredibly miniaturised circuits that way

@luminousfractal420

11 ай бұрын

I used to run and get the maplins catalog of parts like it was my childhood comic 😊 Helped with tearing down vcr's and things for investigation. Loved brass and steel mechanicals in electronics.

@azyfloof

11 ай бұрын

@@luminousfractal420 I took apart an older model VCR a few years back, and the mechanism and arrangement of components compared to more modern VCRs is so much more wildly complex and satisfying :D The VCR really is the perfect marriage of electronics and mechanical engineering

How nice to see! the technique is also very well done! respect! Healthy and Friendly Greetings from the Netherlands! Rob

This is really funny and kind of cute!

Super job

Brilliant 😍

That... is amazing.

The sequence that I saw was quite funny; the “magnetic” cyclist appears to cycle out of the barn > along the road and between the chevron signs and crashes > the ambulance appears and drives to the crashed cyclist, picks it up and wizzes off and the camera panned to the church yard and “there is the cyclists grave being dug” 😄

Fantastic

Very cool!

very nice!

Amazing!!!

Amazing 😳👍🏻

This is outstanding and very clever. I want to build a variation of this idea and wonder if the script for the Bicycle Accident is available. It would be a good starting place.

WRT using photopaper as the running surface, polypropylene poster paper is pretty widely used in print for outdoor posters, it's similar to the stuff the new banknotes are made of, and I'd imagine it would work well as a replacement. If you had it printed on a suitable UV printer it would get a nice scale-accurate-ish matt finish for tarmac etc surfaces.

inspirierend, vielen Dank

Wonderfully clever and skillfully executed. The cyclist was a hack, obviously, but everything else superb!