I have successfully created a receiver test device and tested it with connection, add locomotive, and update firmware, re-acquire locomotive through wifi to the LocoFi app, Unfortunately I burned out the micro-fan being used as a test load in place of a motor. This happened when I tried to go into reverse, It was 12 VDC but only rated at .07 Amp. I have 12-16 volt HO locomotive can motors on hand and will try to rig a motor mount. The F unit behind was my first install and I used it to verify the app and wifi network connections were working. I am using the same 12 volt wall wart power source as I use for my NCE PowerCab for DCC programming.
Should the motor used as a test load when I replace the fan load have a flywheel or some other resistance. My ESU DCC decoder test stand load motor has a flywheel.
The 2-2 Lever Nut kit works well except the levers are quite stiff and you need to ensure you have stripped enough bare wire on the leads which have to be pushed quite deep. I found it best to tin the lead wire so all the strands make full contact. The nut connectors are mounted with double sided tape. The base is made from various pieces of Evergreen sheet and shapes I had on hand.
I still need to set up the LED headlight/tail light to test those functions.
I am still using a 3 year old Amazon Fire tablet as the Android app platform. Not overwhelmed with the Amazon Fire tablet but now have an older Samsung S8 that is no longer my primary phone. I'll need to connect it to the 2.4 ghz house WiFi channel and move my primary phone to the 5 ghz channel.
I have noticed that I need to reacquire the locomotive Wifi connection on the Fire tablet after adding the new locomotive and the firmware update.
Also has any progress been made on the steam functions for the App? Now that I have the test stand I can test the 6 Chime SP steam whistle on a wav file I scraped from a video and edited. For now I will be using the Diesel control panel horn function as the whistle.
I completed testing by attaching the motor block of my current rebuild of a Bachmann 2-8-0 into an SP Consolidation stand in.
I had not closed the blinds in back of the work bench completely so had a reflection in screen of the Fire Tablet. It shows it running. The receiver is a DULLHB purchased last year. When I test again I will be using new wav files for steam whistle in place of horn and steam running sounds.
Hello Ken, Thank you for sharing your experience with the test stand. It looks great!
A motor with flywheel will certainly simulate more real world scenario.
As for the LEDs, you can probably insert them directly into the connectors.
We are getting closer to releasing the steam functionality. We have taken a step back and planned to release steam with a throttle similar to the diesel instead of the complexity of the Johnson bar and steam throttle combination. This advanced functionality will now be added later.