Since I was a little kid, I was fascinated by model railroading …
I had a (large) layout at my grandparents house.
As I grow older, school, studies and girls got the upperhand of my interest.
Until around 2004, when I suffered large health issues. It became apparent that working 2 full-time jobs,
was not the ideal way of living.
So, I started working on my social life and some hobbies. This is where the model railroading hobby came back in my life 🙂
I started with some Märklin starter sets, a Delta controller that was converted to a “command unit” and an Ms-Dos PC with MrDirect and Koploper. After several years I discovered Rocrail.
I immediately switched from MrDirect to a self-build command station.
A few years after that, I switched again, to a Tams Master Control (mainly for the M4 (MFX) capability)
Until, finally, Christmas 2020 arrived 🙂 I got an Esu EcoS II as a present 🙂
Away went my worries, concerning MFX, and remembering Loco-addresses in my forever-growing large locomotive collection.
Entering locomotives within the EcoS II itself, is enough. Data gets automatically transferred to Rocrail.
Only one place to maintain my locomotives and switch-articles: The EcoS II itself !!
Then, my search started for a wireless remote control. This was a little night-mare 🙁 I wanted something that worked with the Ecos II, and doesn’t need a lot of maintenance.
After my search, 2 devices where left in the running: The Loco Wlan maus and the Esu Mobile Controller II.
Both failed to meet my expectations !
– The Loco Wlan maus, would only work in conjunction with Rocrail and the Z21 library.
Adding (new) locomotives was not as simple as tought. You have to syncronize after every change.
– The Esu Mobile Controller II failed, because it’s an old device, the moment you buy it. It still comes with Android 4 !!!
And you need to manually add every locomotive image to the handheld controller, even if you already did the same job in the EcoS II already …
So, I came up with the idea of creating/building/programming my own handheld controller. The “LocoMotion” …
At the moment of this writing (February, 13th – 2021), I feel comfortable to “speak” about “my device” to the “big public” 🙂
I’m in a fase that the most complex part of the software part is already done. (I think that about 75% of development is done)
Also the hardware is for 95% completed …
The rest of the story, you can read and follow in this separate “LocoMotion” section of my website …