Faller Car System

The Faller Car system is a clever way to add moving cars to your model train layout. It uses various things, such as infra red leds, photovoltaic cells & ambient light sensors to automate the cars on your layout. The cars can run in a loop, or by using electromagnets, can change the car on to a different track. So, thats the intro done, lets look in more detail. It has two key parts, the car & the road

Car

Forward/Backwards movement

The cars using the Faller Car System are driven by a motor. The motor spins forward or backwards, dictating the direction of travel. They use a spiral gear on the motor turning a normal gear attached to the car's rear axel, giving power.

The picture gives a better explanation. This system is used because then the cars motor will not turn if the rear wheels are manually turned. The worm gear jams it. This is important as if it turned, a small electrical impulse could be sent back to the micro-controller, killing it. It also acts as a braking mechanism, creating more friction that if it were allowed to freewheel. 

Turning

The car turns using a clever front axel. It uses a small magnet that protrudes a bit from the wheels. Mounted very close to the road, the magnet follows a magnetic line in the road-that will be covered later. As the magnet follows the magnetic line in the road, it turns using the two points connected to the front wheels. Once again, the picture is better than the written explanation

Automation

The cars have various gadgets and sensors that will allow it to turn on items that would also happen in real life. First, I will cover headlights. The headlights on the car are just LED's. The colour, intensity and position are dictated by their real life counterparts. The LED's are turned when a value from an ambient light sensor mounted on the top, falls below a certain level. The sensor feeds the values to a micro-controller that then know whether or no to turn on/off the LEDs. When the values fall below the set level, the micro-controller will know that it has to turn on the LEDs. This gives the impression that a driver has turned on his headlights because it is dark.

Another feature is the automatic object detection and stop feature. This compromises of two parts on the car, one at the front, and one at the back. The front part is two photovoltaic cells mounted on the front bumper. This will generate a small electric current when light hits it. This current is fed to the micro-controller that knows that is has to stop the motor, giving the impression of 'braking'. It is usually mounted in a pit so that outside light will not cause the car to randomly stop. The second part of the system is the infra-red LEDs mounted on the back. The IR light emitted from the LED's will create the current on the photovoltaic cells. This means that it will work with all the cars on the layout. IR LEDs are used because they are invisible to humans so it will not detract from the scale look and ruin the layout. This will stop collisions if the motors are running at different speeds (another feature). Also, if wanted, when the micro-controller tells the motor to stop, it can also turn on some red LEDs at the back of the car to turn on, creating brake lights.

A picture from the internet that explains the above exactly.

Road

Wire

Imbedded in the wooden baseboards of a Faller Car System layouts are magnetic wires in lots of grooves that direct the cars above it. It attracts the magnet in the cars steering system, directing it.  This will then send the car on a different track. Many more cool features can be added to a road, although I am currently just trying to find them out.

The road without it's overlay on.