Just a very quick update on a couple of new features I have added to Track Hacker lately. The biggest and most noticeable is the addition of a Members Widget (top-right sidebar) where members can go and review their current Track Hacker rank, what awards, badges, and points they have, check the member leaderboard, check-in (once per day) to earn additional member points awards – register to be a Track Hacker site member (free and while not necessary to enjoy Track Hacker and participate it does offer some cool benefits) and you get an award badge and some Hacker Points (HP’s) – the new, official “currency” for Track Hacker registered members as a way of awarding members for interaction and participation. HP’s are like experience points (XP’s) from role-playing games – you earn levels and level badges and awards for earning a certain amount of HP’s. How do you earn HP’s after registration? Well, members who click the “check in” button in the new member widget in the top-right sidebar can get more HP’s once per day. Members who check in every day for a full month will earn a reward! Members who comment can earn additional HP’s as well as badges and awards for posting a certain amount of comments. The Member Widget also has a leaderboard to keep track of the members with the most HP’s. Checkout the image below. Trying it out for now – if it gets some use I will consider keeping it around. If not – gonzo!
You may have noticed something different when you checked out the site this afternoon. I never really cared for the old look of TrackHacker but I had been pressed for time and it was decent enough at the time. The crazy little guy manipulating dozens of computers and monitors with various train-related stuff on them was a little too busy to make an effective “brand” logo – wouldn’t look too good at the top of letterhead. Plus, while I did add the train-related bits, it wasn’t mine- it wasn’t original so I felt it was time for a change. Orange is my favorite color too! So here is the new look! What do you think of the logo? It’s a subway train linked to the website name and tagline via a schematic in case you thought it resembled an alien or something 
. Anyone recognize the font in the logo (the “TrackHacker” part)? Overall, I think the logo conveys the scope of Track Hacker nicely. Please leave comments about what you think of the new look – love it, hate it, in between – let me know! 
Just another quick update to let everyone know that I have been testing the Mantis, managed to damage and repair the Mantis and have a ton of new gotcha’s to add along with some cool videos of the mantis running. I will be updating really soon. Also, I am getting some feedback from readers that there is interest in buying Mantis kits – at least the wood parts, hardware, and the driver PC boards anyway. I am really, REALLY considering selling them but I need to hear from some more readers first to really gauge the interest. Please comment and let me know if your interested in buying precut Mantis CNC engraver wood kits and hardware. Check back in the next couple of days for the update and Mantis videos
Just a quick update to let everyone know that I HAVE finished building the Mantis CNC router, I am actively testing and troubleshooting it and that I do have a HUGE update to this series coming within the next day or two – probably tonight! I plan to put my own dimensioned drawings up in DXF format as free download for anyone looking to build the Mantis but most importantly I have a ton of pictures and tips and hints on building the Mantis as well as a bunch more “gotchas” that I ran into. Many of my readers cannot wait to see the update – JT I’m looking in your direction 
– and I can’t wait to get it up for all of you. Building the Mantis CNC engraver has been fun and I can’t wait to start putting it to use milling out some cool model railroading PCB’s.
Well I have started on a new CNC project even though I haven’t finished my CNC router yet although I am 95% finished with it. I have started building the Mantis 9-1 3-axes CNC PC Board milling machine by David Carr from MIT. It’s a fantastic little desktop PC board milling machine – it is little compared to the 12 inch by 18 inch capacity of my larger CNC router and I plan to use it to start doing some electronic projects – such as LED flashers, walkaround train controllers, sound boards etc… I plan to use the larger CNC router to put together some posts on making model railroad layout control panels, molds for casting building models in resin, etc.. while I use the small Mantis 9 for very intricate PC board milling and making fine brass model super-detailing pieces just to see how they come out. I have actually acquired all of the parts to make the Mantis 9-1 and it looks like a relatively easy build but we shall see.
Well, remember from my previous post that I had found an interesting post about Reprogramming the Default FTDI Settings onto the EEPROM built into the FTDI Serial-to-USB chip? Well, the procedure and the FTDI programming utility worked just fine but it did NOT solve my locked up Arduino board problem! Ahhhh! 
has ANYBODY run into this at all? I have been in touch with technical support from MakerSHED (I got the Arduino Duemilanove in a kit from MakerSHED with a bunch of basic electronic components and sensors) and they currently don’t seem to enthusiastic about replacing my board although to be fair, I haven’t suggested it yet but they, at the same time, haven’t offered. I guess at this point it’s getting safe to say that something catastrophic has happened to my Arduino board although I don’t see any obvious component failures (burnt resistors, blown caps etc…). Well, I’m starting to get really bummed here because I have TONS of projects waiting for a working Duemilanove board.
Ok I didn’t end up going with Adafruit and instead ordered a Pocket AVR Programmer and an ATMega328 chip preloaded with bootloader from Sparkfun. It came down to price and the fact that Sparkfun had another item I wanted and Adafruit didn’t. Anyrate, I have received the AVR ISP and the preloaded chip with bootloader yesterday. I popped the preloaded ATMega328 chip into my locked up Arduino Duemilanove board and you know what happened?…….nothing. It’s still locked up. Now I’m starting to get concerned. That tells me that the problem is not simply a corrupted bootloader but something else, perhaps more sinister. I did find an interesting post about Reprogramming the Default FTDI Settings onto the EEPROM built into the FTDI Serial-to-USB chip. Perhaps I somehow managed to erase or corrupt the FTDI settings? No clue. I will try that process later today or tomorrow. I am starting to get really nervous that something bad happened to the board and fried one of the components.
Just a quick little update for the blog – Some of you may have seen a “bandwidth exceeded” page instead of trackhacker.com. Oops! 
Sorry, I run my own web host server and wasn’t paying attention to how popular the blog has become of late since Jameco Electronics ran a September product update: Why is the Arduino a Hit with Entry-Level
Electronics Tinkerers? and prominently mentioned trackhacker.com! How cool is that? Very kewl but it bumped my bandwidth usage up dramatically and I wasn’t right on top of it so the site was down a little bit today until I noticed and adjusted trackhacker.com’s bandwidth limit. Dohhh! Well, besides that – I am just about finished the building phase of my CNC router and will be beginning the testing/tweaking phase. I hope to have it up and cutting within a week. After it’s up and running, I have a TON of model railroad CNC projects and hacks planned. I am also thinking about manufacturing niche model railroading accessories and a custom model service using my CNC router, my NextEngine 3D Laser Scanner and my homemade vacuum former machine (see images below).
Outwardly, it appears, that I have fried the ATMega328 chip on my Arduino Duemilanove. I had the Arduino hooked up to a CdS photoresistor and the LCD as a quick and dirty light meter (project unrelated to model railroading). It would display the scaled numeric value on the LCD in the top row (16 x 2 LCD) along with a real-time bar graph in the bottom row. It was pretty cool. It worked for about a week with no problems and all of a sudden, for whatever reason – I fired it up one more time and nothing. The LCD backlight came on but nothing was displayed. I checked all of the wiring (it was still layed out with the LCD and contrast pot and the CdS photoresistor on a solderless breadboard) and everything was fine. I double and triple checked the wiring. I disconnected the Arduino from all of the other circuitry and then noticed that when I hit the reset button, it would do nothing – normally it would blink the LEDs. I tried disconnecting it from power, powering it up from USB etc… nothing. So then I try to overwrite my light meter sketch with the Arduino IDE example Blink sketch. Thats when I noticed I could not communicate with the Ardunio at all where I always was able to before. I got the following error messages in the Arduinio IDE:
Please comment and let me know what you’re thinking! I am looking for ideas, feedback, just about anything at all you can say constructively. Don’t think one of my projects will work? Let me know. Like my idea on an Arduino Model Railroad Turntable? Let me know. Hate the color scheme of the blog? Tell me about it. Love my Model Railroad Scale Speed Calculator? Have a great idea for a project? Let’s talk about it. Just say so. I want and openly invite community contribution here. I am also considering allowing selected contributors to write posts and submit hacks. If you’re interested in doing so, please drop me a line via the contact form. Continue reading »
