Soft Start for Disneyland Mark VII Monorail Model

[boBQuincy]

The Mark VII remote works well but it always bothered me the way the monorail starts and stops so abruptly, jostling all those HO scale passengers around. It's bad enough with the original (slow) drive system but it is obvious with WhisperJet as the monorail really jumps into motion! I installed a soft start for my own Mark VII to enhance the realism and thought others may be interested in this feature.

Since I was installing the auxiliary motor controller to get more power to the motor *and* since I was installing a 3.3 V converter to power the white LED headlights it was only a few more wires to also install a microcontroller to control how quickly motor power is ramped up and down.

video at:

more details at: http://monorail.suzieandbob.com/dl_mark_vii_softstart.html