Anyone here interested in helping beta test some Bluetooth control boards? I’ve sent out a couple and will have a few more in about a week. I’m looking for some constructive feedback.

You can get the apps now on Google Play. There are four so far and I’m working on a couple more. Opinions, suggestions and bug reports would be greatly appreciated.

Just to recap- this board talks to an Android Smart Phone or Tablet via Bluetooth and can drive three standard R/C servos (or an electronic speed controller). It also outputs a DCC stream and has two digital on/off outputs. You can use it with the servos, put an ESC on it for battery power and use the DCC output to drive a decoder- or some combination of those if you wish. DCC functions include the extended throttle packet, function codes 0-28 and CV programming. Servo 0 is always the throttle output and tracks what is sent out via DCC.

For experimenters, I can provide a list of the accepted command messages if you want to talk to it with say, a raspberry pi or something like that instead of the Android app.

Here is a pic of the final board design:

Thanks,

Martin

So; in old school terms; it would make a tablet or phone with the app act like a 3 channel radio and replace the RX in the loco. Hmmm… what is the expected range on Bluetooth? I have some interest. 4 Servo outputs would be better for the ESC that I use (Railboss Hobby) but 3 might work. I have an Amazon Fire tablet that has been modded to add Google Play that I would use.

Yes, that’s it. Simple and compatible with R/C servos and ESCs. I’ve designed the DCC portion to plug in just like a servo too.

I have a couple of devices, the best range I get is about 100 ft with my BLU Studio X8, $50 from Amazon.

100 feet is way more than enough. 25-50 would serve my needs. Thanks. Put me on the list of potential testers.

EDIT to add - I don’t have a way to do anything with the DCC output, but might find something I can do with the extra “trigger” outputs.

DCC output could be used to drive a sound card.

Greg

I would be interested, please put me on the list, thanks.

I’d test one but I don’t have an android. But I’m curious to hear more about this as the project progresses

Ok, I’ve got a couple more from my facebook post, that’s ten total now, that’s all I can afford in this round. I’ll get these out next week to Jon and Alec. Thanks!

Put me on the list. Im familiar with using the Blutom. Would love to try this out as well.

So if I’m correct the DCC output can drive a motor + sound decoder? I’d like to give one of these a shot with the new Tsunami 2s if so. A Bluetooth board + $150 sound decoder would be a lot cheaper than the traditional R/C unit + Phoenix combo…

I have been using Railboss as well, but this is interesting and I like that it can also do DCC. I would like to be added to the beta testing as well. What DCC decoders can be used for adding sound to a engine if I am also using a ESC for motor control? Have several Andriod phones that I can use for the controller, I assume that it will work on a Samsung Note.

Dan

I’ve design/built a complete system using the Bluetooth Low Energy BLE (4.2, 5) stack specification. It is leaps+bounds capable over the Bluetooth 2.0 fat stack as far as range/power consumption characteristics than most Bluetooth radios out there - but I’d be interested to see how the DCC community likes your design.

Nice effort to preserve the legacy DCC!

Given the general device adoption for BLE, it will appeal to the Battery Only generation and there is a fantastic chip offering from Nordic Semi (NRF52832) that allows a lot more capability for a much lower price with a built-in microcontroller. at $3.00 - Please check it out if you have time. The BLE 5 range claim will surprise anyone outdoors with small packet data rates of 1.2 Mbs (bits!) and claimed ranges of 750 to 900 feet. I did 1200 feet at sea with no issue playing full range polyphonic sound thru BLE speakers.

I predict Bluetooth 2.0 will vanish by 2020 from all ‘serious’ manufacturer support. That’s about 26 months away.

Vic

Yes. I’m using a soundtraxx economi 100 (made for HO) along with an ESC to drive my Aristo U25B. The ESC pulls the weight, the decoder does the sounds and lights. The ESC plugs into servo output 0 and have the kadee couplers hooked up to the other two remaining servo channels. Here is a video:

Youtube U25B

Here is a list of pretty much all of my video demos, the various decoders are in there with some other stuff.

Train and DCC videos

All total I have three DCC decoder families I am testing with- the Economi series, TCS and QSI. All great, all have their own little quirks but I like them all.

Guys, I can get you one of these but I’m out of hardware with Shawn getting the last one. I’ll have some more in a few weeks. PM me your addresses and that you want the DCC module. Also, if you would, download the apps and verify they come up and run on your devices. My builds should work all the way back to 2.2 Android which is way old but I have the newer builds on my phones and tablets so I am very interested in how that works out.

Thanks,

Martin

Got your board functioning on the bench with a Railboss Plus system today and running the app on a Fire 7 tablet. Sent you an email with some specific questions and comments. So far so good!

Cool. Thanks Jon. Didn’t see your email, sorry. It’s [email protected] just for reference, you can also PM me here, I drop by daily.

I got the board a few weeks ago. I hope to start playing with it soon.

OK Martin - Email copied to a PM here just in case Just ordered a cheepie ESC from Amazon. Will be here Sunday.

Martin, you said you drove an HO DCC decoder from this.

What is the voltage and current output capabilities of this “output”, or if it’s low as I suspect, you must have used what the DCC standard calls a “booster”.

Can you further explain and specify?

I would not be interested in using an ESC, I want the motor control integrated with a DCC sound system, plus I want the CV’s for motor control that an ESC alone cannot provide.

Greg

Think of this board as an R/C Receiver for Bluetooth. It puts out 3 channels of servo pulses and one ‘channel’ that is a DCC logic stream. It also does two digital outputs. It uses standard R/C type three pin connectors.

You can ignore the servo outputs if you wish and run all DCC. You feed the DCC logic stream output into an ‘Amp’ (booster), it’s about the size of a standard servo, and it produces 5A DCC at whatever voltage you feed it with, I use 14.8v and 11.1v Lipos. The DCC supported is a subset of the extended packet DCC format- 128 step throttle, function codes 0-28 and CV programming. The receiver does all of the work of scheduling the packets and keeping both streams going, it all happens via interrupt state machines. I’m running the micro at 16Mhz and have a half microsecond resolution on my output clocks so it’s pretty tight. I have tested this with a QSI in an Aristo Dash9, a TCSWOW in a GP9 and various combinations of Economi HO and O decoders (2 amp) and ESCs in a U25B, an RS3 and an Aristo 040.

The receiver insulates you from all of the details of providing the DCC signal - you just send it a message via bluetooth like ‘set CV xxx to xx’ or ‘set throttle to 67’, etc and it does all the work. All total it supports 12 messages via the comm link. Also, the hardware supports Xbee, Wifi, and SNAP mesh modules (it’s socketed), but the firmware assumes Bluetooth for now. I chose BT because it is cheap and everywhere. I don’t think there is a phone or tablet made that doesn’t support it. Bluetooth meshes really well into my development tool chain along with Python to create Android Apps. I am a huge python fan, I do it for a living. It also works out that the Raspberry Pi3 has built in bluetooth and does Python as well so lots of future possibilities there.

I am working on my web site for this, it’s not complete but I have some info up there - http://blueridgeengineering.net/

Fee free to direct specific questions to me at [email protected]

I do have a number of questions, which I do believe would help others curious like me, but I’m happy to email you privately also. This is up to you.

For example: when will you have your 5 amp DCC booster back in stock? $25 is a very good price and is nice and compact.

Another question: I’d like to deadrail from my existing track power system to a battery powered unit (for example a track cleaner for a DCC layout with exceptionally dirty/oxidized track) so could I get a list of what DCC commands are not supported?

So, I think answering these in a forum helps you promote your product and helps others, but again I’m happy to email you privately, your choice, just let me know.

Regards, Greg

p.s. I do indeed desire answers to the 2 above questions (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)