Large Scale Central

DCC++

Electronics
#1

I know some of you have dabbled with DCC++ on an Arduino (Eric? Dave?). Since I’m getting close to the “Need to configure this thing” on a couple locomotives, I started looking around to what I want to use to program with. I looked at getting the cable for my Prodigy, but that’s $50 I probably won’t use once I get my system completely set up. A SPROG2 looks nice, but its $100. Then I started reading about DCC++, and I already have all the hardware to build one of these.

https://sites.google.com/site/dccppsite/home

Any caveats or insights?

#2

I put one together with a Mega, and used it with JMRI to generate a DCC stream for Airwire. I looked pretty closely at the bit stream that are generated on my logic analyzer, and it was very clean and NMRA compliant. I never tried it with the motor controller shield. I also never tried it with an Uno. Since I was using SPI for my radio modem, I needed the Mega to avoid some conflict which I no longer remember.

#3

Interesting. Did you just use the Mega, or was there other hardware?

#4

Just the mega and a CC1101 module. But if you want to connect it to a DCC decoder, you’ll need an H bridge of some sort.

#5

Yea, I figured as much. Time to get hacking, I guess…

#6

Dave built some of those for us in the club. Its an Arduino, a motor shield, and a USB cable. I added a Bachmann power supply to it. I can read the CVs, and program the decoders with my tower through JMRI. Since its sort of English on the screen, I can understand what I am doing, and so far its worked out great for me. The pain in the bottom part is swapping the track leads from the program terminals to the run terminals and back when I need to switch from program to run.

#7

Bob McCown said:

I know some of you have dabbled with DCC++ on an Arduino (Eric? Dave?). Since I’m getting close to the “Need to configure this thing” on a couple locomotives, I started looking around to what I want to use to program with. I looked at getting the cable for my Prodigy, but that’s $50 I probably won’t use once I get my system completely set up. A SPROG2 looks nice, but its $100. Then I started reading about DCC++, and I already have all the hardware to build one of these.

https://sites.google.com/site/dccppsite/home

Any caveats or insights?

Bob - DCC++ is fairly easy to get going - As David said I put together a number of units for our club - the notes that I wrote up for that group are here

http://trainelectronics.com/DCC_Arduino/JMRI_DCC++_Setup/index.htm

and may be of help.

enjoy!

dave