Large Scale Central

Signals on the NVRY

Electronics
#121

Fred Mills said:

Bob; Lawrence Watkins started trying to fabricate simple signals, using electric conduit parts. Although not to scale, and on the large size, they don’t look too bad. He had a problem getting LED’s bright enough to be seen in bright daylight, and sort of gave up.

Along came Steve Watson and his wife Seana, taking over as leads on the project, and trying to use automotive LED’s. They are available in Red, Green, and amber. They have made two test samples, which work great, can be easily seen by the operators, are very inexpensive, and should be very weather proof, along with being very durable.

We are going for simple two headed signals, with red and green heads. I hope someone will take pictures soon so I can show you.

The cables to activate the signals are now in place, and the small power supplies are on hand.

A three headed signal could easily be built, if we need it.

As I have mention on many occasions; these signals are not to just “Look pretty”. They are to actually be used for part of the operation, as a dispatcher controlled fixture.

Fred Mills

Fred, please keep us posted. I want some cheep signals for my railroad. The wires for them were put in place when I built the railroad, but as of yet they are unused.

#122

As soon as I get the pictures that were taken of the test samples; I will get them posted here…and I’ll try to describe the simple wiring involved for our needs. No PC boards or high tech stuff. Basicly controlled by a dpdt switch…using automotive LED’s, and a 12 volt power supply.

This system I’m using, is in no way meant to offend Bob McCown, or what he is planning, and I really should move my project to another thread of its own…

Bob offered to help me with signals, originally, but due to his other responsibilities, and troubles with his design; I’ve been working with several people here to get the project here, through to operation. I still would like to get a copy of his panel switch (Or two) here for the dispatchers board…!!!

#123

Fred, I have 2 double pole throws of a relay just waiting to be wired up. They can control LEDs by reversing the polarity on the wire pair. So lighting and controlling them isn’t my issue, my issue was the cost of what was available and that it simply didn’t look like what I wanted.

#124

Some minor progress on the signalling last night. At York, I talked to Dave Bodnar and he pointed me at the HC-12 serial radio board. Its a neat ~$5 board that supports high-speed/long distance serial communications. Bonus is that it has minimal configuration. They look easier to use than the XBee modules I was playing around with. I bought a handful of them and am waiting for them to arrive.

Last night I dug out my Railstars io:Duino board, and finished up the LCC node code so it looks like a 96-pin output board to JMRI (If you want the sketch, let me know). Since I’ll only need 80 ‘remote’ output pins, grouped by 10s, this will work nicely. Once the HC-12 boards show up, I’ll add the transmit code to this sketch, and start on the remote sketch for the Arduino Micro Pros that I intend to use remotely. At each interlocking, the hardware will end up in one of my equipment sheds.

Baby steps!

#125

Bob McCown said:

Baby steps!

Your baby is over 5yrs old now and should be more than capable of running!

#126

Last night’s progress. I have the HC-12 boards talking to each other. Here’s a picture of the io:Duino board with a development shield attached, with the HC-12 board mounted on it.

And here’s a shot of the debug console for the receiving node.

(http://largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_1/Projects/Electronics/IMG_1576.JPG)

Next up, protocol work and getting some LEDs wired up.

#127

My knowledge and desire to learn on this type of stuff is limited, BUT I do like to kinda stay informed of where trends in the hobby are going.

When I click on a thread that is “foggy” to me (more and more of these all the time), I click on the page before the last update and read all the previous posts to get me up to speed. The start/top of page 6 was in 2014. Baby steps are mentioned, Wow! 2014 to 2017 on one page. Kind of a new definition of “Baby Steps”, but it also shows perseverance. Should prove interesting to operate on, when complete.

#128

Ric, and others;

The signals on the IPP&W are completed, at least at the junction of the RP&M, where they protect the crossing of the IPP&W. There has been a further installation, over on the line from Mount St.Helens to Craigleigh. This later application, protects the entrance to Craigleigh, and is controlled/activated by the Craigleigh yard master. I will attempt to get some pictures posted to this thread in the near future.

#129

Some more progress. I downloaded the latest JMRI, and that has a bunch of additions for OpenLCB nodes. I did a bunch of debugging on the ioDuino, getting it to work exactly right. So I now have a relatively fully-compliant OpenLCB node receiving, and transmitting out to remote nodes built on an Arduino Pro Micro. I’ve uploaded a few videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjrL4CkfIJU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJBFyKvD1Es

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwcZ7yssqag

#130

An update. I bought a few STM32 boards to play with. Theyre much more powerful that the Arduino Uno (256k flash vs 32k, 80 IO pins vs 20), and they’re around 10 bucks. Once programmed, the top part of the board breaks off, so, in the end they’re about the same size as an Uno. Plus they take both STM32 and Arduino shields.

Arduino Uno on the left, Nucleo-F091RC STM32 board on the right.

#131

Does this mean we should expect to see signals for TrainOps this summer? (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)

#132

Bruce Chandler said:

Does this mean we should expect to see signals for TrainOps this summer? (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)

Possibly in the area around Williamsport. That’s been my test bed area. No promises.

#133

Cool. Will we know what to do? Or just act as usual - pretend I know what I’m doing?

#134

A quick and dirty project for a train order semaphore at Burke.

#135

Nice !

#136

A bit of progress. This is an inside view of the Burke yard office. Servo on the upper left. Yellow and green paired wires go to the semaphore light, and the light over the door. Power comes in the two-place terminal strip at the bottom, gets turned into 5v by the board next to it. The white board center-left is a Nucleo F091RC STM32 board that takes care of the logic.

#137

Been slow the last week or so, just doing some wiring on various things. Here’s a short video I shot this morning on the occupancy LEDs on the CTC panel. Minor progress.

You can also look at my other videos in my channel to see where I am.

#138

Not a lot of progress on the mesh network, but I did get the remote node built up on an Arduino development board. All components I got from Aliexpress. Total remote node cost is somewhere around $6. The design allows for up to 12 digital input/output pins, 4 input (via the analog input pins) or some combination thereof. Dropping this shield on a Mega, or combining it with a Mux Shield would get you even more pins.

#139

Some more progress. Ive been working on the protocol for talking to/from the remote nodes. I build up a second remote node last night to see if I was getting any data collisions or dropped packets anywhere. Looks like the answer is ‘no’. So working as desired.

#140

Another minor update. I have all the electronic hardware for the CTC panel installed and wired (three boards, 50-ish LEDs, etc), and now I’ve started the JMRI scripting to make the panel actually work. Here’s a short video of the first control point leaving Burke yard.