Large Scale Central

Signals on the NVRY

Electronics
#41

I love the look of these and I think I am going to add them as signals for my switches (not what they are intended for). That way I can verify from a distance what position my switches are in. THANKS!!!

#42
Bob McCown said:
Dunno if theyll be installed by then... Maybe just at the yards. Still details to work out...
C'mon. There's plenty of time!!!! :)
#43
Bruce Chandler said:
Bob McCown said:
Dunno if theyll be installed by then... Maybe just at the yards. Still details to work out...
C'mon. There's plenty of time!!!! :)
No excuse Bob the weather has been mild enough for outside work.
#44

You don’t have any licensed engineers coming? i certainly wouldn’t understand the signal indications :-p Course, I’m having trouble adjusting to the new color-light signals as the old PRR position signals fall on the Pittsburgh Line.

But Bob, I’ll give you this… the construction is fantastic. They look wonderful.

#45

how long are post you arte using and how far down did you mount the signal?

#46
Jerry Bowers said:
Memories, memories!

There is a Heathkit interest / support group on Yahoo. Pretty active even though the kits haven’t been made for a couple of decades.

I still have a nixitube digital clock in use in my hanger. I think I scrapped my Heathkit stereo amplifier years ago. OTH, it might still reside in the barn. It was a really great amp!

Happy RRing,

Jerry


I got about 15 Heathkits sitting in boxes here at school no longer in use…

#47

Hi Folks

Its been a while, but I’m still moving forward. I’ve settled on using the soon-to-be-NMRA standard OpenLCB/NMRANet boards. I ordered an interface and an I/O board from Tim hatch at TCH Technologies, and started playing around with them.

Here’s a couple of shorts of the I/O board, a Phoenix terminal block, and a dwarf signal.

(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/bob_mccown/Signaling/tch_interface.jpg)

(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/bob_mccown/Signaling/dwarf.JPG)

Next up is getting reliable detection.

#48

Bob, you have some ProtoBoard! I remember when that stuff came out, expensive but great for breadboarding, I still have mine I bought in '74 …

Looking good!

Greg

#49

Yea, that board is the one I bought for college. I was a CS major/EE minor (this was before a lot of schools offered a true CS degree). Still works great, though Ive blown up a few power supplies in the intervening years.

#50

I bought the strips piece by piece being a poor college student. I mounted them on a cigar box, and kept my jumpers inside. Made jumpers with leads off resistors soldered and heat shrinked to a bit of flex wire.

Made a lot of stuff on that board!

So is the openlcb really the same as the upcoming NMRA standard?

Dumb question but will this bus carry cab commands to?

I’m reading up on the site you bought some of your hardware from, may have a few more questions on the electronic side if ok?

Greg

#51

Fire away, but I dont know if I’ll be able to answer em, Im just getting into this myself. From what I understand, NMRANet is adopting the OpenLCB standard. There are lots of people working on all sorts of interfaces to the OpenLCB bus for lots of the hardware thats already out there, so I assume that eventually, cab control, etc, will be able to use the bus. You’ll also be able to mix and match various OpenLCB hardware to get the right mix of functionality that you want.

Its pretty cool, akin to the DCC work that was done many years ago.

#52

A bit of hacking at PVC board gave me a good design for a pedestal for the dwarf signals.

(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/bob_mccown/Signaling/dwarf_post.jpg)

#53

Looking good Bob

#54

Bringing this thread back up. Some of my recent design work is in the Electronic Nerds thread, but since I’m actually making some more progress, it belongs here.

Railstars has made an OpenLCB Arduino board (the Io:Duino). I have one on order (should be here in a day or two), so my design has changed slightly.

(http://i.imgur.com/pvCIEBQl.png)

The Io:Duino will be the interface between remote signals and detection, and the local bus.

Next up, getting the XBee modules talking to each other.

#55

Despite the OpenLCB thing being perplexing to me, I am looking forward to this thread…

#56

IO:Duino board arrived today. I build and uploaded a copy of the test I/O sketch and OpenLCB bus interface. After a bit of tweaking (ignoring the empty node ID on the AT90CAN128 chip) it shows up in JMRI as another node. VERY cool. (You can see the blue CAN bus link LED in the lower right)

Now to modify the sketch to transmit via the XBee shield.

#57

Wahdeesay?

#58

Ken Brunt said:

Wahdeesay?

I think he said ““hooked it up and it worked…””

Don’t quote me…

#59

He said; the light is on so somebody must be home!

#60

What he said was… “No magic smoke, yet, but the night is still young.”