zeroOneman

the 56 part of the number indicates the number of years until it gets released

this afternoon, just to see what would happen, I tried running three trains on the clockwise loop...

i guess you're referring to the speed detector that i posted on the site yesterday?

just checked mine - i'm running 1.72 on Win10

so we have a new version, we don't know what's in it & it might be dodgy. ever since the last version, my bathroom tap has been leaking....

After many hours of frustration I have finally got my railway operating using block detection. The controller is still elink/railmaster. I Now have my new signal decoder detecting block occupancy, setting signals to danger & clearing them automatically & setting braking modules with the signals so that the trains stop at signals when they are set to danger - the signals can still be set & cleared from railmaster, but will automatically revert back to danger when blocks are occupied. This is all done with a single Arduino controlling 5 signals - I have built two more decoders to control the remaining areas of the layout, but haven't wired them in yet. full details can be found at https://shedendrly.wordpress.com/ /media/tinymce_upload/b6017ccb6efb77f83a1b4ccfcef1a944.jpg

i'm going to update the schematic later this morning to show the circuit without the shift register. also, i believe the current schematic is missing one connection to the register :-(

https://shedendrly.wordpress.com/signal-decoder-board-3/ i hope this works

I've updated the website with a circuit schematic & the sketch to drive the board. The circuit has been updated to use CT coils enabling block occupancy, rather than using IR sensors that proved to be very unreliable. The board is reliably controlling the signals & braking modules on the outer loop of my railway. I'm currently building two additional boards - one to control the inner loop & one to control the branchline.

aha - it's not what you know....

i'm very envious that RAF has managed to add a hyperlink to his sig - i have tried many times & failed, life is to short to keep banging my head against that wall

that is indeed the circuit, although at £8 their basic board is quite nice, and from a manual inspection I'm sure it's the same. I can't apologise enough for sending you to that football club - I shall have to sublimally add a link to the red and white team the other side of the capital. here is the first in what I intend to be a series of articles tracking my progress with the Arduino https://shedendrly.wordpress.com/arduino-based-signal-decoders-part-one/

there are two more expensive ones - one for the nano & one for the Uno. I did buy the nano one, which actually uses a voltage regulator taking power from the DCC bus to drive the Arduino. I found that once you start driving relays the regulator overheats & everything goes a bit pear-shaped. Not sure about the one for the Uno, but the simple £8 is 'good enough' in fact if you're handy with a soldering iron & hunt around you can find the circuit he is using - it uses one opto isolator chip, three resistors & a diode. regarding the IR sensors - they're very sensitive to daylight, I'm thinking of using block occupation circuits now. I've started writing up everything on the shedend website, but work keeps getting in the way

it would actually be quite easy to knock up a circuit based around an arduino that can operate 8 relays - assigning a seperate DCC address to each relay. Arduinos can be had for under £5, a block of 8 relays costs £9.99, a DCC interface for the Arduino is £8. Those are all the parts you need - if you have any programming experience you should be able to knock this up over a weekend. If not, contact me through the Shedend website...

The relays are all fitted now, so here's a new clip

now that i have it all up and running, i can try multiple sensor types. the ir sensors were rediculously cheap, and they are working well. rfid is definately something i will try, although this is an n-gauge railway so i expect it to be tricky.

Chrissaf is correct - I'm using ABC braking

The ir sensors have an adjustable pot that enables you to adjust the distance that they detect objects at - this was really easy to set up

i am today - once i replace the relays it will be stopping automatically

Hi guys, I know I've bored you in the past with my raving about ABC braking - so here's a post about a video I've just created where ABC ain't working.... well it will be soon, just not right now. So what is the fella going on about? I hear you say. well i decided that loco detection is never going to happen, alternative control systems & detection are prohibitively expensive so I created my own signal decoder using an Arduino. of course, just making lights turn red/green isn't really rocket science, but i've added sensor overrides - so railmaster controls the signal (hopefully with ABC !) , but a couple of sensors monitor the block in front & set the signal to danger if it's occupied. here's a short video showing my progress so far:

I'd be happy with reed switches ANYTHING to give some feedback, and playing with the loco detection bits and bobs in RM, this seems to be one of the options, so why not release a 'lite' version now ?

any form of detection would be better than we have now - just a simple input to be able to trigger a signal to turn to danger (or back again) within the software, in conjunction with ABC braking would be awesome. It is possible to automate signals currently - but that doesn't feed back to RM.

i'd be interested in hornby releasing details on the loco detection interface - what I'm thinking is that if I could knock up a raspberry PI with some reed switches connected I could at least use inputs from these reed switches to set & clear signals, which I already have connected to BM1 modules....

while I wait for an email to come flooding in, I thought I'd just mention that the initial outlay for DCC put me off for a long time. I finally took the plunge last february - to convert just two locos & get one point motor operating under DCC I paid the handsome price of £135. This was by using an elink & my PC. Looking at ebay this morning, I reckon you could achieve the same for under £100 now. search the web for "dcc on a budget" if you're interested.

just the cost of postage - it's no use to me any more & they don't sell for much on evilBay. contact the forum admin & ask for my email address. If you're anywhere near Gatwick/Brighton you could always pick it up. Now where the hell is it...