My Newest Addition!

ntpntpntp said:
Great, aren't they?! Next you'll be wanting some suitable wagons to pull!


(Yes, My 66 has shrunk! We were doing a load test of the little Bachmann Davenport, it handled this lot as if they weren't there!)
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I love my two Davenports. Yes, they certainly have some hauling ability.
 
Yes Dan, the rails are always live with a very rapid pulsed AC (much faster than the 50/60Hz of domestic AC power), with the DCC control signal "superimposed" on them by varying the pulse width.... each decoder then receives all the data encoded in the pulses but only acts on that which is addressed to it - at least that's my understanding of it, in a not-very-technical manner (I'm no expert like Cliff is!). ;)

Jon.
 
Looking through things I may well utilise the sprog and a signal booster, then make a nice custom controller to operate it all. I don't want to drive with a keyboard and mouse, or even worse... a track pad! Should be able to create a really great little control box, maybe even make it wireless!
 
Yep, I'm with you on that - I'd want a proper tactile controller with knobs and buttons! I'm not a fan of using mobile phones as controllers.
 
I've used the SPROG with a Bachmann booster giving 18v 5a and it all worked fine with the JMRI software. The challenge was getting a nice controller to talk to the JMRI software. the best I came up with was a wireless keypad and some scripting to read the key-presses. I have a 4VEP controller in the garage so if you work out some way of getting inputs into JMRI then please let me know !
 
Dtsteam said:
I've used the SPROG with a Bachmann booster giving 18v 5a and it all worked fine with the JMRI software. The challenge was getting a nice controller to talk to the JMRI software. the best I came up with was a wireless keypad and some scripting to read the key-presses. I have a 4VEP controller in the garage so if you work out some way of getting inputs into JMRI then please let me know !
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Sounds good! I will have to take a look, but it may require a custom program rather than using an existing one, that's why I was thinking it may be easier to start a fresh and integrate everything in one unit.

The sprog could provide a useful stop gap if we can use it with other software.
 
You can certainly use a SPROG with other software. When I first got my serial comms SPROG several years ago I wrote a throttle window in Visual Basic, just as an exercise. The command set is documented.
 
ntpntpntp said:
You can certainly use a SPROG with other software. When I first got my serial comms SPROG several years ago I wrote a throttle window in Visual Basic, just as an exercise. The command set is documented.
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If there is a documented command set then it would be so easy to write a little program to make a cool controller.
 
DanLarn said:
If you used Arduino, it'd be really easy to make a cool analogue style DCC controller for your trains!
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Been there done that!

First started with Picaxe as an analogue PWM controller, and then developed an Arduino as a DCC Central Station.

The Arduino is better suited as a decoder as opposed to a Central Station.

The Raspberry Pi2 with it's ARM 7 quad core processor is a better setup, as a complete self contained WiFi, with the latest version of JMRI, (note, version available was designed for an ARM 6 processor, needs a few modifications to make it work with an ARM 7), hooked up to a SPROG 3 and an SBOOST, gives a total of 5 amps running at 20 volts, using a modified PIKO power supply as the "guts", the latest Marklin Power supply would be a good choice.

Engine Driver is WiFi throttle of choice, have been working on and testing an Android app for this and other ideas.

Have also built a DCC command station, and a decoder with a Raspberry Pi B & B+.

Running a MSP430 microcontroller as a battery operated DCC decoder.

And for the sheer hell of it, hacked the SUSI bus!

As a very satisfied USER of the PIKO system, it's never given me a moment's grief, been as good as gold, does exactly what is is supposed to do.
 
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