I thought some of you might be interested in the r/c points controller which I`ve just completed (with much valuable assistance from Greg H and from David T at Deltang).
I`m slowly moving over to battery radio control from DCC and was wondering if there might be a way for me to control some of the more remote turnouts on my railway. Initially, they were switched with LGB motors controlled via hard wiring from a box in the outhouse. I then replaced the manual switches with DCC points controllers. I was looking for a way of replacing these with something radio controlled.
From Deltang I got a Tx27 points control transmitter kit which I made up, putting the switches on the box in positions roughly equivalent to their locations on my railway
I then made a relay board which is controlled by a Picaxe project board (many thanks to Greg H for the guidance he provided on programming this and helping me understand how to wire it up). The Picaxe board is connected to a Deltang Rx105 receiver. The Picaxe takes the signal from the receiver and then, depending on which way the switch on the tx is pointing, tells a DPDT relay to switch before then sending a pulse of 12v to the relevant point motor though one of the SPST relays. All this is powered from an old Scalextric 12v transformer via a power supply (thanks again to Greg H for his guidance on this).
My six more-difficult-to-reach points are now operated through the tx (which can control up to seven outputs).
BTW. The Deltang controller is designed to be used directly with servos and/or to switch on and off LEDs etc - no need for all the extra hardware. I just wanted it to control the existing point motors I already had in-situ. I could have replaced the LGB point motors with servos - but this seemed a lot more interesting.
Thanks again to Greg for guiding me through this and to David T at Deltang for answering my very basic questions.
Rik
I`m slowly moving over to battery radio control from DCC and was wondering if there might be a way for me to control some of the more remote turnouts on my railway. Initially, they were switched with LGB motors controlled via hard wiring from a box in the outhouse. I then replaced the manual switches with DCC points controllers. I was looking for a way of replacing these with something radio controlled.
From Deltang I got a Tx27 points control transmitter kit which I made up, putting the switches on the box in positions roughly equivalent to their locations on my railway
I then made a relay board which is controlled by a Picaxe project board (many thanks to Greg H for the guidance he provided on programming this and helping me understand how to wire it up). The Picaxe board is connected to a Deltang Rx105 receiver. The Picaxe takes the signal from the receiver and then, depending on which way the switch on the tx is pointing, tells a DPDT relay to switch before then sending a pulse of 12v to the relevant point motor though one of the SPST relays. All this is powered from an old Scalextric 12v transformer via a power supply (thanks again to Greg H for his guidance on this).
My six more-difficult-to-reach points are now operated through the tx (which can control up to seven outputs).
BTW. The Deltang controller is designed to be used directly with servos and/or to switch on and off LEDs etc - no need for all the extra hardware. I just wanted it to control the existing point motors I already had in-situ. I could have replaced the LGB point motors with servos - but this seemed a lot more interesting.
Thanks again to Greg for guiding me through this and to David T at Deltang for answering my very basic questions.
Rik
