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  1. #1
    Automated Home Legend chris_j_hunter's Avatar
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    Default Railway ...

    wondered if anyone had used Cortex to help automate a model railway ...

    we've a simple oval + a couple of sidings, each with a train, and reed-switches & separate forward & reverse power-feeds for each leg of the points (so, two points, six reed-switches, 2x four power-feeds) ...

    reed switches will signal momentarily, so we're using them to trigger sets of cascaded T-FlipFlop gates - four per set, and one set per route through the points (so, four sets), as a way of knowing which train & which direction & which point & which route through the point ...

    and using these to set points & signals appropriately ...

    plus a simple control panel with a plan of the circuit, LED-indicators & push-buttons for user-input ...

    we're building the (Cortex) Connections stage by stage & testing as we go ...

    needs to be user-friendly & fool-proof & crash-free, and manual or automatic !

    some way to go ... so not too late to change the approach !
    Last edited by chris_j_hunter; 6th October 2013 at 09:28 AM.

  2. #2
    Automated Home Legend Karam's Avatar
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    Default

    Love it

  3. #3
    Automated Home Ninja marcuslee's Avatar
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by chris_j_hunter View Post
    wondered if anyone had used Cortex to help automate a model railway ...

    we've a simple oval + a couple of sidings, each with a train, and reed-switches & separate forward & reverse power-feeds for each leg of the points (so, two points, six reed-switches, 2x four power-feeds) ...

    reed switches will signal momentarily, so we're using them to trigger sets of cascaded T-FlipFlop gates - four per set, and one set per route through the points (so, four sets), as a way of knowing which train & which direction & which point & which route through the point ...

    and using these to set points & signals appropriately ...

    plus a simple control panel with a plan of the circuit, LED-indicators & push-buttons for user-input ...

    we're building the (Cortex) Connections stage by stage & testing as we go ...

    needs to be user-friendly & fool-proof & crash-free, and manual or automatic !

    some way to go ... so not too late to change the approach !
    Also with Christmas round the corner, is there any way to do the house lights synch'ed to music etc, eg Idratek http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQyJnppDiyI ?

  4. #4
    Automated Home Legend chris_j_hunter's Avatar
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    just to note - we got it working fine, but then the point-motor switching became unreliable ...

    some Googling brought to-view Capacitor Discharge Units - implying the problem was with the power supply (accessory outputs from the train speed-controller) being under-specified ('though we have just two points, operated individually) ...

    so we bought one, and hope to fit it soon ...

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