Railway ...

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  • chris_j_hunter
    Automated Home Legend
    • Dec 2007
    • 1713

    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; 6 October 2013, 09:28 AM.
    Our self-build - going further with HA...
  • Karam
    Automated Home Legend
    • Mar 2005
    • 863

    #2
    Love it

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    • marcuslee
      Automated Home Ninja
      • Dec 2009
      • 279

      #3
      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 ?

      Comment

      • chris_j_hunter
        Automated Home Legend
        • Dec 2007
        • 1713

        #4
        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 ...
        Our self-build - going further with HA...

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