Another update that got missed during the summer. Following on from the success with the MERG electronics I looked at tidying up the wiring of the pushbuttons with another new PCB. JLCPCB again came up trumps and even managed to produce plated through slots for the switches to solder to. A quick before and after, much better I think

Then I thought about the need for a variable supply for the LED lighting - I'd used Black Cat Technologies dimming units before connected to the DCC bus. I thought it was time I had my own so I came up with this:

It's got 2 outputs, the first is just rectified and smoothed DCC bus, so approx 14v DC from my Powercab. Ideal for accessories that want a DC supply. The second is variable from 1.5 to 14v DC, this is the one I'll be using to supply the lighting and also drive the motor for the winding wheel mechanism ....

Finally planning for the future I realised that I would want to fire two servos at the same time from the same DCC accessory number. Crossovers are a good example of this. My APS4 design would allow for an secondary servo driver connected to the servo drive inputs. MERG already have a "Servo4" design that would do fine, however, they have announced that it is due to be redesigned with a 12v DC supply - no good for me as I want to power from the DCC bus (as always!). So I did my own version, removing the bits I didn't want and condensing it onto a 50x50mm PCB.

I took the liberty of using an LM317 variable voltage regulator with a timing circuit to provide a "soft start" supply to the servos which has eliminated power on twitch too 🙂

So that's that for the electronics. Back to the landscaping!