Since I was there...
... and had already confirmed a modest case of "stepping over a line", there's been some additional work going on.
I give you a DCC Generator that supports multiple Power DCC Districts.
OK. Stunned silence from most of the audience, and I would imagine for 95% of those people using DCC out there this means little to nothing and even if it did has little to no practical use.
Question: What is a DCC Power District?
Answer: As I understand it it's a mechanism for subdividing up a layout is separate areas such that if there is a "power event" within an area (e.g. short circuit or overload), then only that area is impacted as the controller only shuts down the power supply to that area. The rest of the layout continues unaffected.
So .. what have I done?
Behind the scenes at a software level quite a lot. Visually the display on the front of the box has been updated, thus:
The central area now reflects the fact that I've taken to lettering each of the possible outputs from the Motor Shield alphabetically, and display each with a small "power bar" (in this case a really short one of just a '=' symbol). This displays all the driver devices inside the box (only two in the case of a standard Motor Shield) regardless of their association with the operations track or the programming track. In the event that there is an event then the controller removes the power from that driver and fills that bar display with '*'s (which are meant to flash, but haven't yet). After a short period of time (5 seconds at the moment, probably too short) it tries to restart the output.
I realise that with only two possible outputs this seems like a waste of effort, after all you need one output for the main track and one for the programming track. However, the programming track is now optional in the firmware, so it is possible to have two power districts driving the main track. But .. I have some bits and pieces on the way, and it should be possible to make a shield with four drivers which would still work on an Arduino Uno, and if you're up for it, six or eight using an Arduino Mega.
Anyway, that's a week or two away.
Here we are running a couple of trains (Nos 10 and 51, as above 
), tail chasing style, round the layout using the controller with the new firmware: https://photos.app.goo.gl/h5etMcWpHnQQ9fT59
Jeff.
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