nigelwright7557

I have been around for over a year now. I sell model railway electronic controls. DCC controllers, DCC shuttle, DC shuttle, DCC reverser, PC USB DCC controller etc. My website is at www.platformfour.uk

I hate laptops, too slow and the finger pad is terrible. I have a desktop 12600k processor, 24gb DRAM and big monitor. It is lightning fast and the screen easy to read. I do have a laptop but used for backup in case desktop fails. If you really need a laptop an SSD makes a big difference to boot times and disk access speed. At least a 12th gen processor. I only ever bought one pc in the 1990's. The rest I built myself. Just buy in components from likes of AWD and its not hard to put together. Makes upgrading easy as all I need is motherboard and cpu. Maybe DRAM sometimes. If you dont need ligntning graphics most Intel processors come with onboard graphics which is good for anything but demanding games.

Hi I have been into model railways since age of 4. Remember the steam age as a child. I am an electronics and software engineer. I design and build my own DCC and DC controllers.

Will the Lenz work with Hornby select ? Are all these encoders/decoders compatible or is it bets to stick to one make ?

I eventually chased the standards down. I finally got programming CV1 loco address change sorted.

Having been an electronics/software guy for 40 years I do a lot of my own model railway electronics. I did a small layout (Penrith & Blencow) which had 2 platforms at each station. This meant I could run 3 trains automatically around the 4 branches. I used PIC microcontroller, PWM and relays to switch power to various block sections. I also had a destination board LCD display. I added an automatic speech announcement system using a sound chip. I used my echo box to get some spacial sound and it sounded very good. In more recent times I have got into DCC. I designed and built a DCC shuttle. I am currently working on a DCC encoder. It can control up to 127 loco's. It can also control function decoders for points etc. It can change loco's address if required. Great fun.

Wanted very cheap dcc points decoder, would prefer Hornby.

Managed to get my system to change CV1 now. It takes quite a few loops code but works fine now. Thanks for the help.

Partly the challenge, I have been programming for 40 years so always looking for a new challenge. The biggest challenge with DCC is getting the right information to do certain tasks. The software part is easy. Loads of info around on DCC CV's. However, not so much on the fine detail of how many bits in preamble and how many times you should send a set command. What I have found is differing ways of doing it which just causes confusion. As said earlier managed to get a loco to go forward and backward and change speed so basic communications are right. My DCC loco has gone wrong now and for some reasons thinks its address is 255 ! So waiting for a new decoder to test my CV changing software.

My new pcb with motor H driver in and built up. Took some time to get 1 and 0 timings as close as I could get them. I can now get loco to move forward and backwards. I can also alter its speed. Struggling setting CV1 despite sending out codes DCC spec says. Code has to be sent twice to set a CV which I do.

Thanks for the standards name. I found the data I am looking for in there.

I have managed to build my own DCC controller. The software currently can move a train forward and reverse at a speed I set. So far so good. My next step is to start programming CV's. I have looked high and low and cant find the data packet information. Lots of info around on which CV does what but very little on data format to be sent to the loco. Any help would be appreciated.

Mine is pretty basic. Forward/reverse and speed control. It can send function commands too. I might expand it in the future.

I am using a PIC32mx230 microcontroller. I am using a 2 amp motor driver H bridge to drive the loco. Communications with the PCB is via USB to a Windows PC. The hardware also has short circuit detect with overload LED indicator.

Working on a basic DCC controller. It controls speed and direction of up to 127 loco's. It can also send function commands to loco's too. Uses PC software which sends commands via USB to my DCC controller.