Home Brew Control and Automation

[DiscoSteve]

Following on from my comment on the HM6000 topic I have started to dig into what can be achieved using a Raspberry Pi - I have many and have used them home automation (driving Philips Hue lights, responding to Amazon Alexa, reading RFID cards etc) and so using one for this requirement seems a no-brainer to me.  Basic hard including PSU can be less than £20.

 

To quote Mr Clarkson, how hard can it be.

 

Ultimately, if you stay away from DCC, then all you need is some way to control one or more varying voltages being feed to sections of track. 

 

So a quick google led me to this:

https://www.penguintutor.com/projects/model-railway

 

Looks perfect - I have spend the princely sum of £20 for some 'stuff' of Amazon and Ebay and I'm going to see how easy it is to get it working.  The python/JS code for the controller and Web UI is easy for me.  Controlling rolling stock also looks easy, taking inputs looks straightforward too, and I don't doubt I can drive lighting/led's without any difficulty.

 

I don't know whether anyone else has tried anything like this (I didn't search for it) but I'll document in this thread how I have got on.

[DiscoSteve]

So far so good - haven't physically wired up the 12V PSU via the L298N and Raspberry PI to the track yet but the basic UI is humming on my phone (BTW the domainname is my own and the r12 DNS record for convenience just points back at my Local IP address so no point anyone trying to hack what you see here as it won't work unless you're physically on my home network)

 

[DiscoSteve]

And it works!  Horrible ugly UI and tested using an R600 straight and a little Hornby 0-4-0 tank engine I had lying around as a potential sacrificial loco for this test.  I was doing the driving off a Web Browser on my Laptop talking to the Raspberry Pi simply to be able to video it but it works equally as well from a Mobile Phone! 

 

 

[F2Andy]

I am considering doing similar, and just came across your thread when I did a search. Could you give some details on how you handled RFIDs? I am using N gauge tank engines, so would need to find some very small ones. They seem to exist, but I am not sure where best to get them. And what is the deal with readers? Do you just plug it into your Pi? Can you have several on the layout? Any chance they connect into an I2C bus, as I will be using that for points and lights.

 

Basically, any advice to get me going would be great!