Simond

My t/t only goes one way, because that was a satisfactory way of solving the issue of backlash.  
 

I have three possible outlets, and thus six positions for the table.  A loco arrives on the coal road, tender first (because it has reversed from the terminus), drops its ash, and takes coal, turns, and leaves (tender first) by the adjacent road to go on shed (tender out) or parks in the “back siding”.   If the latter, it would be tender first, so chimney out.  
 

As the adjacent road is only a few degrees  from the coal road, the t/t has to do about 170 degrees to turn the loco, so going only one way is entirely reasonable.  The empty table then does the 10 degrees to reset for the next loco.

if you go through this process in your head for your layout, you might find turning is logically one way only too.

Ray

Simply comment out the lines that set the direction to the one you don’t want.  There’s probably a Boolean variable “DIR”? that can will go one way if it’s 1 or t’other if it’s 0,  
 

If DIR Is always 1 or always 0, It’ll always go the same way.

Another vote against FB.  I’d suggest you have your own website, and then you can use it as you wish.

but in any case, I’ve followed HLJ since the thread started, and I’ll get to see it in the flesh sometime, soon, I hope.

thanks for an inspirational story, and some truly epic modelling.

cheers

Simon

Oooh, err.  I had a stent for a stenosis last April, Covid apparently caused a (happily) very minor heart attack, but an aneurism is an altogether scarier beast!

very best wishes for a complete recovery

Simon

I habitually run my serial monitor at 115200 baud.  No issues to report.

17 hours ago, Simond said:

One lathe (1940s), one small milling machine, a Porsche, three pedal cycles, two motorbikes and a laser cutter.  
 

the Landrover lives outside, it’s free range… 

I forgot.  One Radar, one 6-man liferaft, one Suzuki 40hp oil inject outboard, and four British Seagull outboards of varying descriptions.  All of which are looking for a good home as surplus to requirements.  The probably don’t fit in a large letter, so collection, I think.

One lathe (1940s), one small milling machine, a Porsche, three pedal cycles, two motorbikes and a laser cutter.  
 

the Landrover lives outside, it’s free range… 

Adverts in GOG Gazette

I’d love to see this, and MrsD & looked at doing the trip, but Kent to Harrogate is looking at three hundred quid return… even allowing for my old git’s card.  Add two nights in a hotel and the show entry tickets, curries, drinks, and spending a few bob at the show and it’s an entirely unreasonable £500 plus for a weekend away.

add to that SouthEastern’s dire warnings of snow, sleet, freezing fog and other apocalyptic horsemen, and we’ll regretfully pass on this occasion.

one day, I hope.  Have a great show!

Simon

that’s rather disappointing, but sadly not surprising.

Anthony, two thoughts.  
 

firstly you have infinitely more patience than I have

secondly (and possibly more helpfully), the extra bits look “glossy”.  Not sure if that’s glue that hasn’t dried or what, but it doesn’t look right IMO.  Possibly (hopefully) it’ll sort itself, if not, a blat of matt varnish, perhaps?

atb

Simon

I see you're still using imperial measurements, I though Aus was metric, but you have a foot for scale...

19 minutes ago, Grafarman said:

Awesome modelling Anthony; just hoping that, given the enormity of the layout as a whole, it won't disappear into the backscene..!

 

David

in a strange sort of way, I hope it does do exactly that.  
 

The model as a whole is “railway in the scenery”, something that most mortals can only think of doing in 2mm/N, and so the castle, the headland and the rest of the scenery do, I think, want to just “sit together”.  
 

Then again, it’s perhaps a bit daft to say “no one thing should stand out” when Anthony has spent many months building a scale model of a mountain…

Paul

Please could you repost the PDF as the link appears to be broken?

thanks & kind regards

Simon

Jeff,

I’m sure that’s a proper job.  Very much what I had in mind.

Dave Brooks was a decent bloke and his untimely death is another valuable supplier lost.

cheers

Simon

Robin,

am I right in thinking that you used “warm white”?
 

the eBay site appears a little expensive.  If you can solder the wires to the led, there are some here at 10 to 30p each.  Beware the MOQ, you probably don’t want three thousand on a reel…

sorry, forgot to post the link!

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/c/displays-optoelectronics/leds-light-emitting-diodes/leds/?applied-dimensions=4294378837,4294511129

this might also help

https://www.rapidonline.com/0603-1608-metric

cheers

Simon

Ah, I agee, the one on the left is better, but the one on the right looks more like the grass in the photo!

Hands down the right hand one…

On 19/12/2022 at 10:55, nikkib said:

Simon, that would be a great help many thanks

Oh dear, it seems I completely forgot, I do apologise.

general overview of tt.  
 

Close-up of position sensor.  There’s a piece of white plasticard under the bridge deck at the end where a careless loco man left one of his lamps.  This is used to initialise the position, and resets the counter on every revolution.

Control panel, still work-in -progress, witness the elastic bands, where did I put the screws?   The six buttons correspond to the six positions of the t/t, again, where the loco lamp is.  There’s an Arduino Mega and a CAN module in there.  
 

The table only rotates one way.  I got fed up with trying to eliminate backlash, and it’s not operationally a disadvantage, so I took the easy way out.

this is the tt controller, Arduino nano clone, an MCP2515 CAN transceiver, and the Stepper driver.  Sorry it’s really difficult to make out, the 12v supply for the stepper is at the bottom left - red & black twisted pair, the CAN board is hiding the stepper controller, which is one of those little red numbers with the sticky-heat-sink on top.  
 

the connections to the tt are the four stepper wires, +5V and ground to the deck polarity relay and the sensor, the relay signal and the sensor output, total 8.  And they go…

sorry, this is a lousy photo, it’s dark under there!  You can see the stepper and it’s gearbox to the left, the red light is the deck relay and between them are the connections to the sensor.  This is a a photo transistor and an infrared led, in the tiny package in the second photo.

and for some reason, it’s not working.  The tt currently fails to initialise, so it just goes round and round…. I haven’t got around to plugging in the laptop to see what’s not doing what it ought.  It’s worked pretty well to date, so I’ll be surprised if a component has failed, but it’ll likely be an easy fix.

I’ll post up some more when I find out what’s awry.

atb

Simon

I feel sure that a replacement UNO (or a clone) would still work with the sketch you have, but that’s not the same as saying “it will work” :)

I suspect we are in the “damaged component” territory.  

I recommend trying a generic USB wall wart to power the Arduino, if it works, it means you could leave it in place and switch it on and off with the layout.  And likely cost about five quid.

Cheers

Simon

Well, I suggested, or at least meant to suggest, there must be power to everything, and a common ground.  Your usb connection will provide power, but not necessarily a common ground, so I would not hang too much on that.  

So, it works correctly with the laptop plugged in, but not if it isn’t.  
 

have you tried using a usb charger in place of the laptop?  
 

If it still works properly like that, you could perhaps live with it, they’re only a fiver, but I’d still want to know why the power supply that it used to function with isn’t powering everything now.  Have you perhaps blown a component?

Geoff,

the USB lead is supplying +5V and ground to something that isn’t getting powered when you don’t have the lapotop connected,  I’m now 99.99% sure if this!  
 

You now need to find out what!

Geoff, 

mare’s nest…. Or snake pit!

I have no experience of the Adafruit shield, or the DCC interface, so I’m not going to be a huge help here, I fear.

the key things are that you must have are power to all boards, and a common ground.  that, and the signals getting from the DCC to the Arduino to the stepper.
 

My suspicion is that somehow, when you power the Arduino up using the Mac, it is somehow powering something else, which is not being powered when you use the power Jack.    
 

it’s initialising, so the Arduino and stepper driver must be powered up, so I reckon you need to look to check that the DCC interface is doing what it ought.

hth

Simon

Geoff,

when you say it works as it has over the last few years, am I right to think that with the Mac connected, the DCC works, via your normal ESU DCC controller, but, if you disconnect only the computer, and put in the power jumper, it does not function?

Are you sure there is a ground connection for both signal and power to the Arduino?

I presume the Arduino on-board power led is lit in both cases?