ianjeffery

been able to get the parts cost down to £1.24, by getting the screw terminals from china - not sure on quality yet and shipping takes 1 month :-(

so far, the board price list is looking at about £4.90 so far. My biggest outlay is the terminal blocks for ease of use.... for the power connections, and the output to the arduino, whats peoples view ? screw terminal blocks or simple pin header ? pin header would reduce the cost, but not as easy for people to use.....

what would you expect / be willing to pay for such a board ? kit build and fully soldered ?

hi, so the board uses standard size components, and an 6n137 opti isolator. its an implementation of this https://rudysmodelrailway.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/schematic1.png with the ability to connect it to what ever pin ( usually a digital interrupt ) to the arduino..... you can then use it to connect other things to the arduino, so for me, im going to use them in my signal boxes, along with an arduino and an adafruit servo motor controller - my plan it ao connect a keyboard and a screen so i can either us dcc accessory addresses, or the keypad. i didnt want to have headers for an arduino ( although i might to a version like that too ) as i didnt want it to restrict the usage - but i wanted to make it small enough that anyone could hook it in to other projects.

not sure if this is the right place to post, but was wondering what people would think of this? I am going to sell some arduino - dcc interface boards - kit form, built, with/without an arduino nano..... i want to see what the interest would be...

Hi, it does have support for Arduino, but via the extension VisualMacro I think. however, yes its great. if your used to VS then its good to have it in there. It adds an arduino menu that allows you to build and upload. It also has intellisense which is a great help, and i think you can debug too.... http://www.visualmicro.com/page/Debugging-for-Arduino.aspx

Hi All, have a weird one.... I have a GaugeMaster DCC27 decoder in a loco ( Hornby class 37 from 20 years ago ).... it was working ok, but never great. I then decided to amend the deceleration as it was taking ages to stop ( it somehow gained a vlaue of 94, rather than 3 !!! ). since changing it, there seems to be NO movement from the motor at all now. I know the motor works, as tried different chips and it runs fine - plus when reading all the CV values, the wheels turn very small amounts.... Anyone had similar issues ? they decoders seem quite poor quality.

Hi Geoff.. sorry to but in, but it seems that your are thinking that what ever sketch loads up in the IDE is what is on the board? this is not the case.... what is in the IDE is not related to what has been downloaded to the board - its simply the last sketch you had open the last time it was closed down.

hi Geoff, sorry I have been away for a while. i'm back at work if you want to email me there.

hmmm, it could be, in which case a direct drive might be a better options... i guess with the higher gearing ratio you have, the more potential backlash......

well, my turntable is progressing, although it still has a few issues... i have a flexi coupler between the stepper/gearbox and the shaft from the turntable, but there seems to be alot of play in it meaning that a few microsteps dont always result in movement ! i might replace it with a solid coupler as i see no benefit with a flexi. you live and learn. I also discovered that my NCE powercab had a setting which was basically repeating packets to locos and accessories meaning that my event handler was firing twice !

the speakers were the original - i literally cut them and extended them - resoldering the wires - not touching the speaker or the decoder..... the only thing i can think is that i tested them initially with a SPROG, before moving them to the layout, which runs 15v from a NCE PowerCAB ( SPROG runs 12v ). could this be the reason the amps both blew ?

Need to vent... I bought two Hornby tts sound decoders for A4's and both - BOTH have failed in under 10 mins. Both of them still drive the loco, the first, a crackle was heard and from that point on the amp section of the pcb gets scalding hot the second - the sound just stopped. i know they are not alot of money, but the boy and i were looking forward to having Mallards with sound.... anyone else had poor experience with the TTS sound decoders?

all, gave it a try last night and it makes such a difference. No massive vibrations, and a very smooth movement.

@Simon. and your in Kent too? im in Maidstone.

Hi Simon, does it work really well and give great control ?

just thought id add to this thread - i decided to buy a new stepper motor with a 100:1 gearbox as I cant get microstepping to work properly without judder ( from the A4988 )

yea - new territory for me too. I prototyped a few first, and then had a board built using Frizting. if you want to pm me, ill let you know my email address and we can work on it together.

Geoff... also, if it helps, I was going to make up some PCB's that are just the DCC interface to the arduino nano. i could make one and send it to you ???

Hi Geoff. Is the DCC controller actually sending packets? What DCC controller are you using? mine also sent nothing through - was using a SPROG and then realised that i had not turned the power on in JMRI.

Hi, me again. I have made my own circuit board and started to use the A4988 motor driver instead of the AdaFruit one, however i'm not impressed at all. The results have been far less than i expected. I cant get a smooth movement - its constantly jerky - and this is with the AccelStepper library. I have to speed it up too much in order to get smooth running on 1/16 steps. I am considering going back to the Adafruit shield as the results for this were good. Also be aware of the code from RigidColision. His code was for a stepper motor with a gearbox - don't do what i did and just upload it to the Arduino without change - it makes the turntable turn in to a helicopter! Anyone else had these thoughts?

Just a quick Update.... i designed a PCB using fritzing ( http://www.fritzing.org ) which is an awesomely easy app by the way... I have NEVER designed a circuit board before, but this was so easy. and on top of that, they have an export function, AND a fabricate button - which links to www.aisler.net who then produce them - ok its not as cheap as china made boards, but the main thing is its easy and the support is amazing. I made my first board, and after 10 days i was showing a friend what i had done, when i realised i missed a 5v track! I emailed them and they gave me a discount code for my replacement. These guys are seriously great...... I cant recommend them enough.

Hi Ray. yes, i think it was down to a dodgy dcc pickup - im using a crocodile clip to pick up the signal from a small piece of test track. the setup is as follows... Win 10 PC. Sprog 3 DCC via usb Arduino uno v3 via usb. Sprog track feeds connected to a small section of test track. breadboard with components on next to arduino. crocodile clips connecting to the track.... good news tonight is that i made a much better track connection and it all seems fine now..,. I have also added in your decoder code, and i can see when i flick decoder 200 in JMRI :-)

all, strange thing seems to be happening...... i only get packets picked up if i have my hand near one of the crocodile clips connecting the track dcc signal to the board???? if i dont have my hand near it i get no packets picked up????

all. been fiddling around with a breadboard just to see if i can get anything working... after a bit of a head scratcher i realised my connection to the SPROG isn't great - a bit loose and so sometimes looses the signal ( or my sprog 3 is not 100% ok )... anyway, here is a dcc_monitor program running!