At today's West of Scotland Area Group meeting, we were treated to a presentation and demonstration by Chris Cosgrove from the East of Scotland Area Group.
Their layout is a basic oval with two additional loop sidings.
A further siding leads to a turntable off which is a track to an engine shed.
To add interest, a working level crossing with flashing lights will be added.
The layout is controlled using an EzyBus controller, one input board and two output boards all connected by I2C.
The level crossing is triggered by two laser TOTI's (one each side). To create the necessary delays, Chris designed a circuit using the PIC 12F675, the outputs of which are fed to the EzyBus Input Board.
Switches are also connected to the Input Board for point selection, Engine shed door operation and turntable position selection.
The Output boards are used for Servo Control of the points, the automation of the Engine Shed doors and for the level crossing gates. Additional digital outputs control the flashing lights and provide inputs to a separate Arduino UNO that controls the turntable through a ULN2003 driver and low cost stepper motor.
During the demonstration an Output Module was damaged. Chris showed how easy it was to quickly replace the board without having to adjust anything. This is a very useful feature of EzyBus particularly for exhibition layouts.
Following the presentation a useful question and answer session followed. For those already using EzyBus, a new software version for the Master unit has been written and should be available on the MERG website in the next few days.
Our thanks to Chris for an excellent presentation.
EzyBus update is now available billed as V2 on the down load, my update went with out a hitch.
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