September Update

This month I have been away in the country to be with my wife for a week and managed to get the 3 light signal driver PCB's built, helped Ros dismantle Pam's Benmoor & Waitaki River Railroad layout, ordered the proof of concept Ambient Light Detector PCB's, made some progress on the Signaling Concept Design, Pierre had another training session and the final Grand Opening Video will be available next month.

So absolutely nothing was done in the layout room this month!

3 Light Signal Driver Circuits

I have finished building the 120 or so PCB's!

Parts box at start

Production Line

Soldering seemed to never end.... 

Completed board

A pile during construction!

Depleted parts box...

I got the boards from Rob Paisley - link

Ambient Light Detector PCB

Wayne and I have completed the design of the Printed Circuit Board and two proof of concept boards have been ordered. We decided to get it professionally made and if successful we will order more!

Here is a sneak peek of the layout.

Signalling Concept Design

This is where most of my time has gone this month.  I mounted the development board on a frame to make the task easier.

The "Junction Logic" board had to be amended following the decision to isolate the 3.3V microprocessor circuit from the 12 V signal operation circuits using optocouplers.

Version 1

Version 2

Adding the "turnout State" wiring (left) & Control RED outputs (right).

In the July I indicated that I wanted the Full use of the TI LaunchPad MSP430G2553 which means re-configuring the PIN use from "Communications" to "I/O".  For those that may be interested following research I can report that you need to configure pins P2.6 & P2.7 using the following:

   P2SEL &= ~BIT6; // Port P2.6 as I/O 1 of 2 steps
   P2SEL2 &= ~BIT6; // Port P2.6 as I/O 2 of 2 steps

   P2SEL &= ~BIT7; // Port P2.7 as I/O 1 of 2 steps
   P2SEL2 &= ~BIT7; // Port P2.7 as I/O 2 of 2 steps

before and in addition to the usual configuration definitions.

I am now refining the microprocessor programming to include "error checking" whilst undertaking extensive testing.

I also got some 10, 20 & 40 way ribbon cables for interconnection of all the baords.

10 way

Pierre in training

Pierre is gaining more confidence and I think he is enjoying the experience. He has completed a pick up run and a separate set out run.  Now for the combination!!  I have put a small presentation together for him to learn the different types of rolling stock.

Grand Opening Video

Part 3 should be available next month.

A BIG thank you must go to Don for all the work required to put these together for me.



That's it for this month.


Thanks again to those that continue to help me achieve my ambitions and hello once again to all my followers!


Till the end of October.

-ooOOOoo-