开云体育

Just to add another view (which perhaps is an extension of what Richard will soon find with his Pi Servo pHAT approach) ...

I use DCC++ on an Arduino Mega with motor shield to command the locos on my small G-scale garden railway.? (It's connected to an iMac running JMRI and I use the iThrottle app to give me a wifi roving throttle? The Mega gets its power over USB from the iMac;? the motor shield has a separate 20V DC input to pass on to the rails.)

Quite separately, I have an ESP32 chip loaded with a modification from 2 sets of Rui Santos's code to set up a wifi server (search for ESP32 wifi server on youTube to find one video on creating a web server with buttons and one for servo control with a slider). My version provides a webpage of buttons to any connected client (such as an iPhone).? The client sends a web request of the form 192.168.55..1/?NN on my local network.? The ESP32 wifi server picks out the NN and recognises this as a request to switch a particular point/turnout servo, connected to a pin on the ESP32.? (I have 5 servos but it could support more.)? Note (1) that the ESP (and from there the servos) is powered from a 5V supply from a phone charger brick, and not from the DCC++ power supply - it's the sort of thing that you can use to recharge your phone when you're out and about and (2) the ESP32 can either send a single command to a servo to say move straight to position x, or a sequence of commands to move the servo incrementally to its end position to produce a smoother point change.

All works fine.? The only problem is I have two separate interfaces to play with - one to JMRI and one to the ESP32 - so tend to have to have both an iPhone (to the ESP32) and iPad (to WiThrottle) to hand, which is cumbersome.

Hence, I'm looking for an easy way for WiThrottle/JMRI to instruct the ESP32 to do something.

Maybe I can modify Outputs.cpp in the Arduino code to call the ESP32 webpage...? (Is there an HTTP library that might support this?)
Maybe the ESP32 will work with one of the DCCInterface.com products mentioned on the? page given by fcot2002 earlier (note the link there had a mistake in it).
If anyone has tried either of these things, please let me know with some details.
I'll write again if I get anywhere.

Regards,

Les

I've not played with the train tracking in a few years, but here is a basic
issue that existed with the blocks doing the tracking. This relied on the
occupancy detection to work. In case of a short on the track, some detectors
would turn off (no track power), some would turn all detectors on (failsafe
for the signals to go stop), and some could be wired to know track power was
going off (short) but preserve the block status. The drawback was if the
block detector went off, it would clear the contents of the id it had been
holding. So any little glitch in the train detection generally drove the
tracking of ids nuts.

Now I know some of the newer tools tried to improve over this. I'd like to
hear what has been improved. I think the Operations part is separate and
works off the Conductor 'moving' the train along as work is done. That would
not be dependent on the track occupancy.

-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
www.jmri.org
www.fingerlakeslivesteamers.org
www.cnymod.com
www.syracusemodelrr.org

Ken C,

I talked with Ed at NCE about LEDs not working. Since my PC recognizes the
Silbar software in COMM 4 port, Ed thinks problem in the USB interface. I am
sending it to NCE to be checked out. I apologize for taking up so much
valuable time of all the individuals who have responded. In the process, I
have learned a few more items about JMRI that I did not know. I will report
back when I hear from NCE.

Thank very much,


Thank you,

Ken Skopp
Train Show Coordinator
Grand River Valley Railroad Club
616-667-9680

Chris,

You are describing Control Panel Editor, not Layout Editor.

Dave Sand

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 02:07 PM, <fcot2002@...> wrote:

... Layout Editor and OBlocks ...

In Layout Editor for "Indicator Track" and "Indicator Turnout" items there's an option to "Display Train Name when occupied" available when you create or edit the item. I have one item in each OBlock set to display the name.

The next bit I'm really not to sure about but I place my physical train in the starting OBlock then set up a train tracker for that train. I know see the train name displayed in that OBlock. As the train moves to an adjacent OBlock the displayed name should follow it.

I say "should" because I haven't got things quite right yet and my tracker seems to loose the train now and again. Usually I get a dialog popping up saying the location of the train is unknown, its last known location is unoccupied, and asking me to select a possible location (which is usually where the train now is). The odd thing is on the Layout panel the train is shown having moved into the correct block and the problem isn't when the train enters the next block but as it leaves the previous block. However that's a different topic to what you asked.

I presume this tracking will work with warrants. I think when a warrant is run it waits for you to put the train in the first OBlock and that you have to use a train tracker to do this. I've not yet seen a way of doing this directly from the warrant window when I start a warrant but again I'm just starting to get to grips with all this.

--
Chris White

Hello Group,

Thank you to all who commented on my earlier post where I was trying to connect servos directly to my Arduino Mega running the DCC++ sketch. With everyone's help, I have decided to abandon that approach.

I have ordered a Pi Servo pHAT for my Raspberry Pi that is running JMRI. This $10.95 product has 16 channels that allow for direct connection and management of 16 servos. Here is information on how it works:



Has anyone used a this product, or something similar? I am assuming I will be able to configure and operate this within the JMRI environment.

Richard

Thanks Ken,

This sounds like the issue I am seeing ...

So today I am trying a different approach. Rather than connect the servo to the Arduino Mega with the DCC++ sketch, I have ordered a Pi Servo pHAT for the Raspberry Pi that is running JMRI. This $10.95 product has 16 channels that allow for direct connection and management of 16 servos. Here is information on how it works:



Has anyone used a this product, or something similar? I am assuming I will be able to configure and operate this within the JMRI environment.

Richard

Yes, I am trying run this on the same Arduino Mega that is running the DCC++ code. I just assumed that the DCC++ base station code, when configured for the outputs would handle one servo.

Did I assume incorrectly?

I?use Layout Editor and OBlocks? ;-)

Is it worth mentioning that the answer will vary depending on if you use Layout Editor and OBlocks or Panel Editor and Blocks?

--
Chris White

I know of one layout that uses CATS and OperationsPro to move the loco icon, so it can be done.

Dan

See my original comment, you can pull and set out anywhere in the train's route.? It doesn't matter if the train is a turn.

Dan

Ken S,

I presume you mean the data LED's on the USB board? Seeing them flash is
sometimes tricky. Bigger issues are when they become stuck on, that's a
different case of issues.

-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
www.jmri.org
www.fingerlakeslivesteamers.org
www.cnymod.com
www.syracusemodelrr.org

Hello Ken C.

Since the LED lights do not work, I am checking with NCE today. I guess the
problem must me with the USB interface. I will recap conversation with NCE
after I talk with Ed.

Ken S

Dave H,

Just to remind me, if the cab id is not valid in the USB, we still get the
AA command acknowledged, but we'd not be able to talk to the command
station, correct? I don't think that is any part of this issue, but checking
what I remember.

-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
www.jmri.org
www.fingerlakeslivesteamers.org
www.cnymod.com
www.syracusemodelrr.org