Well it has been a month since I posted this and no responses ...

I was hoping somebody might have something.

I did get my Arduino Uno. Haven't had an opportunity to play with it yet. Here is a photo ...



That is a USB connector on the upper left and a power jack below it.

Although I haven't found anyone to share any code, I know the Arduino should be able to do it. Here is a pic of the PCB for Marklin's digital signal. If the detail is good enough, you can see the Atmel Mega8 chip, a little sister to the Atmel chip on the Arduino.



However what I have found are two sites with code for a DCC decoder. One has the Arduino code for a DCC receive subroutine. The other site has a number of complete C programs for DCC decoders that do different things. There is some interesting coding for setting the address and a "mode". Like some decoders where you press a programming button and then click on a item from the CS, these programs also select a mode based on which item you click from the CS2. Let's see if I can explain. Normally if you press item #5 from the keyboard menu, you have chosen address #2 for the decoder. For signals, it would give you the first of four devices on address #2. With the decoder software for DCC this website shows, depending on which red or green position you click on items #5-8, you will select a mode of 0-7 and the program within the micro-controller decoder can then respond differently as to how it operates. It might allow you to control turnouts with different pulse durations, signals with different aspects, lights that turn on slowly (like simulating a sodium bulb) and more. I am going to have to dig into this some more.

I am still looking for the code for Marklin's Motorola format so if anyone has anything let me know. Meanwhile when I get some time, I will look into how I can get the C program to load into the Arduino. It does look promising.

Robert

Robert,

If you have an Apple iThing you may take a look at this.




http://blog.makezine.com...ino-no-jailbreaking.html



http://www.makershed.com...e=MSRP02&Click=37845




r/Thomas

Hi Robert.

Get an iThing with TouchCab, may change your mind.


as for Motorola maybe start here.

THE MANUAL OF THE NEW MÄRKLIN-MOTOROLA FORMAT

http://home.arcor.de/dr....nig/digital/motorola.htm



r/Thomas

Got you. Have you looked on the Stummi forum?


r/Thomas

Thanks again Thomas, I have those sites. The opendcc.org site is where I got the code for a DCC decoder although it is in C programming. It is quite interesting. There is another site

http://opendcc.sourceforge.net/

They have taken the work from the opendcc.org site and converted the receive data part of the code and converted it to Arduino code.

You program the Arduino with a supplied free compiler that uses a modified C++ programming. However I have also found that thru third party compilers (Eclipse), you can take regular C/C++ code, compile it and download to the Arduino. That software is free and I have downloaded it. When I get some time, I will start playing with it. Since the opendcc.org site also gives schematics of their boards based on the Atmel micro-computer, there are some electronic parts I need to pick up to interface to the DCC signal and the output circuits to drive relays, turnout motors, etc.

As for the Arduino, there are a lot of sites selling stuff. I found one in China that has sensors, shields and other items at real good prices. Here is the link:

http://yourduino.com/whatcanido.htm

I placed and order and it arrived earlier this week.

I have found shields that will control a number of motors or stepper motors. As soon as I can come up with an idea to use it with the trains, I'll order one of those.

If you find a site that has the programming coding for Marklin/Motorola accessory decoders, let me know. Hex code may not necessarily work if it is for a different Atmel chip that what the Arduino has. With the programming code I would be able to modify the code to do other things.

Thanks again for your help.

Robert

I picked up my board for around $30 US. It is an official Arduino board. There are some third party vendors that you might get it a little cheaper. You also can probably build a cheaper board from scratch but this board is all ready to go for prototyping something up. And as I have said, there are many add on boards (shields) that piggy back on the board that do a lot of different things from ethernet connections, bluetooth, motors, etc. And there is a great library of already developed subroutines to control them.

Thanks for giving me perz's name. I remember reading a topic of his but spent hours looking for it and couldn't find it. I also thought I bookmarked his website but couldn't find it either. Now I should be able to find his topic and contact him.

Robert

But 30$ will not make me want to go into making a "6083" out of it... I'd rather pay a little bit more to get a "real" one that works out of the box.

However, a "general" cheap programmable board with sensor/driver extension possibilites is always interesting...

Robert,

Keep us posted on your progress. There is a real dearth of information here in the states about Arduino and MRR. It seems your best source will be the German sites. Maybe post some questions on the Stummi board.

I don't know if this is something that Clapcott dabbled in, he is always a great source for things digital. Might also look up Dale Schultz.

http://modeltrain.servehttp.com/layout.nsf

r/Thomas

If you're interested in the Arduino project, you might like to have a look at NXP's LPCXpresso program.
It's a similar thing, but exclusively using NXP's ARM microcontrollers (mostly Cortex-M3 and -M0, and a few ARM7)
The hardware is made by Embedded Artists, and the C compiler by Code-red

The boards are all €20, with an "expansion board" at €12.

Since I Use the LPC2214 at work, (and we're moving to the LPC1788 Coretex-M3), I rather like this range of cheap developement boards.

Robert,
I'm afraid I haven't used them at all. I'm interested in them because I'm planning to use the LPC1788 in the next version of our product at work, and money for development toys is very tight at the moment .

However, I don't think it would be very hard to port those axamples you listed to this platform -- the ARM micros are surprisingly powerful for their cost and power consumption, and each of them (within the same core) are essentially variations on a theme -- once you get the code running on one, moving to a different variant is simple.

I may well buy some for myself to play with...

Robert,

I want to ask you about your progress with the Arduino, please.

Can you provide me with an update on how far you have got ?
I am beginning to become interested and fascinated by this technology.

Regards,
John

There is "CAN bus shield" for the Arduino, right?
Should be possible to code some examples with the help of the CAN documentation from Märklin...

I am very tempted to give it a try... But have to find the time for it, which makes it a wish only right now...

Thanks Juhan, I hadn't thought about the CAN bus. When I get time I'll look into it. Yea, right, when I have time!! LOL!!! Busy, busy, busy ...

aswap5, yes, I know of Railuino from the posts on the forum. But it is acting as a controller, generating the digital signal. I just want to read the existing signal from the CS2 with the Arduino. I haven't had the time to look over the code to see if I can reverse engineer the receiving code from the generating code. And in fact, last June I posted a question to Yaasan in his thread and never really got a response to my question.

Robert

Thanks Bigdaddy!

I downloaded both although the first download wouldn't work in Firefox and I had to switch to Chrome. I'll go over them when I have some time.

Robert

Hi Nielsenr,

I'm very sorry for that. I may forget to answer your question.

You mean you want to analyze and decode DCC or MM2 pulse, right?
I recommend you to check some decoder examples.



Above image means pulse input(EDGE_POS) circuit with power supply from rail.
EDGE_POS signal need to connect to a MCU's external interrupt pin.

MCU can count pulse interval using internal timer. The time can use to identify the data bit on the rail.

If you have a question, please send me message.

Best regards,
Yaasan

Miss 16 and I have a few of the Arduino (including the awesome Nano) and Raspberry boards.


This is a picture of her first solo Arduino project done a year or so ago - something from Make magazine (from memory)..



She won't dismantle this one, which is one of the reasons why we have so many of these boards at home... Sigh!

If the eCOS ever blows up (God forbid while knocking on wood), I am sure that I could get by using Yassan's Arduino project..