Hi Manhattan,

Thank you for attaching your rail diagram. Very big! 60113 may not provide enough power in this diagram.

I don't know how to use external booster(60174) in case of applying to 60113.
Does anyone know how to use?

http://www.maerklin.de/d...infos/boostertausch.html

Best regards,
Yaasan

Hello Yaasan,
I've been following this now and then and finally got the hardware put together and software installed with my fellow forum member r.coons. Thanks a lot, Desktop Station is awesome!

I've been getting familiar with the functionality for a couple of nights. I got a mfx loco registered right away and been running all three protocols simultaneously.
Shunting with Esu decoders in DCC mode is so much smoother with the double amount of speed steps.

I've had problems though with the accessory panel. It jams easy and needs frequent resetting. Only on or two magnet articles work behind k83 decoders. The other icons get sticky and won't animate the function. If I reset the CAN-BUS shield the communication starts and few commands in the buffer gets relayed to the track. Is it just me or a known issue?

BTW, how do I get the big throttle you have in some pictures working with it ?

Thanks again,
Juha

Thanks for lightning fast reply!

Tried out the new release today.
Now the COM port initialization works like in the previous releases, no trouble there.
Also transfering configs was no problem.

Same problems with accessories, different addresses again working than in previous ones.
How about you other users out there, do you have similar problems with switches and signals?

I won't be able to test the Desktop Station now for a couple of weeks, no rush.

BR,
Juha

Hi Juha,

I don't hear the accessories problem. What the turnout decoder do you use?

Best regards,
Yaasan

Yaasan may I have some more info off the list? mail me at sv1iw@raag.org

Tnx Manos SV1IW

Hello Yaasan,
I'm getting back to the accessory control problem I have.
Just installed the ver 0.92 for Desktop Station and tried out the functions.

Sorry to say, but I still have the same trouble.
- The accessories work first fine if operated from the bottom of the Cab panel.
- When I switch to the Accessories panel, random accessories work. This time 1, 6, 7 and 8 were dead.
- Going back to Cab panel, and some accessories are dead there too.
- switching to Accessories panel and different set of accessories are dead.

Closing Desktop Station and resetting Sparkfun CAN-shiled is needed to get back to the beginning.

Any help is highly appreciated,
Juha

Thanks,
just emailed to the address listed in your website.

Regards,
Juha

Great, wasn't familiar yet with this tablet!
did you use Micro USB to Serial -adapter?

Regards,
Juha

I use an OTG USB cable to connect to Arduino.
Then the Arduino is loaded with Railuino libraries and connected from the CAN bus with the MiniDin cable.
Now, it would be great to have bluetooth support...

Regards,

Philippe

Hi Paolo,

Welcome to this fantastic forum and Happy New Year !

Cheers

Renato

Hello Yaasan,



No, the S88 bus is a serial shift register with a parallel load input. It is much easier and cheaper to route this information from the decoders to the controller via cable.
I was talking about the engine decoder feedback, providing informations such as engine name, decoder uid, etc...



I personally believe that mfx is a modern an advanced protocol. MM and MM2 were easy and sturdy, but the modern requirements outdate them.
DCC (like MM and MM2) don't have decoder feedback. That was added later by Lenz with the RailCOM protocol. In my opinion, they just realized that DCC was ageing and copied some feature from the new marklin MFX.

If you don't need the feedback, MM2 and DCC are limited only by the number of addressable devices, and are easier to provide in big layout (wide number of available boosters, cheap to DIY).


Interesting, but doesn't support MFX.
The idea behind MFX is quite genial, the engine decoder modulate the absorbed current with RDS code. In the "ugly box" 60113, beside a uC to interface the CAN bus signals with the rail signals, and a power booster, there is a SAA6579T that perform the demodulation task. A guy in germany developed his own ugly box, that seems to allow external boosters out of the box. But I can't understand enough german.
Anyway here is the link of the page
http://stummiforum.de/viewtopic.php?t=90373&p=974073

and the pdf with the schematics.
http://stummiforum.de/download/file.php?id=4938

With the help of google translator, I was able to understand something from this german forum. They mention something about boosters, the signal coming from 60113 would just be used to drive the DIY boosters (I think to prevent some disturbance with MFX feedback). And they mention that original boosters just act like a 60113, translating CAN bus to rail signal, and the MS2 is not able to control multiple boxes (ugly box + boosters?)


Seems interesting, but the datasheet is only in japanese and I can't understand it.


One is ok, many are expensive. That's why it would be nice to have DIY boosters. If the informations about booster feedback I found last time is good and working, I believe it would not be difficult to make DIY boosters for less than 50$

Best regards

Paolo

Hi kiwiAlan,

I know Mfx protocol supports many number of locomotives and accessories. It is protocol issue.
But I mean physical issue. Mfx decoder feedback signal requires a booster link unit in case of big layouts. DCC or MM2 can separate the track segmentation easily in this case. Because DCC and MM2 doesn't have a decoder feedback basically.

I think almost every cases don't require this booster link. The new complex feature provides us easy to control but it's not perfect for any cases.

Best regards,
Yaasan

Hello Yaasan,



In my opinion, MFX is the way to go. Yes, it has additional complexity, but offers you much more. Using MM2 is limited by available addresses, while DCC is not compatible with older Marklin engines.

With a single 60113 and DIY boosters that understand the feedback, you already have solved the complexity and the cost issue.

Or, if the 60174 booster just speak on the CAN bus in a similar way to the 60113, maybe the way to go is to understand how the booster speaks on the CAN bus.
Then, using a bit of the schematics I found, recreate a DIY booster that can work with DS... OR, modify the arduino part of DS to talk with 60113 AND the boosters. OR talk just with the boosters (Removing the ugly box and using only boosters... if they understand the feedback part, why not? After all CS2 can do it).

Of course this is just my idea. There are really many options.

Best regards

Paolo

Hi Alex,

Thank you for post. If you would like to order my hardware, send me e-mail. I'm looking forward to receiving your mail. Your self-made panel seems great! Is this panel connected with MS1?

Desktop Station supports a keyboard. Consequently, your diy keyboard emulator can work with Desktop Station. Keyboard mapping describes in my web site.

I did similar things like you. Because I have Japanese style toy train controller, I try to control my roco's AC loc with this controller via Desktop station.

http://yaasan.mints.ne.jp/wiki/doku.php/usbmascon



Desktop Station can run external executable software. You can assign the external software to each loco's function button on the Desktop Station.
Also MP3 player is included. I also distribute Germany and Japanese train sounds file for free of charge in my web site. Please check and hear that.

http://yaasan.mints.ne.jp/bin/SoundPackGermany.ZIP [63MB]
http://yaasan.mints.ne.jp/bin/Sounds_003.ZIP [3MB]


Best regards from Japan,
Yaasan

Hi Alex,

I have just updated the keyboard mapping description. Please check the following.

http://yaasan.mints.ne.jp/wiki/doku.php/usbmascon

Best regards,
Yaasan

Hi Adrian,

Thank you for pointing my mistakes!!
I have just fix this mistakes.

Best regards,
Yaasan

Hi! Yaasan

I 've carefully read your updated shortcut page but i didn't find a shortcut for operating turnouts for example!

question: can I assign turnout control to F-keys ? (I can only see image function with edit function option, but where do you declare which turnout to operate?)

Do I miss something ?

I repeat - YOU HAVE DONE AN EXCELLENT job my friend not only with the hardware but with Desktop Station software too!!

As I stated before the option of key-shortcuts opens new possibilities in case - kids for example- you want to control some parts of the layout with key/knobs panel without the need to focus on a screen monitor all the time!

Great news! my friend..

Today I played with events settings and scripts.

When script is running and you go in plan (layout) view the screen does not refresh automatically and you have to click anywhere in order to see the updating script running in real time!

May be you have to automatically issue some refresh for real-time update -that would be cool ,too !

Ηι Yaasan

EXCELLENT my friend! Thank you SO much for your quick action uploading a new updated version.

I 've already downloaded 0.92f and I am really very satisfied with the option to access turnouts through keyboard shortcuts. Now I am going to use a pic emulating a keyboard connected to some knobs and shuttle control for my kids to have a real fun !!

I will let you know as soon as I find some time to start this new diy project....

KEEP UP the good work my friend!

UPDATED: a question to Yaasan: Ι played today with the option 'emulation' in the connection type. What exactly is this? It is supposed to run DS without the need of special hardware connected...is this right?
Does this mean that I can open a browser locally in the same pc and connect to DS through HTTP?

Hi
This project looks great.
I bought a Arduino, WiFi Shield and CAN-Bus shield.
My plan is to extend the code to allow controlling through an Android app over WiFi.
I did some test's connecting Wifi and so on, working fine.
I just can't get the Serial_RS4 to build - even the one downloaded from your website before changing anything.
I get this error: Serial_RS4:30: error 'TrackController' does not name a type.
Then a lot of other errors after this, but I guess they are because of the first fault.
From what i found through google, this fault is because some included file is not in the correct location on my disc.
Do you have any good suggestions?
I have the railuino library set up, seems to be correct, it added some new examples to the Arduino app.

That's the one i downloaded, I just can't build it - guess i am missing something, to put a file in the correct location or something like that.

Hi, thanks for trying.
I open the file sketch with "File, Open", but still get this fault.
In my Documents folder i have a folder called Arduino.
This has libraries and Serial_RS4 subfolders.
I have tried putting the files from Serial_RS4 in libraries, in a subfolder called Serial_RS4, in the Serial_RS4 folder next to libraries.
No matter where I put them, same fault.

Hello Yaasan, just a little note.

I tried installing DesktopStation under Linux, and it doesn't work.

With WINE, it gives a lot of debug messages but doesn't start, appaerently the problem is in the System.Windows.Form class.
I tried compiling it with mono, and it fails. Several errors about Microsoft.common.targets.
I do suspect they (errors on wine and mono) are both related, depending on some Windows only specific feature.

it will be nice to have DS working with Linux, since many users now exists on the Linux platform.

I may try to write a little Linux interface for your CAN - Railduino - USB interface, but surely that won't be anything at the level of desktop station, and anyway, it will take time, since I need to read and understand your sources of the Arduino module and figure out the serial language used on the usb link.

I'll keep you updated

best regards

Paolo