I spent time on Monday reviewing my wiring in my Signalman's panel. I had wired up 10 IR detectors to an Arduino UNO, which I moved from my Arduino MEGA. I found that I had wired about 2 or 3 IR detectors back the front. So that was fixed, and now my slave Arduino UNO was powering up and seemed to be working. I then did some work on the main Arduino MEGA. I was wondering about power draw again. I started looking for a 6V or a 9V power supply in lieu of my current 12V power supply in case I am overloading the voltage regulators on the MEGA board, when it must drop that voltage down to 5V. It seemed that my current MEGA had bit the dust and was not allowing my computer to link to it and upload a new version of its program from the Arduino IDE. I then did a google search to see if you could repair the Arduino. Someone was offering $89 to just look at an item’s board. Well I could buy 4 more MEGAs on eBay for that price. I looked on Ali Express and I ordered 3 more spare MEGA boards for about $17 total - delivered. It looks like I need to throw that MEGA away and install my current spare board. Thus the need for some more spares in the back pocket.
On Tuesday morning I bit the bullet and swapped out my bung Arduino MEGA for my spare one. It fired up first time. I then decided after reading that the input voltage should be 7-12V on the Arduino, to not get the 6V power supply and settled for the 9V version. I used by NMRA account code and saved $4 on that one item. I have saved this year’s membership fees already through these discounts for sure. While replacing the Arduino MEGA, I managed to displace a few wires that I had jerry rigged for testing the IR detectors. I also had the top of the panel come falling down on me and that dislodged a few more wires. So after finding them, normal services were quickly resumed. It must have been just like QR on Tuesday as there was an intermittent signalling fault on the network out near PK’s place. I think he had a hand in its cause.
We had our Tuesday Nighter’s get together at Geoff’s place on Tuesday evening and it was good to see 10 of us turn up. Geoff asked people to bring what they were working on. I brought along my Signalman’s panel. I borrowed some of Geoff’s electrons and turned it on and gave an overview of how it operates.
I went into town on Wednesday to pay up my Lotto debt. I chose to split the travel with bus then train, just to look at what has changed over the new year network shutdown. Well I can advise that there is new track laid through the new platform at Yeerongpilly. However, it is not connected at either end and there is no overhead wires above it. There is also significant progress in Clapham Yards for the new train staging facility. So there is some progress.
I had been trying to write some Arduino code that will track messages on my LCD screen, and after about 5 seconds of being displayed, the message will scroll off. The code is basically working, but when I try to test it with multiple messages, after a while it gets confused and the messages do not scroll. This has me perplexed, as the logic is simple as. I will resume this logic testing next week. I also have identified a few gremlins in my UP code. But I can't put my hand on the exact circumstances that are occurring for me to track it down conclusively. I will continue investigating.
Saturday was the NMRA Clinics day opened up to 16 members. We had some people pull out at the last minute for various reasons, but we had a great day. It kicked off with my doing some terraforming on a small foam block about 30cm x 25cm. This for shaped and then plaster encrusted tissues were laid over the foam. This was left to dry while the attendees then made a single telegraph pole and then with the rest of their wooden stick offcuts were made into split post fencing. The wooden items were stained in my ink pad ink and methylated spirits. Then the attendees had a lunch break. It is planned that these items will be used in day two of the clinic, which will occur on the 28th of this month. We will paint the scenery block, and then add dirts, sands and scatters to bring it to life. We might get some rocks and other detail items. So telegraph pole and the split post fencing will also be added. After lunch the attendees were split into two groups and we had one group making a tree while the other group made a signal relay box in styrene. Following afternoon tea, the two groups swapped over and did the other session. These were also well received and the attendees will also add these items to their scenery block on the 28th. They also have more styrene and tree clinics on that day as well.
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