Let's learn together - LnControlPanel! (DCC model railway with Arduino 9)

[@billflude5204]

Completed the build of one of these boards yesterday - worked first time - a really brilliant project - thanks Luca!

[@lucadentella]

Bill thanks for your comment, glad you found my project useful!

[@medwaymodelrailway7129]

Like the video lots of detail.Hope to see more

[@lucadentella]

Thanks! I still have many topics to cover in future videos, stay tuned ;)

[@medwaymodelrailway7129]

@@lucadentella Will do

[@roydom5]

just what I've been looking for! Almost as if you designed it with me in mind! Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge.

[@lucadentella]

;) Thanks for your comment!

[@roydom5]

@@lucadentella I have started to assemble this board - is C3 really a ceramic capacitor - it looks like a polyester film box type?!

[@lucadentella]

@@roydom5 it really doesn't matter, you can use ceramic or polyester

[@philnewman1110]

Looks like a really useful item Luca can it be used for current monitoring of track detection? Great video well done indeed, and thank you!

[@lucadentella]

Hi Phil, well this board can report the status of a sensor but you have to add the "sensor" part (current monitoring, infrared...) as I explained in a previous video. This board indeed has digital inputs; therefore an external board should "detect" the train and report a digital signal (1 = detected, 0 = free)

[@jean-paul2845]

Hi, just a remark, there is a bug with the I/O pin 1. after a while the ADDRESS is lost. I have this problem with other Arduino boards (arcomora borads also). so I don't use PIN 1 only the 15 other I/O pins.

[@lucadentella]

thanks!

[@johanneskuhnel6701]

Hi Luca, first I wan't to thank for publishing this great project. It seems that the arduino sketch does not work with the current Adafruit MCP-Library. Can you publish the version of the Adafruit-Library you used for your build? Thanks, Johannes

[@lucadentella]

Hi, it was compiled with ver 1.3.0

[@antoniomonte4928]

Hi Luca, You have 3 .ino files. How do you upload all of them to the Atmega chip? Also how do you open the terminal to configure the board?

[@lucadentella]

Hi Antonio, open the LnControlPanel.ino file, the IDE will open the others for you. After having uploaded the firmware, use the Arduino Serial Monitor to configure the board (set 115200 baud)

[@ricshaw4293]

Hi Luca, Could you please advise where you got your MCP23017 modules from, I ordered some, but they have come back short in width by one pin. The above link takes one to the Micrchip datasheet for the chips only not the module boards. Thank you for the developement of these interesting projects for us DIY model railway people. Ric Shaw

[@lucadentella]

Hi Ric! Thanks for your comment. I got my modules from this store on Aliexpress but I found similar modules on eBay: www.aliexpress.com/item/32957655097.html

[@ricshaw4293]

@@lucadentella Thanks Luca will re-order. Ric

[@billflude5204]

Hi Luca I have now ordered boards from PCBWay - thanks for your help! What model of Loconet socket are you using on your board - I saw YH-55-10 - where can I get this model? Cheers Bill

[@lucadentella]

Hi Bill, I usually source them from aliexpress, just compare the product photos with the ones on my board, the code may be different

[@felipesanchezcuriel]

Thank you for sharing all this. Two questions: 1) If I don't have the shield to burn the controller, can I "cannibalize" it directly from an Arduino uno board? 2) I'm guessing yes, but is possible to configure the outputs to control servos?

[@lucadentella]

Hi! Thanks for your comment: 1) yes, or you can buy a chip with the bootloader already flashed 2) the goal of this board is to control/monitor other devices: for example an accessory decoder made for moving servos... the idea is that you can configure a channel to send a specific DCC turnout command to that decoder and in the end move some servos

[@felipesanchezcuriel]

@@lucadentella thank you

[@billflude5204]

Can we buy the PCB from you Luca?

[@lucadentella]

Hi Bill, unfortunately no... at the moment is much cheaper for you to order them directly from a PCB service (PCBWay, JCLPCB, Oshpark...) using the Eagle files I provided in the Github repo.

[@billflude5204]

Hi Luca - do we have to upload your .brd file to PCBWay? Loving the videos - you make it really easy to follow! Cheers Bill

[@lucadentella]

@@billflude5204 thanks! You cannot use brd files directly with pcbway but you have to convert them in Gerber format. Because every pcb service has its own settings, I uploaded the brd file so you can use the service you like. Alternatively you can use oshpark that accepts brd. If you need I can send you the Gerber files pcbway expects, just send me an email through my website!

[@billflude5204]

Boards arrived from PCBWay - they look very good!

[@billflude5204]

Thanks for access to the files!