Arduino DCC ServoShield

[@philnewman1110]

Wow! what a really useful piece of kit for the model railway, thank you so much for taking the time to share this project. That is definitely on my list, thanks again Luca! Well done.

[@lucadentella]

Thanks for your comment!

[@smoil]

This is fantastic. I've been working with an LCC I/O board -> Arduino + servo driver board. Having a display for setting speed and range is a wonderful idea. Thanks for sharing.

[@lucadentella]

Thanks for your comment! LCC unfortunately is not very adopted here in Italy / Europe and we normally use xPressNet or Loconet, but it's definitely interesting... if you're going to publish your project let me know!

[@billflude5204]

PCBs ordered - another brilliant project. I have just been playing with your LocoNet control panel - works brilliantly with IR sensors for train positions - a really cost effective board. Thanks Lucca - what’s next?

[@lucadentella]

Thanks Bill! Well... without spoilers, you'll HEAR something about my new project soon ;)

[@mikolajmikun5337]

Big thanks for super project, working with my turnouts. I`d ask You about little change - Can You change program arduino for stepper motor? Small stepper motor will be better (smooth) for railway barriers. There are a lot of arduino boards on aliexpress for stepsticks (3 pieces) and arduino nano.

[@ericbaan671]

can u also do a video about this decoder plus switching electro frogs ?

[@roydom5]

Love the onboard display! How would you deal with the polarity of an electrofrog peco point?

[@lucadentella]

Hi! I normally use a limit switch, which gets pushed by the servo and is connected to the frog... for example give a look to this 3d printed bracket: www.thingiverse.com/thing:5632893

[@ludovicpierard8917]

Hello, thank you very much for sharing, just one more small problem, I could not put the library servoshiekd.h in IDE arduino.

[@lucadentella]

Hi! You should download the entire folder ("ServoShield") from Github and open the ServoShield.ino file with the IDE: it should automatically open the other files as tabs in the editor

[@ludovicpierard8917]

​Thank you for your answer, now the tabs open properly, I still have a problem with servo.ino regarding the position of the servo.​ C:\Users\ludo5\Desktop\servo\servo.ino: In function 'void moveServoToTargetPosition(int, bool)': C:\Users\ludo5\Desktop\servo\servo.ino:5:6: error: 'servoOutputs' was not declared in this scope if(servoOutputs[outIndex].moving) return;

[@lucadentella]

Hi, something is not working properly with your IDE: I've just downloaded the sketch from github and it compiles. First of all the folder must be named "ServoShield", as it is in the git repo. Then make sure you open this file (ServoShield.ino) with the IDE. It seems it is trying to compile only "servo.ino" which is part of the whole program and of course cannot be compiled by its own.

[@ludovicpierard8917]

I had named my folder Servo, and now that I gave it the correct name, it works, many thanks for your help, your project is exactly what I was looking for.

[@lucadentella]

@@ludovicpierard8917 Happy to read that you solved!

[@Bandit_Barclay]

Hello Luca Is it possible to have non consecutive addresses?

[@lucadentella]

Yes, you basically receive all the commands so in your code you can respond to any address you want. At the moment my code considers consecutive addresses but it's opensource so you can change this behavior as you wish

[@Bandit_Barclay]

Ok, could you help with what part of the code would need changed? I'm new to code writing and arduinos. // address programming if(programmingAddress) { // increment the address and display the new value newAddressValue += increment; updateDisplayValueAddress(); }

[@lucadentella]

@@Bandit_Barclay in dcc.ino you can find the code that checks if the address in the received command is correct... you can change this as you wish: // Is command for one of the 16 outputs? uint16_t myAddress = Dcc.getAddr(); if(Addr >= myAddress && Addr < myAddress + 16) { A totally different task is to review the code that controls the display to add a way to set a different address for each output, it requires a lot of rework

[@billflude5204]

Hi Lucca - is there a DecoderPro definition file for this decoder like there is for the sound shield?

[@lucadentella]

Hi Bill, no because I thought it was easier to program it using the lcd then using decoderpro

[@billflude5204]

@@lucadentella Just thought it would be good to be able to grab the settings once I have programmed using the buttons and display…….

[@lucadentella]

@billflude5204 it makes sense! I'll try to add a definition to my github repo for it asap

[@billflude5204]

Thanks Lucca!