Internet-Controlled Trains, using LOLbooster and CmdrArduino

Reid Carlberg has put together a system to permit folks to control model trains over the internet. Central to his project is Railstar’s own LOLbooster, which bridges an Arduino-based command station to his layout. (OK, so he’s not using CmdrArduino yet.) It’s a work in progress, but already it’s come quite a long way. Read more about RAILbooster, our fully-assembled 3A digital booster...

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Major CmdrArduino Bug Fix

If you use CmdrArduino, you will need to pull the latest update from Github here. A couple of days ago, I found a major bug where TCS decoders would not respond to commands. The cause: Almost every packet generated was subtly corrupt. Ugh. Patch your copy now!

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CmdrArduino At Work

This made my day. BeigeMatchbox has built his own DCC cab/command station from an Arduino and my CmdrArduino library. It’s always exciting, and gratifying, to see something you’ve made put to use by someone else! BeigeMatchbox writes of the video: A quick video of my DCC controller in action, using Railstars DCC library to generate the DCC packets, and my own code for user interface. It’s still far from complete, but it’s getting there! If you have been using Railstars software or hardware in a project, I’d love to hear about...

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More on CmdrArduino: A Library for Building DCC Command Stations with Arduino

I’ve made a dedicated page to house discussion and documentation of CmdrArduino here.

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Introducing CmdrArduino: A Library for Building DCC Command Stations with Arduino

I’ve begun writing a library for Arduino that assists in making DCC command stations, called CmdrArduino. It is available for download or forking from github. CmdrArduino is meant as a middle-layer between the DCC waveform and the cab or cab network. The primary class, DCCPacketOrganizer, provides hooks for sending commands to the rails, such as setting a locomotive’s speed, or switching a turnout. DCCPacketOrganizer takes these commands, makes DCCPacket objects out of them, prioritizes them in queues, and sends packets from the queues to the rails. Right now, the code is...

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