Model Railroad System
2.2.2
Model RR signals with an Arduino
|
Introduction | I will be building an interlocking plant module with 5 two-headed signals |
Signal Driver board | The Signal Driver board is assembled on a piece of "strip board", specifically a 3.5 inch by 2.5 inch piece cut from a BusBoard Prototype Systems BPS-MAR-ST6U-001 (included in the Mouser project) |
Connecting the Signal Driver Board | The Signal Driver board is connected with a home made connector cable |
Signal Driver board cables | Nine conductor ribbon cables (DigiKey part number MC09G-25-ND) are used to connect between the Signal Driver Board and the signals |
Assembling signal targets | The next step is to assemble the signal targets |
Programming the Arduino |
The C++ source code to download to the Arduino is in available for download
as SignalDriverMax72xx.ino.
It uses the LedControl library, so the code starts by including the header file: #include <LedControl.h>
|
Programming the Host Computer | The host interface to the Ardunio SignalDriverMax72xx is via a virtual serial port over the USB interface |