Long time lurker here, hoping to make a contribution of interest to others.
Recently I've created a packet radio-based (great range!), battery-powered DIY engine control system that can be built for about $65 per engine (plus $25 battery). It uses USA-made commodity parts and operates on software that I have written (and am quite willing to share). With my system if you pull up a web browser on your handheld device you can control my trains, no apps required. If I were to poke a hole in my home network firewall you could even run my trains from where you're sitting right now. The engine control module's initial capability is similar to the commercial BlueRail system: motors and directional lights, and I've added flashing ditch lights. But because it's using a microcontroller anyone can program, it can be easily expanded through software to do much more. For example it would be easy to add audio using the onboard 10 bit D-A converter, or a simple add-on mp3 board. An RFID reader could be connected and controlled for position sensing. You could even program it to drive the DCS/DCC/TMCC/Legacy guts in your current engine I suppose. Etc. I'm not big on smoke and lots of extraneous chatter coming out of my engines, but to each his/her own. I want my audio to have doppler based on where I'm standing. That's coming.
My focus has been on the part of my collection that comprises mostly mid-90's conventional and PS/1 diesel electric engines. I rip out the guts and replace them with my electronics that have a 5cm by 7cm by 1.9cm footprint. There are ways to make that smaller. Right now I've got three installations done and operating: an SD60, a Dash9 and a pair of F3's (one dummy). My engines run about 2.5 hours on an 11.1 volt 2200mAh LIPO battery. Here's the module as built:
and here's a wiring diagram:
Major components (with no endorsements intended) are:
Adafruit Feather M0 48 MHz micro-controller ($24.95) with on-board RFM69HCW (433/900 MHz) packet radio.
Pololu step-up-step-down voltage regulator, Item # 2872 ($4.95 each for 5) (Under the microcontroller in the board image -- can't be seen)
Pololu 18 volt, 17 amp motor driver, Item # 2991 ($26.96 each for 5).
At 17 amps the motor driver is more than what is needed, but for the incremental cost I like the safety margin.
Components for the ditch lights appear in the image of the module, but not in the wiring diagram. Wiring for ditch lights is essentially the same as for the directional lights. Flashing is under software control.
Separately, to avoid running miles of wire for my switches, I've designed and built packet radio controlled switch modules. Place a switch module near a remote cluster of switches and control them by radio from your control center. It saves a lot of wire. I can post about this module as well if anyone is interested.
I've seen many discussions on this forum and elsewhere about the benefits and drawbacks of what some call BPRC. Many argue against it because of cost. I'm showing that cost is not really an issue now especially when you compare with replacing your broken PS/2, PS/3, TMCC, Legacy module. And you get a lot of flexibility you can control!
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