Casey_Jones posted:Thanks, and that will be done soon. should be ready this weekend. Mostly going to be based on my LC Gateway Code.
I'm glad I got this portion of the hardware straightened out first. I had an issue where I tried using a relay to trigger the e-unit with a relay but it ended up drawing too much power from my board. So I ended up building another solid state solution from scratch. (As a bonus, the custom solution actually takes less space anyway.)
And as we can see from the video, a section of my e-unit drum is dirty so I would like to fix that too. I already tried cleaning it with alcohol once but it seems the fingers of the e-unit itself might be dirty. Maybe some super fine sandpaper can solve that.
After I get Bluetooth up and running I have to build an e-unit position detection circuit to know if the train is currently in forward, reverse, or neutral. This will be critical.
Question, and forgive me, I'm not familiar with electronics, software development etc.
Would an electronic reverse board (like the ones you can get from Bachman for the Williams line) be better/easier than the old e-units?
I like questions. I looked into the Bachmann board you mentioned and it appears to be a simple pair of relays and that would not work with these 3 wire pullmor motors. I am pretty sure Lionel had one at one point but I have not seen it yet. I believe I can control the pullmor with a set of 4 triacs (solid state switches basically) but again I again I have no references on that yet. I have a few ideas on how I could design a digital e-unit with the 3 wire output(not to be confused with a brushless speed controller).
Anyway I consider the original e-unit to be a bit like the engine of a classic car. The locomotive would still work if I replaced it with a modern one but it would be less interesting/fun. The original e-unit was a bit of an engineering wonder for its time and I would like to keep mine in its original function for that reason.
At some point I can design an alternative board but I would not be using that in my trains. No matter what versions I build I will be keeping a conventional running switch because what's the point of a postwar that can't run conventionally I'd say.
