Off topic mini-rant follows:
Consolidated Leo, I'm not disparaging anyone, and if you take stock of what I've posted on this forum over the last several years you will find dozens of post explaining exactly how to accomplish various tasks with Arduino and similar devices. To the best of my knowledge, to date, there has been exactly one case where such suggestions have been fully embraced by another user with a specific problem to solve and who then put in the effort to purchase the parts and learn how to use them. There have been several cases of people tinkering with various electronic ideas here and there, but I doubt any have so prolifically pushed folks to consider the micro-controller option as I have, routinely suggesting the use of one to solve a problem. What I've found is that no one wants to learn to use them. Not everyone, and certainly not the folks that regularly contribute to the technical discussions here, but the vast majority of users of this forum do not want to learn these things. For many the idea of installing something as simple as a voltage regulator in a passenger car is a scary thought and well beyond what they are willing to do.
On the other end of it, there is no need for any product or service to be made for the folks that know how to use a uP. We all already know how to order cheap modules from Asia. We know how to write a sketch or program a PIC. We know what a transistor does and and how to power an LED. There is no need to purchase a product that by the very nature of it being a product offered for sale must have some mark-up over just buying the parts and putting it together one's self. I Don't expect you or Stan, or GRJ, or RTR or a handful of others here to ever buy something they can make them self for the same or lower cost. At some point a super chuffer or 3 are in my future. On the other hand one of the new insulated rail modules GRJ has going is not likely to ever be something I buy. If you want a crash course in the willingness of folks to pay money rather than learn the simplest of electronic concepts, have a look at the thread on that project. Now I don't want this to sound like I'm bashing on that project, I think it's fantastic in that it's filling a need for many people at a reasonable price, but essentially what you have is the very first thing anyone into electronics ever built, a voltage regulator power supply. It is ridiculously simple and if you look through that thread you would think someone just invented sliced bread for the first time.
Over all My opinion is that the large majority of O gauge railroaders would rather spend money than learn basic skills. That doesn't mean I don't want to teach them. It doesn't mean I'll ever stop writing code for people or posting schematics for circuits. It just means that for the folks that don't want to learn, I think there might be an opportunity to make something that will fill a need they may have, and I think I can do it at a price point that actually makes sense, not the $70 the major manufacturers ask for a single detection device that offers much less functionality.
This project is intended to fill a need, hopefully generate a useful conversation among the folks that like tinkering, and show off some of what can be done these days with cheap parts. Maybe just, maybe get some new folks interested in the details of what goes on behind the curtain. Whatever the final design here becomes, you can be sure you'll find one crucial component on the board, This one:
JGL
