Big_Boy_4005 posted:I have just glossed through this topic, and maybe I missed something. My question to Don is:
Why are you trying to do this project the hard way, and reinvent the wheel?
All the software you need is already developed. It's called JMRI, which stands for Java Model Railroad Interface. It's free (no offense Harvy).
Why are you trying to detect off the center rail?
You have virtually free detection, as long as you are using a brand of track with the outside rails aren't electrically connected, think Gargraves, Atlas or MTH Scale Trax with a diode and a capacitor would do the job.
I'm sorry I didn't say all this at the beginning, six months ago. Probably would have saved you a lot of time and money.
Though you still need some hardware to interface your third-rail detection with JMRI, don't you?
I use an Arduino spoofing the C/MRI protocol, although I use it to pass all sorts of data to JMRI rather than occupancy itself.
