Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Doai Station - 土合駅

I cannot remember how I get to this, but I was surfing the web and ended up in this page talking about the deepest railway station in Japan: http://www.totorotimes.com/doai-station-deepest

Check the page because it has impressive photos. This station is in the Joetsu line, and has one platform at ground level and another at 70 meters under ground, in the middle of the Shin-Shimizu tunnel!!!!





You have to walk 486 steps to get to the platform, you can see the number written:


I haven't been there, but being part of the JR railway network I'll visit it next time for sure!! Looks mysterious and interesting enough.


Thursday, January 8, 2015

Loconet Outputs and Sound Module with LNCV configuration

Hello,

I think I finally did something that can be useful for others, a new program for Arduino which converts it to an Ouputs Loconet Module plus a Sound Module.




This first version is very simple, you can assign an output number to each of the free pins of Arduino. Pressing the "green" for that output the Arduino pin goes HIGH, and pushing the "red" goes LOW. Using Mosfets or Relays you can drive whatever you want, not just simple led.

You can also assign as many output numbers to as many files you have loaded in your MP3 shield. Each time the output is activated that sound file is played.




There are no more options in this "version 1" program, no pulse outputs nor input pins, but it will be implemented in future versions.

You can download the program from here.

These are the configuration variables (LNCV) that can be accessed and changed from the Intellibox, Uhlenbrock Software or any compatible software like RocRail:

LNCV MEANING DEFAULT
0 Module Address 1
1 Address pin 0 (0=Sound, 99=Debug) 0
2 Address pin 1 (0=Sound, 99=Debug) 0
3 Address pin 2 1
4 Address pin 3 2
5 Address pin 4 3
6 Address pin 5 4
7 Address pin 6 5
8 Address pin 7 (0=Reserved Loconet) 0
9 Address pin 8 (0=Reserved Loconet) 0
10 Address pin 9 6
11 Address pin 10 7
12 Address pin 11 8
13 Address pin 12 9
14 Address pin 13 10
15 Address pin 14 A0 11
16 Address pin 15 A1 12
17 Address pin 16 A2 13
18 Address pin 17 A3 14
19 Address pin 18 A4 15
20 Address pin 19 A5 16
21 Address first sound (0=No sounds) 50
22 Total number of sounds (0=No sounds) 10
23 MP3 Volume (0 to 30) 15
24 Sound Source (0=SD card, 1=SPI, 2=Udisk) 2
50 Config command:
1 - Store config in EEPROM
2- Reset Module

For Loconet communication, a Peter Giling's GCA185 shield is used. MP3 shield is from Elechouse.