DCC Controller

Initial hardware selection and start of programming

Overview

Version 0.1 of the controller will allow:

• PC control of a DCC enabled train on a track using either a booster board created for this project, or some other board to control movement forward and back and stop)

  This will provide the initial proof of concept with the least amount of hardware required.

  Additions to the commands that can be sent should be software only additions.

Hardware

Currently, a prebuilt (and cheap) atmel based board has been selected for use in the design - http://www.olimex.com/dev/index.html - the AVR-P40-8535, which can be picked up at a variety of suppliers and is shown below.

We are currently running a Mega32 on it with a 16MHz oscillator. This requires very minor soldering skills to remove the old 4/8Hz crystal from the board and soldering in a new one and also add the jumper wires from the UART circuitry to the TX/RX pins on the board as shown below.

(Image to be added)

• The TX jumper wire goes from the TX connection on the UART circuitry ( marked on the board ) to pin pin 14 of the Mega32.
• The RX jumper wire goes from the RX connection on the UART circuitry ( marked on the board) to pin 15 of the Mega32.
• Replacement of the crystalisjust a matter of removing the old one and soldering another in its place.

The board costs about 24.00 US.

The crystal is about $1.00.

You will also need a programmer cable for it. One is available from Olimex (and suppliers) for $11.95 US, but there are others around - as long as its for an AVR ISP connection to the board.

There are other boards around that you could use equally as well that support the Mega32 or some other Mega chip. The main thing to try get is a board that has UART circuitry on it, a chip that has a hardware UART, and a board/chip that is running at 16MHz, which is what the software will be tested against. Other speeds will most likely work with a little effort to get timing correct.

Software

The software for version 0.1 is currently being written.