ardccino

This is a dual PWM/DCC controller software for model trains.

WARNING: THIS SOFTWARE IS UNDER DEVELOPMENT. THIS DOCUMENT NOW EXPRESSES WHAT I WANT TO IMPLEMENT, NOT WHAT IT CAN DO.

This Arduino software can control and generate signal for several boosters attached to it. This program is designed for a LMD18200T based booster, generating some digital signals:

• direction
• motor driving signal
• reset heat & OCP (over current protection)

It can read also two input signals:

• overheat detected
• over current detected (i.e. a shortcircuit)

In an ideal design a booster becomes automatically deactivated if one of these events (overheat or O.C.) occurs, until it is reactivated by this software. Anyway, if one of these events is triggered this software deactivates the affected booster and it stops delivering control signals until its status is reseted.

It has two working modes:

• PWM Each booster generates a PWM signal for controlling a segment of a model train circuit. All PWM signals are synchronized to avoid "glitches" when a train travels from one PWM segment to another.

  In this mode 'direction' output depends on the direction selected for each segment, and the 'motor driving signal' is a PWM signal.

• DCC The same DCC signal is delivered to all boosters.

  In this mode the 'motor driving signal' is always 1, and 'direction' output is modulated for generating an square alternate current on tracks (which encodes the DCC commands).

  It has two submodes:

  - stateless - passthrough DCC commands. The DCC decoders state is never
    kept.
  
  - stateful - DCC decoders state is kept.
  

BUILDING

You will need 'arduino-mk' package (it includes the Arduino.mk makefile) and the 'arduino-core' package (command line arduino tools).

You need also the UTFT library. You can download it from http://henningkarlsen.com/electronics/library.php?id=52

You must unzip it into the ./libraries/utft directory.

Edit the included 'Makefile' and adjust the following parameters to your requirements:

• ARDUINO_DIR Things which are always in the Arduino distribution e.g. boards.txt, libraries, &c. Default: /usr/share/arduino/
• ARDMK_DIR Things which are included in this distribution e.g. ard-parse-boards Default: /usr/
• AVR_TOOLS_DIR Things which might be bundled with the Arduino distribution, but might come from the system. Most of the toolchain is like this: on Linux it's supplied by the system. Default: /usr/
• BOARD_TAG Your Arduino board. Mine is 'mega2560'. See 'boards.txt' in your Arduino distribution and choose the most appropiate for you.
• MCU, F_CPU If you use a BOARD_TAG from 'boards.txt' you don't need to set these.
• ARDUINO_PORT Where you arduino is plug ... I use here an automatic one-liner for discovering it.

Now run: $ ./parse_tokens.sh $ make

CLI COMMANDS

GENERIC COMMANDS

about Shows version, copyright and contact info

booster list Prints booster info

booster <n> power (off|on) Activates/deactivates booster #n

booster <n> reset Resets booster #n state

booster <n> status Print info about booster #n

OFF COMMANDS

off Go to off mode. No powered delivered to tracks.

PWM COMMANDS

pwm Go to PWM mode for analog locomotives.

booster <n> power <v> Set booster #n power level. Value 'v' is a signed integer between "minimum power" (see below) and 255. Sign determines direction.

booster <n> mode (direct|inertial) Enable or deactivate the 'inertial' feature when changing the booster power level. In direct mode any change to the power level is applied inmediately. In intertial mode the power level is changed applying the 'acceleration' and 'maximum acceleration' parameters.

booster <n> minimum power [<v>] Sets the minimum power delivered by the PWM signal to tracks.

booster <n> acceleration [<a>] Sets the acceleration parameter when running in 'inertial' mode.

booster <n> maximum acceleration [<a>] Sets the maximum acceleration parameter when running in 'inertial' mode.

DCC COMMANDS

GENERAL COMMANDS

dcc Go to DCC mode for digital locomotives.

dcc address (normal|advanced|auto) Use by default - normal addresses (7bit/2-digit), or - advanced addresses (14bit/4-digit), or - auto mode (for any address above 127 use advanced adresses, elsewhere use 7bit addresses).

DIRECTED COMMANDS

DCC directed commands result in a DCC message sent, so they are send against a DCC decoder, a broadcast address or a set of DCC decoders.

General syntax is:

[@!] (*|[+-]<address>) ...command...

Where:

• First character (@ or !) decides if the message is sent to the operations track (@) or the service track (!).

• Second component is the numerical target address. Use * for broadcasting a message.

• An address can be forced in 7bit (2-digit) or 14bit (4-digit) format using the minus (-) and plus (+) operators.

• If the address type is not specified it will be choosed using the algorithm set by the dcc address configuration parameter.

We call the exposed syntax <<trg_spec>>, which stands for "target specification". All the following described commands are preceeded by this directives.

<<trg_spec>> speed [4bit|5bit|7bit] [light (on|off)] [+-]<v> Send speed update. In stateless mode CV#29:5 is assumed to be on, and the default selected instruction is 5bit. In stateful mode, selected instruction (4bit, 5bit or 7bit) depends on the state configured for deco .

TODO

dcc mode (pass_through|stateful) Set DCC control mode: - stateless - pass through DCC commands. The DCC decoders state is never kept. - stateful - DCC decoders state is kept.

dcc [!] [<n>] f <f> (on|off) [acked] Set flag (on|off)

dcc [!] [<n>] analog <f> <v> [acked]

dcc [!] [<n>] ack (service|railcom|off) dcc [!] [<n>] send [service] command <bytes...> [acked] dcc [!] [<n>] read <v> [mode (paged|direct)]