Ordered some LED illuminated buttons that will be my local control buttons for my servo controller. Using the E-Switch LP series like they used on the Canadian Canyons layout. Small but not too small, and available in various color LEDs for illumination.
Well, for whatever stupid reason, I went an ordered red and green. Red is completely useless - only the selected position is illumninated, and a red would (in my opinion) be completely confusing. What I wanted to order was green and yellow, green for the normal route, yellow for the diverging route. Same as used for a CTC panel. Oh well. Now I have 10 red LED pushbuttons, which I'm sure I'll find a use for. I'll need a lot more than 10 of each color by the time I'm done anyway.
These are a bit smaller than I thought from the CC video though. Probably too small to mount directly in the fascia (mainly thickness - these switches snap in to a panel). So I will need to come up with inserts for each control location, rectangles of thinner material, where I will cut out a matching square or rectangle in the fascia, but slightly smaller than the mounting plate, and then attach said plate.
This will also allow attaching the wires to the pushbuttons before attaching the button to the fascia, since I am using 8 conductor cables with RJ45 plugs on the circuit end. (cheap old patch cables with one end cut off)
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy, are these push buttons a single unit per turnout, i. e. one button per turnout, or two buttons per turnout, using bi-color leds That alternate?
oh well, just more stuff for the spare parts bins ... thet always seem to grow, lol
Two per turnout. Push the one on the schematic that's on the route you want to go, the one lit up is the selected route. Not bi-color LEDs, just a single color.
Got it!
I thought CTC machines just had "normal" for the main route and "reversed" for the alternate route? Seems to me that many turnout indicators located next to the points are green for the "normal" main route, red for "reversed" or alternate route (either lighted ones or ones with some sort of blade or disc etc.)?
Signal levers are red, with green when a route is locked through. Turnout levers are green for normal, yellow for reverse. Dispacther controlled lock levers are green for locked (normal) and red for unlocked (reverse).
ANd I just spent a bunch of time going down a rabbit hole of a great CTC machine build, each column is backed by a custom PCB to hold the controls and LEDs, and the guy turned his own bezels for the LEDs and his own covers for the pushbuttons. Amazing work.
https://forum.aorailroad.com/t/ctc-machine-build/169
Pretty cool, the guy runs the whole CMRI system with code from the Arduino Teensy (which is an ARM processor one, order of magnitude more program memory than the 8 bit models like Uno and Nano). Still programs with the same language and same IDE as any other Arduino. He uses standard CMRI boards (SMINIs) out in the 'field' (under the layout) to drive the signals and read block detectors, although if you go to the bottom, he worked out a way to replace the PIC on the SMINI with a Teensy varient so he could rewrite the CMRI code to include error checking, as he was seeing a lot of errors at 28.8Kbps and total failure at any higher speed.
I really like the idea - no computer. But it also means I have to be sure the physical machine is correct early in the game.