New from the UK - DCC a better way?

hi, I am new to this forum and have been reading many posts about DCC. I am an old,old,old electronics engineer with lots of experience in aerospace and am keen to make firstly some DCC decoders for my locos and then a better DCC controller. I have to say I am not keen on the single control knob for all locos, it just does not feel right somehow. I am thinking of a system that you can expand, simply by plugging in another control knob, as many controls as you like. I would welcome your thoughts n what you would ideally like since you guys have all the experience and I have none.......so far. If anyone has a schematic ( and code either source or hex) of a PIC based loco decoder please let me know. I am very experienced in PCB design and would be delighted to help develop stuff with others out there....FOC of course. Just let me know
Cheers for now

 

Hi Brian, welcome. Glad to have you aboard. Please check out the DCC & Electronics forum. You'll find lots of folks there who'll be happy to chat with you.

 

if you're looking for decoder firmware, i can help with that .. unless you already have access to MERG ??

 

That would be great. Thank you.
Being a hardware person, software / firmware is a black art to me.
Which PIC is the firmware designed for?

 

Sorry to be dim....but how do I find the DCC & Electronics forum?

 

the firmware was designed at first for the 16f87, and was substituted by the 16f882
the file itself here https://www.merg.org.uk/merg_resources/dcc_download.php
and the zip here https://www.modeltrainforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=199809&d=1467655096
with the updated zip on the thread itself [on MTF]

 

Enjoy.

Enter the Trainboard as usual. However instead of clicking on New Member Introductions, scroll down past all the 1:1 forums to the modeling forums. The second within that list will be DCC & Electronics. Beyond that, you're on your own. Enjoy.

 

Welcome to TrainBoard Brian! Your concept sounds interesting. Looking forward to following the progress.

 

Thanks wvgca, that all looks very promising. I am not keen on the way they couple the DCC signal directly into the PIC I think onto coupling is better so I'll have a look into that. Thanks again for the info - very interesting to see what has gone before.

 

Got it - found it - thank you.

 

As with all things it is the mechanical aspects of the implementation that cause the most problems. Trying to make things straight forward to assemble and add on to is never easy...but 3D modelling helps before you start hacking bits of metal, better to ruin a virtual model than the real thing !!
I will post progress as it is made and welcome your comments on my ideas.

 

Welcome to TB.

 

Welcome

Noted . Electronics engineers involved in the hobby are invaluable.

 

it's a pretty old design, getting close to twenty years on the original, probably need another update on the pic, the pcb's generated were relatively small, [0.6 x 0.4 inch ] and still in use ..