A Nextion Based Controller for DCC++ and DCC-EX

NormHal Sep 6, 2022

  1. Bazza

    Bazza New Member

    6
    2
    1
    Greetings all.

    The weekend came and went and nothing I planned to do got done.... Anyway, I did want to share my idea of how I was going to try and use a Nextion display for the control of the turnout. Well, until I discovered that just trying to understand the DCC-EX protocol was beyond my abilities.

    I thought that having a turntable with say 12 connecting tracks and thus Nextion ID's assigned to each, then within a configuration file of the controller build, a user could select which of these would represent their use. See 'NextionID.png' as an example.

    So for me, I might select ID's 3 and 4 for the left side of the turntable and 8, 9, 10 and 11 for the right side. See 'Turntable (medium).png' as the reference.

    Then, based on the ID's being selected within the configuration page, only those would be displayed on the Nextion screen, and they could then be used to send the command to control the turntable. I guess the configuration file would need to have the Nextion ID to DCC-EX TT address defined so it knew what to do/send.

    Apologies for the clunky diagram, hopefully you get the idea.

    Hopefully my evenings after work will allow for the building of the controller and yes, I will let you know how I go. Have a great week all.

    Cheers
    Bazza
     

    Attached Files:

    Sumner and NormHal like this.
  2. NormHal

    NormHal TrainBoard Member

    148
    139
    14
    Morning Bazza! All good things start with an idea:)
    I too spent some time thinking about the turntable, and also looked a little at the DCCEX Protocol details - a very comprehensive implementation which (IMHO) is a very complete "package" to cater for as many variants as possible.
    I personally think your idea is a good starting point and would like to suggest we take your specific requirements as a good starting point.
    I'll research the Atlas turntable and see if I can knock together an image or two for the Nextion. I look forward to developments:)
     
    BNSF FAN and Sumner like this.
  3. esfeld

    esfeld TrainBoard Member

    446
    383
    18
    Following this as I have a Kato turntable on a separate test layout.
     
    BNSF FAN likes this.
  4. Erik84750

    Erik84750 TrainBoard Member

    381
    164
    14
    Very soon there will be an update with the (virtually) final two versions of this project. Thanks to the unprecedented fantastic work done by Norm, over the past two (or is it three ;)) years (y).
     
    Sumner likes this.

Share This Page