Kind of a brag post but I got the last items I needed for Christmas to complete the totally digital layout on my workbench. I've been having a lot of fun the past couple of days. While it is the peewee of layouts, it is all I can have at the time and I still have a lot of fun with it. The first version of the layout was a combo of DC and DCC(complete with seven DPDT switches on the front) I found myself using DC less and less so I made the switch to entirely DCC. Layout is 31 x 2 inches, base is 1 inch tall made from black foam core board and white picture frame mat board for the road bed(double layered). The road bed was painted separately with Rust oleum Multi Textured Caribbean Sand for a road bed look. Track is all Atlas code 80 Left hand turnouts and flextrack. Track painted separately Krylon Camouflage Brown. FYI Vallejo Air Dark Brown is a perfect color match for the Krylon for the airbrush or touch up by paint brush. Three Arduino Megas power the layout. While this is overkill for now there is enough room for plenty of expansion on a bigger layout later. One arduino runs DCC ++ EX a 4PDT switch on the front of the layout makes the entire layout run as main and the other side turn off all track but the front left side for DCC programing. Second arduino runs two servos and two dwarf signals, two lights green and yellow each. The lights and servos use accessory decoder functions via a optocoupler board. Again this is a mega so there is plenty of room for expansion. Third arduino is for sensors and uses a sensor sheild. While I only have four sensors on my layout it can run up to 67. Using JMRI with all arduinos plugged into it on different USB-COM ports. So far everything works good, turnouts are interlocked as a crossover and the signals heads are programmed. Sensors are IR and need some tuning but do operate and show a change in JMRI. Even though the layout is small there are a lot of wires going to it. I tried to keep everything neat with cable ties and labeling. I could of swore the DCC salesman said I only needed two wires running to the track! With the hardware done I can now explore JMRI automation and see where that takes me. A big thanks to the folks who make DCC EX and Geoff Bunza on Model Railroad Hobbyist and Rob on Little Wicket Railway on Youtube.com who made a digital layout possible.
