The diary (2015)

Meaning: testing, debugging and fussing ...

No project goes without glitches: this page is my “diary”, where I can list my failures, my thoughts, my hopes and solutions, ... In short: the setbacks and how I cope with them. This aspect is and remains an essential part of the building of "Marche-en-Bières", a part that will not be hidden to the reader of this website. It might even be instructive for you: even if only a consolation that you too may be confronted with issues while working on your own project:

January '15: A new year. With a lot of courage and high hopes I start this New Year, aiming at setting big steps on my MeB layout. Electronics remains a major item, certainly at the beginning of this year. However it is increasingly difficult to suppress the urge to resume the “real” model building with styrene and glue.
The project plan (section Electronics) is the Power Management in Emergency situations as well as Speed Control. In a first stage the Speed Control will not take into account signal positions. They’ll just control the maximum speed on different sections, and react on Emergency signals. This means that in a first introduction phase only two trains will run simultaneously: one in each direction. No points will be activated or controlled. The next phase will be the upgrade of the Block-System, meaning the introduction of Current-Detection and the development and building of my own Control-System. This new system will communicate with current-detectors and speed-control-units on the main tracks. A later stage it will take into account point-control in the hidden stations.
The current status: Still busy developing the simple one-direction speed-control units. The prototype has been build, and software is in development. Six units on a single bus-print. Each unit can control 8 PWM channels, so up to 48 sections will have their speed individually controlled. At a later stage the bus will receive the signal-status from the Central Unit (by RS232 communication), and translate those statuses into adapted speeds for each section.

February '15: Starting this month, and looking back at the previous one, I confess I’ve done quite different things than listed on my wish-list. I spent most time working on Servo-Controls and a new Configuration-Unit. This unit is a long-term project: its design will be determined mostly by a graphical 240x320 color display (a touch-screen), in addition to a card-reader, an encoder, reloadable batteries and an emergency button. It is an ambitious project, in which 4 microcontrollers will work together to get things done. The new design is planned to be more user-friendly, using colors, menu’s, display more information.
The design work on this project made good progress, both the housing and the double-sided print-layout. The software to the graphical controller already looks more difficult than initially estimated. Lots of routines need to be developed based on datasheet information.
The work on Servo-control is based on an earlier design, in which the microcontroller reads the servo-position by itself. Beginning of this month an easier servo-control is being devised, where (Set and Reset) inputs will be used. The Speed-Controllers are patiently waiting for some time and attention from my side…
March '15: Still a lot of electronics on the plate, this month. Certainly the new Control-Unit (G-LCD). The design is almost completed, and a first prototype was built. The prototype-status is constantly confirmed by frequent “improvement”-issues. 9 were already identified while building the prototype. More issues popped up while starting testing. Improvements are immediately incorporated in the design, so that no time will be wasted, once a (final?) version is to be built.
The first concern while developing and testing the software is to get the Power-Management right. This means getting a first microprocessor do its specialized job of checking and tuning voltages (taking care of batteries, sleeping modes, LCD backlight ...). This chip will, at a later stage, also control touch-screen and encoder. As I started testing this microprocessor, I felt the lack of debugging facilities. I was not able to trace the internal values and sequence of execution. So the need for an extra display came up. Therefore priorities changed, and I started working on the microprocessor which is destined to control the graphical display.
I knew this would be difficult (to say the least). After many trials and two weeks of trouble, I was still not able to generate ANY image (small consolation: I got the backlighting working). Several bugs and bad soldering points were identified. At the end of this month I have some days off. Big hopes on the progress to be made by then.
The misery with electronics and lack of progress increases the craving for the essentials on model trains: getting the trains to move around, on a beautiful and completed MeB layout. At such moments when progress is failing, it is extremely difficult to fight the urge to put everything aside. But I know from experience: picking up such track after a while is very difficult. So best option is to persevere …

April '15:
May '15:

June '15:
July '15:

August '15:
September '15:

October '15:
November '15:

December '15:

See: diary 2014 - photo's 2015 - diary 2016