Why turn on an LED with a simple pushbutton, when you can get a complicated computer program to "configure" a complicated LCC circuit board, so that you can turn on an LED with a pushbutton?
The simple answer is - because you want your model railroad to have working signals protecting interlockings and control points.
The photo above is just the first baby step forwards. This simple configuration of an LCC-Signal node allows me to turn on 5 different LED's with 5 different pushbuttons (on the other side of the vertical "test board" on the right). It took 15 hours or more of study and experimentation to get to this point. Hopefully the rest of the learning curve will ease up. Rest assured, if it does, you'll be hearing more about it here.
Signaling is a big subject. Bruce Chubb spent his whole life developing tools for model railroaders, and had a 13-part series of articles on it in Railroad Model Craftsman a few years ago. I skimmed them and wondered if I would ever have the guts to try doing it.
Then Seth Neumann of "Model Railroad Control Systems" gave me a "free" signal head one day in 2019. The perfect gateway drug. You can see three of them in the picture above, one all lit up. They cost just over a buck apiece. They don't look like much, as a model of a signal head, but oh, boy, when those LED's light up, you can feel your hands instinctively reaching for the locomotive controls. 30 years ago at a swap meet I had bought a kit to build a signal head, but had I built it? No.
Seth is a big proponent of Bruce's Computer Model Railroad Interface (CMRI) program, and uses it on his layout (and many others). I saw Bruce give clinics on it, and bought all three of his detailed instruction books about it, and started plowing through them. A lot to figure out, lines of computer code to write, wires to run, etc. Easy to procrastinate on this.
Meanwhile, the NMRA worked out some "industry standards" on "Layout Command Control" (LCC) and a company called "RR-Circuits" started selling components to set it up. And I watched a Zoom clinic given by Jim Betz on his new layout, and there it is, he slapped an LCC in there, just like that! If he can do it, why can't I? How hard can it be?
So I decided to try it. Here's a picture of the initial setup, that I plan to use to power some signals to improve the operation of the Delta Wye on my layout. I got some inexpensive signals from Seth, proved to myself that I can make them light up using the LCC-Signals node with a test board of pushbuttons, so I guess the project is underway. I'm still afraid, but less than I was. The important thing is, it's underway, not stalled. A few days ago when I got stuck, I posted a question on the LCC groups.io site, and within an hour six helpful people had suggested answers! What a world we live in!
From left to right, this shows the "Power Point" regulated power supply, the USB interface box for plugging it into the computer for JMRI access, and the LCC-Signal "node" board, with the "test board" sticking up with all the pushbuttons on it for testing. Pretty cool. On the layout, the test board will be replaced with a cable out to the various turnouts, so the signals will be able to give the correct indication based on actual turnout position. I'll test it all at the desk first, and then put it on the layout and wire up the turnouts, which thankfully happen to already be powered by Tortoise switch machines that have extra SPDT contacts available. Whew!
I'll believe it when I see it. But this IS a first step.
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