I’ve made some extensive changes to the Switch Machine Controllers page, adding a connection diagram for the driver modules and removing the drawings of breadboard layouts. It should be easier to follow now.

Added some information regarding modeling railroad turntables.

First, I added some back-of-the-envelope calculations to the Railroad Turntable page to verify that the maximum speed of my planned stepper motor will not be exceeded. Also, on the Turntable Calculations page I edited a note regarding Adafruit replacing their 16:1 geared stepper motor with a 64:1 model. As of November 2021 they have reversed that change, so the 16:1 motors are again being sold. Based on the maximum-speed calculations I mentioned above, this is a very good thing. 😉

I corrected some links on page https://modelrailroadelectronics.blog/switch-machine-controllers/ in the Software section.

Unfortunately, our planned venue for Arduino Day 2020, the Chinn Park Regional Library in Woodbridge, Virginia, has cancelled all summer programs due to their ongoing closure from the COVID-19 pandemic. So we will not be holding an Arduino Day event in June of this year after all. I am hoping to put on some sort of STEM/STEAM event there later this year. I will post an announcement here if that comes to be.

Due to the closures and restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Arduino Day 2020 event at the Chinn Park Regional Library in Woodbridge VA has been rescheduled to Saturday, June 20, 2020, from noon to 4 PM. (This just happens to be the Summer Solstice too. 😉 )

Saturday, March 21, 2020 will be Arduino Day 2020, a worldwide collection of public events where computer hobbyists get a chance to exhibit their Arduino-based projects. Each of the past few years has seen about 600 such events on Arduino Day.

This year, the Makers and Microcomputers Meetup group (https://www.meetup.com/Makers-and-Microcomputers-Woodbridge-VA/) will be teaming up with the Chinn Park Regional Library in Woodbridge to put on an Arduino Day event. The event is tentatively planned to run from noon to 4 PM that day in their large meeting room. The Library is located at:

13065 Chinn Park Drive
Woodbridge, VA 22192

More details as the date approaches. Watch for it!

Disclaimer: I’m the organizer for Makers and Microcomputers. 😉

I’ve added a page which gives some notes on how I plan to use I²C buses and UDP/IP over Ethernet to connect the various controllers in my project.

I’ve also added some more details on the design of the block-switching controllers.

I’ve added two new pages to my build blog, both describing the newest subproject of my model railroad electronics project: an operating locomotive turntable, driven by an Arduino-type microcontroller.  The first page gives background information on the turntable project, and the second page goes into more detail on how the drive train between motor and turntable was created.

I’ve added a new page, Throttles – Implementation, which describes the current implementation of my now-working Arduino-based model train throttle system.  This system was successfully used for the first time at the 2017 Ekoji Obon Festival, an annual event held each July at the Ekoji Buddhist Temple in Fairfax Station, Virginia.  Our club, Japan Rail Modelers of Washington DC, has set up a display of our Japanese train models at this Festival for several years now.  This year’s display included a double-track loop with a pair of my N-gauge PORTRAM models, and powered by my new throttle system.  Festival visitors, especially kids, had the opportunity to drive the trams using a control lever modeled after the actual hand controls used by the drivers on the Toyama Light Rail system.  There’s more information on Toyama Light Rail and my models on my Overview page.