Poll: Control panel design and ease of use

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

My turnout controls will have 2 pushbuttons, one set the normal route, the other the reverse route. There are two LEDs, one of which lights to indeicate the selected route. Pretty basic.

BUT, some of these turnouts, when a dispatcher is available, will normally be locked and can only be unlocked by the dispatcher (these are turnouts off the main). I have 2 options, the first option has 2 choices.

Option 1: A single LED to indicate the locked or unlocked status. Lit to indicate locked, or lit to indicate unlocked? Red or green (or other color)?

Option 2: 2 LEDs, one lit for locked, the other lit for unlocked. Red lock, green unlock? Or the other way around.

How I control this is not an issue, it’s mostly a software matter as to what a given state actually indicates. Goal is to make it easy to use, in that you cna quickly glance at the panel and see that pushing the buttons will have no effect because the switch is locked,

I’m leaning towards one red LED< lit to indicate the switch is locked. Assume you are visititing my layout for the first time and have no experience with the controls. THe buttons and the route indicators should be fairly obvious as they will be part of a fascia schematic - press the button for the way you want the train to go, and the light will indicate which way it’s lined. But what makes the most sense fo an indication that says “ok, you can set this switch yourself” vs “you need to call the dispatcher to have this switch lined for you (or have local control enabled)” That’s where I am looking for input - on one hand, a third light lit up can mean “ok, you have control” or it can also mean “hold on, local access is locked out” Which way makes the most sense to you?

&nbs

2

sorry, i know you’re looking for either option 1 or 2.

since the buttons have no effect if the turnout are locked in a known positon, why not have the LEDs OFF when locked and only active when unlocked and can be controlled by the buttons?

have you read the latest parts of Bruce Chubb’s series on railroad signals in Railroad Model Craftsman which discuss prototype behavior of locked mainline turnouts

3

I can see how it may get confusing for a visitor to learn the panel indications. I have tried to keep mine simple but it can easily get overwhelming with too many “blinkenlights”

How about an alpha-numeric display, or a gang of three to display a standard terminology for the turnout control such as:

LOC for local control and REM for remote control? Or LOK for locked and UNL for unlocked, something like that.

http://www.allelectronics.com/item/sda-24/alpha-numeric-led-display/1.html

50¢ each isn’t too bad, cost-wise.

Or if you only want one digit you could still get L for locked and U for unlocked.

https://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/partgroup/alphanumeric/19339

Some of the matrix displays also offer bi-color displays as well.

That might make it easier to see at-a-glance what your status is. Besides All Electronics I’m sure you could find displays on ebay, Digikey, Mouser, too.

How about going for a “retro” look and use a Nixie Tube?

Good Luck, Ed

4

Assuming these are both white, I like the idea of a single red LED (on/off) to indicate locked. If the above 2 LEDs are green and red, then I would pick another color to indicate locked, orange or yellow?

5

How about having your direction indicating LED flash when the turnout is locked?

6

How about doing it the way We did it in the real life CSX Intermodal Yard where I was a crane operator for a number of yrs…Use a Bi-color led, Red/ Green for turnout position and Blue for locked or de-rail locked…the only way a lock could be unlocked, is by the guy who put it there. Engine throttle locks were set the same way. No one could remove the Blue light lock…only the guy who put it there. Which would be the Yardmaster or in our case…the Pacific Rail Services yard foreman who put it there. Another tid-bit that a lot of Model Railroaders do not know is…Railroad Employee’s Do Not unload/load the Intermodal Trains. It is done by outside contractors…that is what Pacific Rail Services out of Seattle WA. does and there are two others that do the same. One other tid-bit…they are Teamsters…

Take Care! [:D]

Frank

7

If I wanted it to be truly prototypical, I’d use a key lock switch and issue switch keys to crews, but lock switches aren’t cheap. No, it’s not completely prototypical. But since the ‘locl’ input is active low with a pullup, if you start up the railroad without starting up the CTC system, ALL turnouts will be able to be manually controlled. That’s because I like to run trains and I am not building somethign that REQUIRES half a dozen or more peoople just to run trains, and it gets run once a month - frankly I never did get that aspect of the hobby. My layout plan CAN handle a group of operators, but it can also be run by just me, any time I feel like running trains, without having to run back and forth between the dispatcher panel and the train I am trying to run.

So - default to unlocked and locla control enabled when the CTC is not fired up, when it is, all mainline turnouts default to locked and not under local control unless the dispatcher sets it.

I do like the idea of just having the positioon lights off when the turnout is locked, however they do help the operator see which way their train is going to gooo. Trackside signals may be enough, and in most cases no scene will be very deep such that you couldn’t see which way the points are lined looking at the track - so other than positive confirmation as to which button you pressed when in manual mode, I suppose the lock indicator is not really required.

Colors undecided. With my previous layout using the Tam Valley Singlets, they had bi-color LEDs for each position so I set them as the selected route green adn the opposite route red rather than just lighting the selected route. However I do not have enough pins to implement this so I may just go with green LEDs that light only the selected route.

My only concern is that just turning off both position lights to indicate a locked turnout, some may just consider it a circuit failure. Eliminating the desidacted lock LED

8

Randy, two thoughts:

Why not use lighted pushbuttons to declutter the panel…I can hook you up with a source.

Will there be groups of turnouts in a given area that would all be locked at the same time? One LED per group indcating lockout would be good. My tower psnels work that way.

Sheldon

9

Lighted buttons are a possibility Declutters, but doesn’t cut pin count. Might look better than havign 2 holes on every route of the fascia schematic. I found some with LEDs that aren;t terribly expensive but they tend to come in multi packs of different colors. If you have a source, send it on over.

There indeed may be areas of multiple turnouts that are all locked and unlocked together, such as a given interlocking. That would almost never be actually unlocked by a dispatcher but would be unlocked to permit solo/casual operation. Along the main there may be similar situations with multiple turnouts in a single block all controller by a single off power/unlock control on the CTC panel. That’s the way it appears to have been done, since any unlocked turnout within the block needs to drop the signals at both ends for protection anyway. You’re conviving me that each turnout controller does NOT need any sort of output to indicate the lock/unlock status of the turnouts it is controlling, instead I can use an output fromt he master controller for that area to indicate if a whole series of turnouts is locked or not. That also solves my pin count problem without having to start over again with a completely different microcontroller - I just saved 2 pins by not having the lock LED.

–Randy

10

Randy, PM sent.

Sheldon

11

I would use two green LEDs to indicate the route, a third red LED to indicate locked - locked if the red is lit, local control if the red is unlit.

12

You may not be able to use A6 and A7 as digital pins, but it is quite easy to read a button input with an analog input. You could even easily read all four button inputs with one analog input as long as you don’t have to read multiple buttons pressed at the same time.

13

Yeah but that means building hardware debounce - I was using the bouncer2 library to get both a debounce and a nice hysteresis soo that you have to actually push the button and not just casually touch it.

Anyway I have it all figured out. The dual relay thing is not needed, so one relay per turnout for frog polarity, and without the individual lock LEDs I’ve saved 4 pins - even going back to one pin for each indicator LED:

D02: Servo 1 Normal PB D03: Servo 1 Reverse PB

D04: Servo 1 Normal LED D05: Servo 1 Reverse LED

D06: Servo 2 Normal PB D07: Servo 2 Reverse PB

D08: Servo 2 Normal LED D09: Servo 2 Reverse LED

D10: Servo 1 D11: Servo 2

D12: Servo 1 Relay D13: Servo 2 Relay

A00 (D14): Servo 1 Lock input A01 (D15): Servo 1 Remote control

A02 (D16): Servo 2 Lock input A03 (D17): Servo 2 Remote control

Leaves me with A4 and A5, I may use those for centering jumpers for each servo.

I have the schematic almost done, need to add some proper decoupling capacitors, and also draw the controllers - if I can get the switches Sheldon pointed me to, or something similar, I need to make my own schematic element and model for KiCad, there’s no lighted momentary pushbutton built in.

BTW is you find Eagle too limited, and really annoying now that it has gone to an online only subscription model, and want an open source free EE CAD/PCB design program - I heartily recommend KiCad. It’s truly free, open source, no limitations on board size like the free version of Eagle. Loads of tutori