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The following pages describe a monitoring system to debug potential problems on a digital controlled model train system. The monitoring system consists of hardware and software to capture and analyze DCC and/or RS-Bus packets. The DCC bus is the communication bus used to send commands to trains, switches and function decoders. Commands sent over the DCC bus are captured by the monitoring hardware and forwarded (via a serial or Ethernet interface) to a PC for analysis. The RS-bus is a communication bus used by Lenz compatible feedback decoders to report state changes back to the command station. Possible reports includes messages to signal when a train enters or leaves a rail section, and the orientation of switches. Any state reports on the RS-bus are sent to the PC as well.
The monitoring system can be connected to multiple DCC- and/or RS-buses. By integrating data from different buses, a relation between DCC commands and RS-bus feedback information can be made, which eases the detection of faulty components.
Summary
- Monitor both the DCC- and the RS-bus, allowing to correlate commands and feedbacks.
- Chain multiple "single-input" boards together, using just a single serial or Ethernet port on the PC<./li>
- Easy to build (no SMD) and cheap hardware.
- Compatible with the Lenz LAN/USB Interface (23151).
- Fully open source.
Versions
There are two versions of both monitor hardware and monitor software:
- The first version of the hardware was developed by Peter Lebbing and allows monitoring of a single DCC- or (via an extension board) RS-bus signal. Multiple of these "single-input" boards can be connected to each other (daisy-chained).
- The second version of the hardware is basically an integration of multiple "single-input" boards (two DCC and one RS-bus), plus the addition of an Ethernet interface. The advantage of such "multi-input" board is that wiring gets simpler, and a single power-source suffices.
- The first version of the software was developed by Peter Lebbing and provides a simple command line interface. The software runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OSX, and is limited in its capabilities to the most common DCC packets.
- The second version of the software is a rewrite from scratch, decodes (nearly) all DCC packets and provides a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for MAC OSX (for OSX 10.6 or higher). It has been designed with the "multi-input" hardware board in mind, but can additionally decode RS-bus feedback signals via Lenz's own LAN/USB Interface (serial number: 23151). Although it expects input via the Ethernet interface, the software can still be used together with the "single-input" monitoring boards, provided a serial-to-Ethernet converter is being used (such serial-to-Ethernet software can also be downloaded from this site).
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