Coal Basin Projects

This folder was created in September 2024 to include all projects associated with a model railway known as the Coal Basin. Previously these projects were located under the DCC banner. 

The original project was an evaluation project - the individual subpage/subsprojects were shifted from the folder Model_Trains/DCC to Model_Trains/Coal_Basin_Project/Coal_Basin1 in September 2024.

After some experience with the original layout in September 2024 some changes were suggested. The opportunity was taken to modify/simplify the individual projects. These are all stand alone and are located in a sub-folder or sub-page, Coal_Basin2  of this page.

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Some Background

Photo shows early work on the "Coal Basin". In the foreground there is an area to be developed as a deep water port where coal ships are loaded with coal from the mine behind. There will also be two railway tracks (later changed to three) that may be shunted to the mine. 

The above photo shows the original electronics available for user comment.

The PCB on the right shows the control panel. On it are buttons laid out to represent the final layout or train routes. Three control panels were proposed located on three sides of the basin. (The final design used two)

The micro-controller (left hand PCB) will read the buttons and 

1. Display the chosen route using the LEDs mounted on the control panel. In the prototype the original LEDs were so bright that they hid the buttons, The production model used a larger current limiting resistor.

2. Set the point control servos left or right depending upon the desired route. The prototype had 11 points which was increased to 12 that necessitated a redesign of the Control Panel. The servo used a PCA9685 interface allowing up to 16 servos. What was not appreciated was the current required by the servos so the board power supply needed to be upgraded.

3. An LCD that could be used to display the active tracks. This was not pursued but could be easily added if requested. 

4. Signals for each point. The bread board shows RED, AMBER, GREEN signals. One such circuit would be required for each of the original 11 points. Little interest was shown in this proposal so the idea was not pursued eliminating the serial to parallel components on the main control board.

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