Coal Basin 1

This page was created in September 2024 as an umbrella page for a number of existing pages associated with the Model Railway layout known as the Coal Basin.

The track layout is shown below

There are a number of routes labeled 'A' through 'M'.  The operator will select one of these routes and the microcontroller will select which of the points '1' through '11' to set. For example if the station is selected points 1, 4, 4, 6, 8 and '9' must be set.

The various bub systems are described in the following pages.

1. The buttons used by the operator to select the desired route

2. The LEDs on the control panel that display the active routes. Generally, there will be two - those to Lower Eastside and those to the Coal Basin

3. The Servos that drive the points. Route A will control one point only whereas Route 'I' will control 6.

4. Not shown but it was proposed to include an LCD to display the active routes. Uses standard libraries.

5. Also not shown and not implemented are signals to indicate the status of the point. (3 per point)

6. The control board that collects all the button information and drives the output circuitry. 

With the project there were a number of issues with the servos. These are described on a separate page.

In September 2024 it was decided to add another track to the layout and to remove the buttons and Leds to a larger panel. While this did not lead to many changes in the software it was decided to redo these pages with a significantly different presentation. However, the basic code is almost the same. This new presentation is under the umbrella Coal_Basin2.