Track Hacker

Well I started working on the foundations of a many of my upcoming Arduino Model Railroading hacks. It’s a very basic circuit (many will recognize it from one of the Arduino website tutorials) that turns an RC servo as you turn a potentiometer. Not much I know but think of this controlled via Xbee wireless to a Arduino Nano installed inside  a model train! Kewl! All the kewl, devious things I can tilt, pan, zoom, lift, move, etc…. muwhahahahahahahahah! Sorry, that’s my evil scientist laugh. Hell this could even actuate turntables, drawbridges, turnouts, and more throughout a layout.  Instead of using a potentiometer which gives you proportional control, you could use a multi-position rotary switch for something like a turntable to give discrete positions (engine bays in a roundhouse). I think you would still need some kind of sensor, like an opto-interupter to get precise indexing of the turntable rails to the spur track rails but I am getting way ahead of myself and out of the scope of this post.  Anyrate, I have a video I will be posting later so you can see this neat little circuit in all of it’s glory! To the right is an illustration of the circuit (click for a larger view):

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