Paddy Mac Namara

I live in sallins near naas, if you want to collect them

Thanks noel for your words of encouragement. Not sure if i understand the question, i am detecting the loco on the "mainline", but there are loads of operation issues, its a solution, not a complete one. For example if a "branchline" loco is already in the junction. the "mainline" loco will switch of power to the branchline loco and its stuck there so we have a crash. Because the layout is continuous and i have an identical junction on the other side, once both junctions are protected, the branchline locos will always lag the mainline loco, so collisions should be avoided. a fail-s

hi sven, i went with the reed switch, i posted video on "Celbridge" thread on layout forum. Yep you are right, Photo transistor is sensitive to ambient conditions but you can adjust sensitivity with resistor, with limitations, i have done quite a bit on this and if you check out my youtube channel you can see for your self. Name of channel is Patrick Mac Namara. Here's a longer (winded) version with maybe clearer explanation on real track with the reed switches.

Thanks MikeO really appreciate the encouragement

So i decided to bite the bullet and try out the diamond crossing protector on the layout with actual locomotives.

This video is doing pretty much the same thing as the one above and uses the same code for the Arduino, but in this demo i am using Phototransistors.

Got some IR sensors and have been playing around with them and Arduino micro-controller.

Just a quick video to show how Infra Red sensors work for detecting locomotives. I'll post a more detailed video on the electronics forum for those who may be interested.

I've been doing some experiments with phototransistors as a means of detecting locos.

i like this little layout, my advice keep it simple for your first layout, also i'm shocked you left the mechanical engineering brotherhood to go to the dark arts of software.

i'm not a great fan of the "emoji" likes, so here's some real words. "i like". track plans etc...?????

got a new loco for the layout, the scale maybe a bit of but it's dcc

Thanks Dhu, could you share some detail on this detection circuit, photos, circuit diagram, list of parts? cheers paddy mac

hi sven, thanks for your comments and interest. I don't think that will be a problem, my previous experiments, see vid from 10th march 2019, show that the magnet does engage reed switch when attached to loco, in fact the magnet is very close to the switch as it passes over. What i was more concerned with is the double contact of reed switch as the magnet passes over it as shown in the video below. When using the Arduino and coding this was a problem and that is why there is a time delay in the code, so that the code ignores the second contact. With this circuit as long as the magnet pa