Last week we figured out the map of the train tracks. This involved finding the location of every point (train track switch) and section of track (area that could be individually powered). The hardware that was being tested was a proto-board with components to allow for a PIC to be mobile. To test it the board was programmed to send out valid packets and pulse a heartbeat LED. The hardware that was tested can be seen on the schematic page.
Goals from previous week:
- Figure out the bit mapping,
- Test the hardware
Work Completed:
Greg:
- Soldered 2 boards for the stations
- Calculated addresses for sections of track
- Calculated pins for points (how to control them)
- Understood how to use the reed switches
- Developed routing network (Eg North track to South track Eastbound)
- Created schematics to interface with the points
- Enhanced schematic to interface with the reed switches
- Added interface to Bluetooth module
- Moved to UART1 to keep UART2 open for bluetooth connection
- Cleaned all tracks
- Perform test runs on simple routing (N->N, Express->Express, S->S, E-bound)
- Setup Input Capture to detect train on reed switch
Jack:
- Got basic Bluetooth communication
- Determined MAC addresses for all Bluetooth devices
- Can now communicate with three Bluetooth slave
- Determined that the BT modules can only connect to a maximum of three devices, unfortunately
- Began on a workaround for the above problem
- Began work on receiving information from the slave devices (we had discussed removing this from the project, I was determining how difficult it would be)
Challenges:
- There are a lot of soldering connections which take a lot of time
- Bluetooth master can only connect to two slaves
Upcoming Goals:
Greg:
- Add safety cutout to the train tracks to prevent trains from crashing off the end.
- Design external interface.
Jack:
- Interface track control with Bluetooth.
- Finish commands for individual stations.
Greg and Jack:
- Build interface to control all of the train tracks.
- Solder all boards