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A project log for DCC++ Microblock trains

Retrofit Nanoblock (tiny lego) trains for computer control

arcade-perfectarcade perfect 04/10/2020 at 17:290 Comments

20170917_221637 from arcadeperfect on Vimeo.

Early experiment using a small micro controller and a motor controller rather than DCC. It's just running a hard coded forward backward loop. The plan was to control via wifi.

Kind of cool that the train could be truly programmable more like an independent robot than something controlled by a central brain as with DCC. It could have a pi zero and even a camera and some open-cv - the possibilities!

But I couldn't cram it all into the body of the train since the nanoblocks necessarily protrude too far into the inside to keep the structure solid. I could glue just a thin shell. But on top of that it would be so much more work to get it running I just went for DCC. Maybe one day.

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