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Items relevant to "An Automatic Garage Door Opener; Pt.2":
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Big HO locomotives like this American outline unit
present few problems in installation but smaller British,
European and some Australian locomotives will be a
real shoehorn job.
Part 4: the receiver/decoder modules
This month we present the receiver/decoder for
the Protopower 16 Command Control system.
Each locomotive on the layout needs one of
these decoders and the circuit is laid out on two
PC boards to enable it to be shoe-horned into
the locomotive body.
Design by BARRY GRIEGER
As discussed in previous articles
in this series, the Command Control
system impresses a serial data stream
onto the track voltage. The serial data
stream has blocks of 16 pulses, one
pulse for each of the 16 locomotives
which can be used on the system.
These pulses have an amplitude of
5V peak-to-peak and so form a very
“robust” data stream which will not
be subject to interference from the
commutator hash of typical model
locomotives.
The job of the receiver/decoder is
to separate the particular width-modulated pulse for its own locomotive
from the block of 16 pulses and then
turn that pulse into direction and
voltage signals to drive the locomotive’s motor.
Essentially, the receiver/decoder
can be regarded as a speed and direction control built into each locomotive
and getting its “throttle” settings from
the serial data stream. The speed control part of the circuit will supply up
to 1A to the locomotive motor at up
to about 13-14V DC.
To understand how the receiver/
decoder works, we need to refer to the
block diagram of Fig.1 and then to the
complete circuit of Fig.2.
Fig.1 just shows the main circuit
Run your model railway with
Command
60 Silicon Chip
Fig.1: this block diagram shows the major circuit functions of the receiver/decoder board. The data stream
superimposed on the track voltage is demultiplexed by the up/down counter to recover the widthmodulated pulse for the particular locomotive and this pulse is then fed to the servo decoder.
functions. On the lefthand side at
the top of the diagram you will see
the track voltage being fed to a bridge
rectifier. The data pulses pass through
the bridge rectifier unchanged. The
voltage from the bridge rectifier then
goes in four separate directions. First,
it feeds a 3-terminal 5V regulator
(REG1) to drive the three ICs on the
receiver board. Second, it is fed via
diode D1 to the H-bridge circuit to
drive the motor in either direction.
Third and fourth, the pulses superimposed on the track voltage are fed
in two directions, to the Sync Detector
and a Schmitt trigger/buffer (IC1f).
The Schmitt trigger/buffer squares
and cleans up the signal before feeding it to the CD input of IC2, an up/
down counter which acts as a de
multiplexer. If you remember, in the
encoder described in the February
1998 issue, we had a multiplexer to
insert the 16 throttle settings into the
pulse waveform. Now, in the decoder
circuit, we need the opposite form;
a “demultiplexer” to get the throttle
information out of the pulse signal.
The sync detector, for its part, finds
the sync “gap” between blocks of 16
pulses and feeds the detected sync
pulse to the “load” input of IC2. By
a mysterious process which we’ll describe later, the up/down counter (demultiplexer) then magically extracts
the wanted pulses for the particular
locomotive and feeds it to IC3, the
servo decoder.
This servo decoder turns the
width-modulated pulses into direction and speed signals which drive the
H-bridge and this in turn, drives the locomotive motor forward or backward at
any speed between stop and “flat chat”.
Well, the broad overview is just that,
a broad overview and it doesn’t really
tell you how the same track voltage
can provide the power for the motor
and the ICs as well as the speed and
direction information. To really understand the nitty-gritty of the circuit
operation, we need to have a detailed
look at Fig.2.
Circuit description
Again, you will see the bridge
rectifier, BR1, on the lefthand side of
the circuit and it is fed with the track
voltage, via the wheels and current
pickups of the locomotive.
Remember that the track voltage
is 11V DC with a 5.9V pulse signal
superimposed on top, giving a total
track voltage of about 16.9V peak.
The track voltage passes through the
bridge rectifier virtually unchanged,
apart from the voltage losses in the
bridge diodes of about 1.3V. So after
the bridge rectifier we have about 10V
DC with a 5.6V pulse signal still superimposed on top. This “composite”
track voltage is then fed via diode D1
Control
May 1998 61
Fig.2: three ICs perform the crucial functions to drive the locomotive motor with
a pulse-width modulated (PWM) signal via the H-bridge transistors. These also
provide forward and reverse operation.
to the H-bridge circuit which drives
the motor. There is a small amount of
filtering provided by capacitor C13 but
it is mainly there to remove commutator hash from the motor.
At the same time, track voltage from
BR1 is fed directly to REG1, the 78L05
3-terminal regulator, to provide 5V DC
to power the three ICs. The fact that
the 5.6V pulses are riding on top of the
DC input to the regulator makes little
difference to its performance.
Counting the pulses
As well as drawing DC power from
the track voltage, the receiver circuit
must decode the data stream. So, following the bridge rectifier, the track
voltage is fed via a 10V zener diode
which effectively removes the 10V
DC and just leaves the 5.6V pulses to
62 Silicon Chip
be fed to a voltage divider consisting
of resistors R1 & R2. From there, the
signal voltage goes to the inputs of two
40106 Schmitt trigger inverters, IC1a &
IC1f. IC1f squares up the pulse signal
and feeds it to the CD (count down)
input of IC2, the 40193 presettable up/
down counter which functions as the
demultiplexer.
IC2 has four data inputs (pins 1,
9, 10 & 15) which can be hard-wired
(high or low) to set the wanted channel. Upon the application of a “load”
pulse to pin 11, IC2 counts down by
16 from the preset channel so that
the decoded output is present at the
Borrow terminal (pin 13).
Now before we go too far, we’ll clear
up a possible area of confusion. We
have said that the Command Control
system uses a serial data block of 16
pulses and so it does. But the 40193 is
a binary counter so it counts up from
0 to 15 or down, from 15 to 0.
So while we might be talking about
the overall system having 16 channels,
IC2 actually counts down from a count
of 15 to as far as zero, if channel 1 is
required for the particular receiver/
decoder. If we’re talking about a
locomotive on channel 4 or the 4th
pulse in the data stream, we preload
the counter using the four data inputs
so that IC2 gives an output when the
4th data pulse is reached.
What actually happens is that IC2
counts down until it reaches a count
of 4, whereupon the “Borrow” output
at pin 13 goes low. It goes high again
as soon as the input at pin 4 goes high.
Hence the output pulse at pin 13
lasts as long as the relevant 4th pulse
in the data stream fed to pin 4 and so
we have recovered the wanted data
pulse and it is inverted by IC1d before
being fed to IC3, the servo decoder.
Fig.3: these waveforms show how IC2 recovers the correct
width modulated pulse from the data stream. The top
trace shows the data signal fed to pin 4 of IC2. Below that,
the wide negative-going pulse is the “load” signal fed to
pin 11 of IC2. The bottom trace is the output of IC1d, at
pin 8. Note that the narrow positive-going pulse of the
bottom trace is an inverted version of the wanted 4th
pulse in the data stream on the top trace.
Fig.5: these waveforms show the operation of the servo
decoder, IC3. The top trace shows the input pulse for
forward motion. The middle trace shows pin 5 pulsing
low at the same rate as the input pulse while the bottom
trace, pin 9, stays high.
We can see this sequence of events
in the waveforms of Fig.3. The top
trace shows the signal fed to pin 4 of
IC2. Below that, the wide negative-going pulse is the “load” signal fed to
pin 11 of IC2. The bottom trace is the
output of IC1d, at pin 8. Note that the
Fig.4: these waveforms show the operation of the sync
detector or “sync stripper”. The top trace is the
inverted data stream at pin 2 of IC1a. The middle trace
is the integrated pulse waveform at pin 5 of IC1c with its
series of little “teeth” followed by a big tooth. The bottom
trace at pin 6 of IC1c shows how the little teeth have been
completely erased while the big tooth becomes a wide
negative-going pulse, somewhat narrower than the big
sync pause in the top waveform but still wide enough for
our purpose.
Fig.6: these waveforms show IC3’s operation for reverse
motion. The top trace is the input (note its greater width
than in Fig.5). Pin 5 (middle trace) now stays high while
pin 9 (bottom trace) pulses low.
narrow positive-going pulse of the
bottom trace is an inverted version
of the 4th pulse in the data stream on
the top trace.
Sync pulse detection
Before we can look at how IC3
works, we need to understand how
the sync or “load” pulse fed to pin
11 is obtained from the pulse stream.
This is achieved by inverter IC1a,
diode D2, R3 & C3, together with
inverter IC1c.
We noted previously that the track
May 1998 63
Fig.7 (above): this is the STOP condition for the receiver/
decoder. The input pulse (top trace) is close to the
nominal neutral condition at 244µs wide so that both pin 5
(middle trace) and pin 9 (bottom trace) stay high and keep
all the H-bridge transistors turned off. Fig.8 (right) shows
some of the waveforms across the motor when it is driven
signal is fed via zener diode ZD1 to a
voltage divider consisting of resistors
R1 & R2 and then to Schmitt trigger
inverters IC1a & IC1f. IC1f does precisely the same job as IC1a but it then
drives a network consisting of diode
D2, resistor R3 and capacitor C3.
R3 and C3 can be regarded as a pulse
integrator, with R3 feeding a slight
positive charge to C3 for each pulse on
the data line but C3 is then discharged
by diode D2 as each pulse drops to
zero. However, when the much longer
positive sync pulse arrives from IC1a,
capacitor C3 is able to charge to a
much higher vol
tage before being
discharged by diode D2. The result
is a waveform with 15 little “teeth”
followed by a big “tooth” represented
by the integrated sync pulse.
This waveform is fed to Schmitt
forwards. The top trace is the output pulse at pin 5 of IC3
and the middle trace is the waveform at the commoned
collectors of Q5 & Q7. The bottom trace is the waveform
on the other side of the motor, at the commoned collectors
of Q4 & Q8. Note that the middle trace shows the remnant
pulses which are superimposed on the track voltage.
trigger IC1c which ignores the little
teeth and squares up the big tooth
to form the reconstituted sync pulse
which becomes the “load” signal for
counter IC2.
The waveforms of Fig.4 show the
above process in action. The top
trace is the inverted data stream at
pin 2 of IC1a. The middle trace is the
integrated pulse waveform at pin 5 of
IC1c with its series of little “teeth”
followed by a big tooth. The bottom
trace at pin 6 of IC1c shows how the
little teeth have been completely
erased while the big tooth becomes a
wide negative-going pulse, somewhat
narrower than the big sync pause
in the top waveform but still wide
enough for our purpose.
The above process is sometimes referred to as “sync stripping” whereby
the small pulses are “stripped out” of
the waveform, leaving just the sync
pulse. The waveforms of Fig.4 give
a graphic illustration of this process.
Servo decoder
So now we have the actual pulse information for the locomotive, it needs
to be turned into speed and direction
Capacitor Codes
❏
❏
❏
❏
❏
❏
Value
IEC Code EIA Code
0.1µF
100n 104
.015µF 15n 153
.01µF 10n 103
.0047µF 4n7 472
.001µF 1n0 102
Resistor Colour Codes
❏
No.
❏ 1
❏ 1
❏ 1
❏ 1
❏ 1
❏ 7
❏ 2
❏ 2
64 Silicon Chip
Value
1MΩ
100kΩ
68kΩ
3.3kΩ
2.2kΩ
1kΩ
620Ω
470Ω
4-Band Code (1%)
brown black green brown
brown black yellow brown
blue grey orange brown
orange orange red brown
red red red brown
brown black red brown
blue red brown brown
yellow violet brown brown
5-Band Code (1%)
brown black black yellow brown
brown black black orange brown
blue grey black red brown
orange orange black brown brown
red red black brown brown
brown black black brown brown
blue red black black brown
yellow violet black black brown
This is the finished receiver/decoder board, shown here
larger than actual size. Note the way in which all the
resistors are mounted end-on. Some of the resistor pigtails
then become convenient test points in case you have to
troubleshoot the board.
The H-bridge board has the
four Darlington output
transistors laid flat and
stacked to minimise height.
Fig.10: the artwork for the two PC boards, shown twice full size.
Fig.9: the wiring details for the receiver/decoder
and H-bridge PC boards. No not forget to install
the links under IC1 & IC2 before soldering these
chips in and take care to ensure that all
polarised parts are correctly oriented. Note that
the PC boards are shown twice actual size, for
the sake of clarity.
Fig.11: the four Darlington output transistors are laid flat and
stacked on the H-bridge board to reduce the height.
May 1998 65
The receiver/decoder and H-bridge boards are a neat fit inside the shell of this
locomotive. Each loco will need the boards installed in a particular way to fit
everything in. It is most important to make sure that there are no shorts to the
motor or locomotive chassis.
signals to drive the motor. This job
is done by IC3, the ZN409CE servo
decoder. There are no servos in this
circuit but the ZN409CE was originally designed to drive the servo motors
used in radio-controlled aircraft, cars,
boats and so on.
For those not familiar with how
a servo drive circuit works, you can
find a full description in Bob Young’s
“Radio Control” column in the November 1997 issue of SILICON CHIP.
You can also refer to a servo circuit
employing the ZN409CE in the “Circuit Notebook” pages of the December
1997 issue.
Now when the ZN409CE is used
to drive a servo it compares the
incoming pulse at pin 14 with an
internally-generated pulse which is
varied by a potentiometer driven by
the servo motor. The potentiometer’s
wiper is connected to pin 3. When the
two pulses match, the servo comes to
a stop in the desired position.
Where our circuit varies is that the
potentiometer (VR1) is not driven but
is set to match the internally generated
reference pulse to the incoming pulse
when the throttle setting is for STOP.
This corresponds to a nominal pulse
66 Silicon Chip
width of 244µs which corresponds
in turn to the crystal-derived pulse
frequency of 2048Hz.
Thus, when the input pulse is
narrower than the reference pulse of
244µs, the locomotive motor is driven
forward; when it is wider than 244µs,
the locomotive motor is driven in
reverse.
Motor drive
Pins 5 & 9 of IC3 are the outputs
and these drive transistors Q2 & Q1
which provide level shifting and signal inversion to Q3 & Q6. In turn, Q3
& Q6 drive the H-bridge transistors
Q4, Q5, Q7 & Q8.
To drive the locomotive in the
forward direction, pin 5 of IC3 pulses low at the same rate as the pulse
train at pin 14 (the input) while pin 9
stays high. Tracing that through, this
means that Q1, Q6, Q7 & Q8 stay off
while Q2, Q3 & Q5 are pulsed on. Q4
is also turned on, by dint of the pulse
signal from the collector of Q3 but Q4
is turned full on because of the 1µF
filter capacitor at its base – see the
waveforms of Fig.8.
To drive the locomotive in the reverse direction, pin 5 of IC3 stays high
while pin 9 pulses low. This means
that Q2, Q3, Q4 & Q5 are turned off
while Q1, Q6 & Q8 are pulsed on.
Q7 turns on fully because of the 1µF
filter capacitor at its base – see the
waveforms of Fig.8.
Finally, the waveforms of Fig.7
show the STOP condition. Here the
top trace is the input pulse to pin 14
of IC3 and the other two traces are the
outputs at pins 5 & 9. Both are high,
leading to the condition where all
the transistors in the H-bridge are off.
Fig.8 shows some representative
waveforms across the motor when
it is being driven forwards. The top
trace is the output pulse at pin 5 of IC3
and the middle trace is the waveform
at the commoned collectors of Q5 &
Q7. The bottom trace is the waveform
on the other side of the motor, at the
commoned collectors of Q4 & Q8. Note
that the middle trace shows the remnant pulses which are superimposed
on the track voltage.
By the way, we have referred to pin
5 pulsing when the motor is going
forward and pin 9 pulsing when the
motor runs in reverse. At the same
time, whenever the motor is being
driven forward, Q9 and Q10 turn on
to drive the locomotive’s headlight.
No doubt some enterprising modellers will want to extend the headlight
drive to drive the headlights and tail
lights of diesel locomotives to cater
for both directions. For the time being
at least, this is beyond the scope of
this article.
PC board assembly
Two PC boards are used to accommodate the receiver/decoder circuitry.
The main board measures 53 x 30mm
and is coded 09105981 while the
smaller board for the H-bridge transistors measures 25 x 26mm and is
coded 09105982.
The main board is quite crowded
and you will need to solder it carefully
to avoid solder splashes shorting out
adjacent conductors. Before installing any components on either board,
check the copper patterns carefully
for any open circuit tracks, bridges
or undrilled holes. Fig.9 shows the
component layout for both PC boards
and the interconnecting wiring between them.
Before soldering any components
in, install the short links under IC1 &
IC2. Then insert all the resistors which
are in
stalled “end on” to conserve
space. The diagram of Fig.9 actually
does show how the bodies of the resistors are oriented. For example, the
body of resistor R10, from pin 5 of IC3,
is nestled up to transistors Q2 and Q9.
It is important to orient the resistor
bodies in the same way as depicted on
Fig.9 because the accessible resistor
pigtails then become test points if
you have to troubleshoot the receiver/
decoder. Hopefully, you won’t have to
do any troubleshooting but if it comes
to the crunch, it’s nice to have those
test points accessible.
Make sure that you check the value
of each resistor as it is installed. Use
your multimeter to physically check
each value because it is almost impossible to check resistor colour codes
once the resistors are all installed and
obscured by other components.
Next, install the zener diode, bridge
rectifier, the two diodes and the capacitors. Note that all the polarised
components must go in the right way
otherwise the circuit won’t work or
it may be damaged. All the electrolytic capacitors on the PC boards are
tantalum types, specified because of
their small size.
C6, the .018µF capacitor connected
to pins 1 & 2 of IC3, must be an NPO ceramic type. If you can’t obtain .018µF,
you can use a value of .015µF but it
still must be NPO. Do not substitute
other capacitor types here, such as
Fig.12: this diagram
shows how to hook up
a temporary throttle
potentiometer and
reversing switch to the
encoder PC board
(published in March
1998) so that the
receiver/decoders can
be tested.
MKT polyesters, because their temperature coefficient is just not good
enough.
Next, insert the 78L05 regulator
and the transistors. Finally, the three
ICs may be inserted and soldered.
Do not use sockets as there is not
enough room on the board. Finally,
there are two long insulated links to
be installed, one on top and the other
on the underside of the board.
H-bridge board
The H-bridge board has only a few
components on it but there is a preferred order of assembly. First, insert
May 1998 67
Another American HO locomotive installation. The receiver/decoder is at one
end while the H-bridge board is at the other. Note that these are early prototype
boards and differ from those shown in Fig.9.
the end-on resistors, followed by the
two tantalum capacitors and the three
small-signal transistors. Then mount
the four power transistors, Q4, Q5, Q7
& Q8. Mount Q4 & Q5 first. You will
need to bend their leads at rightangles,
close to their bodies. They should both
sit flush with the PC board, with their
metal mounting surfaces facing down.
This done, bend the leads of Q7 &
Q8 at rightangles in the same way and
mount them so that they sit flush on
top of Q5 & Q4, respectively. Q7 & Q8’s
metal mounting surface should face
up, as shown in the photos.
Finally, mount the 2.2µF electrolytic capacitor.
Testing
To test the boards you will need to
temporarily interconnect them with
short lengths of hookup wire and
you will need to program the receiver
board so that it can be addressed by the
Command/Power Station, described
in the February and March 1998 issues. The programming involves tying
four pins on IC2, the 40193 programmable up/down counter.
Table 1 shows how the pins are tied
high (H) or low (L) and we are using
channel designations 1 to 16 rather
than the counter’s binary sequence of
zero to 15 (as noted previously).
If you are doing a batch of these
receiver/decoder boards, you will
need to make sure that each one is
programmed with its own code. Most
importantly, you need to label the
board with its code as soon as it has
been done otherwise you will become
very confused later on. So either use a
68 Silicon Chip
pencil to write the channel number on
one of the ICs or use a little stick-on
label to accomplish the same thing.
Once you have programmed the
board, you need to hook it up to a
locomotive motor. We strongly suggest
that you do not install the receiver/
decoder into a locomotive before it has
been tested. That would be asking for
trouble. Use a spare locomotive motor
if you have one or any small permanent magnet motor which draws a few
hundred milliamps or so.
The motor should have a 0.1µF
capacitor connected across it to suppress commutator hash, as shown in
the circuit of Fig.2 and the wiring
diagram of Fig.9.
You also need to wire up a temporary “headlight” so that you know
Table 1: Program Pins On IC2
C h.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Pin 9 Pin 10 Pin 1 Pin 15
L
L
L
L
L
L
L
L
H
H
H
H
H
H
H
H
L
L
L
L
H
H
H
H
L
L
L
L
H
H
H
H
L
L
H
H
L
L
H
H
L
L
H
H
L
L
H
H
L
H
L
H
L
H
L
H
L
H
L
H
L
H
L
H
which direction the motor is turning.
We used a red LED in series with an
8.2kΩ resistor to simulate a headlight
load for Q10.
Using a temporary throttle
Since we have not yet described the
handheld throttles (that comes next
month) it is now necessary to hook up
a temporary throttle to the Command/
Power Station, so that it can drive
any of the receiver/decoder channels.
Fig.12 shows how this is done. You
will need a 10kΩ potentiometer and
an SPDT switch, wired as shown to
the encoder board.
The wiper (centre tag) of the potentiometer is connected to the appropriate pin of the 16-pin header socket.
We did this by wiring the pot wiper
to a length of wire with a cutoff pin
from a defunct IC. The pin can then
be inserted into any pin socket on
the 16-pin header. Table 2 shows the
channel numbers and their respective
pin numbers on the socket.
Power station changes
By the way, there are a couple of
changes to be made to the Power Station wiring, as noted in the Errata at
the end of this article.
Having made the appropriate
throttle connection and having programmed the receiver/decoder board
and connected it across the track outputs of the Command/Power Station
you are ready to proceed. Rotate the
throttle potentiometer to its minimum
setting and set the Forward/Reverse
switch to forward.
Turn on the Power Station. The
motor may buzz or rotate. Don’t worry
about that for a moment, just measure
the voltage from the 3-terminal regu-
lator. It should be
close to +5V. This
is most convenCh. Pin No.
iently measured
1
6
across the three
2
4
ICs: between pins
3
2
7 & 14 of IC1, pins
4
8
8 & 16 of IC2 and
5
1
between pins 6 &
6
7
10 of IC3.
7
3
You should also
be able to measure
8
5
about +2.2V be9
11
tween pin 6 (0V)
10
13
and pin 2 of IC3.
11
15
If the motor is ro12
9
tating or buzzing,
13
16
adjust trimpot VR1
14
10
until it stops. Then
15
14
flick the Forward/
16
12
Reverse switch to
reverse and check
that the motor is still stationary.
Now rotate the throttle potentiometer clockwise and the motor should
start running and speed up as you
rotate the pot further clockwise.
Rotate the throttle pot fully anticlockwise and the motor should come
to a complete stop. If it doesn’t, you
may need to tweak VR1 again.
Now flick the Forward/Reverse
switch to forward and rotate the throttle pot clockwise. The motor should
now run in the opposite direction to
the reverse condition and the headlight LED should come on.
Table 2
Troubleshooting
What if it doesn’t work as it should?
Then you have to put on your thinking
cap and figure out why. First, check
that the programming for IC2 matches
the channel you have selected on the
16-pin header on the decoder board.
Second, check that the outputs of
IC3, at pins 5 & 9, are working as they
should. For example, when forward
motion is selected, pin 9 should high,
(ie, close to +5V) while pin 5 should
be pulsing low. If you don’t have an
oscilloscope, you can measure the DC
voltage at pin 5. As you advance the
throttle, the voltage at pin 5 should
gradually reduce.
We had a fault with one of our receiver/decoders which demonstrates
how easily a typical fault can occur.
Regardless of which way the Forward/
Reverse switch was set, the motor
always ran in the one direction while
the headlight LED did come on correctly for the forward setting.
When we checked pins 5 and 9
they performed as they should but
the motor steadfastly ran in the same
direction anyway. We then checked
the voltage at the collectors of transistors Q1 and Q2. The collector of Q1
should be low when pin 9 is high and
vice versa. Similarly, the collector of
Q2 should be low when pin 5 is low
and vice versa.
The fault turned out to be a small
sliver of solder between the base and
emitter of Q1. With a small, tightly
packed PC board like this, you need a
good magnifying glass and good light
to find faults like this.
Installing the boards
The most important aspect of installing the receiver/decoder boards
in the locomotive is that you must
ensure that there are no shorts. The
existing locomotive wiring must be
removed so that the wheel wipers no
longer connect to either side of the
locomotive motor or to the locomotive
chassis. This is doubly important for
locomotives with metal shells.
The second most important aspect
of installation is to make sure that no
part of the receiver/decoder circuit,
including the motor itself, is shorted
to the locomotive shell, any of the
wheel pickups or anything else.
In many, if not most, locomotives,
you will need to separate the receiver/
decoder and H-bridge boards to fit
them in. For example, the H-bridge
board might mount at one end while
the receiver/decoder mounts at the
other end. It may be wise to sleeve
the boards with heatshrink tubing
to make installation easier and less
subject to shorts.
When each locomotive installation
is complete, you will need to hook it
up to the Command/Power Station
again to ensure that it all works as it
should. Be sure to label the underside
of the locomotive with its channel
number.
Next month, we will continue with
the wiring of the throttles and control
panel.
Errata
Command Control Power Station,
March 1998: a change should be made
to the circuit of page 55 and the component overlay diagram on page 56.
R4 should be changed to 2.2kΩ. R5 on
page 56 should be 1.5kΩ to agree with
SC
the circuit on page 55.
Parts List For
Receiver/Decoder
(one required for each locomotive)
1 PC board, 53 x 30mm, code
09105981
1 PC board, 25 x 26mm, code
09105982
1 1kΩ miniature sealed top
adjust trimpot (VR1)
Semiconductors
1 40106, 74C14 hex Schmitt
trigger (IC1)
1 40193 programmable up/down
counter (IC2)
1 ZN409CE servo decoder (IC3)
1 78L05 3-terminal 5V regulator
(REG1)
3 PN100 NPN transistors (Q3,
Q6,Q10)
3 PN200 PNP transistors (Q1,
Q2,Q9)
2 BD681 NPN Darlington
transistors (Q5,Q8)
2 BD682 PNP Darlington
transistors (Q4,Q7)
1 WO4 bridge rectifier (BR1)
1 1N4936 fast recovery diode
(D1)
1 1N4148 small signal diode
(D2)
1 10V 400mW or 1W zener
diode (ZD1)
1 red LED (for temporary
headlight)
Capacitors
1 2.2µF 63VW PC electrolytic
6 1µF 25VW or 35VW tantalum
electrolytic
1 0.33µF 25VW or 35VW
tantalum electrolytic
1 0.1µF MKT polyester or ceramic
(across motor terminals)
1 .015µF or .018µF 100VW NP0
ceramic
2 .01µF MKT polyester
1 .0047µF MKT polyester
1 .001µF MKT polyester
Resistors (0.25W, 1%)
1 1MΩ
1 2.2kΩ
1 100kΩ
7 1kΩ
1 68kΩ
2 620Ω
1 3.3kΩ
2 470Ω
Miscellaneous
Heatshrink tubing, tinned copper
wire, hookup wire, solder
May 1998 69
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