Raspberry Pi Pico Model Railway point controller - overview and project update
Latest update on my Raspberry Pi Pico powered model railway point controller. A way to control points / turnouts on a model railway / railroad using a Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040 based microcontroller.
Designed for HO / OO model railways, this works with most solenoid based points. It includes a Raspberry Pi Pico W with web server, a Capacitor Discharge Unit ( • Designing a model railway point contr... ), A separate PCB with the electronics for the switches and LEDs controlled using a MCP23008 I2C GPIO expander ( • Using MCP23008 GPIO expanders with a ... ). It is then enclosed in a custom designed laser cut enclosure which was cut on my 3D printer ( • Create laser cut Raspberry Pi Pico ca... )
For more details see https://www.penguintutor.com/points
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:20 Solenoid point motors
01:59 PCB design
02:33 Schematic circuit diagrams
04:36 Components on controller PCB
06:19 Switches and LED PCB
06:57 Programming in micropython
13:16 Laser cut enclosure with FreeCAD
14:07 Internal wiring
14:19 GUI app design
15:56 Future plans
