This is the first of what hopefully will be several posts that are focused on electronics projects. I have been developing an interest in electronics, and Arudino in particular, along side the model trains. As described in a recent post about building an odometer for the train , when including a switch care must be taken to avoid " switch bounce " or the mechanical rapid bouncing as the switch is triggered or released. If the program is fast enough, these bounces will be seen as separate events when you are expecting it to be a single event. This can be addressed either in the software or through circuit design. Since I wanted to use an interrupt for the trigger and am not sure of how fast the railcar might go, I decided to use the circuit approach.  I had three circuit design alternatives and wanted to test them out for their effectiveness.  Option #1 : Simplest (and winner) In the Garden Railroad story that inspired the odometer, he uses a 10 nF capacitor in parallel with t...

For a while, I've been wanting to try and combine my nascent interest in electronics with the railroad development. As I've said before, I was never really a hands-on tinkerer growing up but there is something really satisfying with ending up with something that you designed and constructed. I've always been a "designer" but seldom took my ideas to realization until the last several years. Both model railroading and electronics are outlets for taking that next step. Being able to modify some part of the train and do something that it couldn't have done before was an intriguing challenge. I've only started with electronics a couple of years ago when I my wife gave me a SparkFun Inventor Kit . The kit comes with a RedBoard which is their version of an Arduino Uno and comes with a many sensors, motors, and other electronics. Plus a book full of fun projects to learn from.  A few years ago I was inspired by an article in Garden Railways magazine by Del Tapparo...