The Pi is basically ready

Well since my last written post I've been tinkering away with the Pi and getting answers from the Forums for some questions I needed sorting out. So in the last couple of weeks I've basically been able to get the Pi to a state of readiness. I had answers provided to me about the persistent device names which would come in handy for situations where more than one system may be connected to the Pi. Fairly simple once explained! Secondly I was able to get a very simple answer as to how to pass these device names to JMRI so that they would be in the drop down list in the Preferences section. And yesterday I had a afternoon pass-out from the missus and I was able to go over to Mr Mackie's for what the missus said was a 'play date'. I've been interested to see how the Pi would go connecting to a NCE 5A Command Station which by default comes with a serial interface rather than USB. Craig had a Serial to USB cable, so at least I would have connectivity but how would the Pi go with interfacing to the new device. I was thinking I might have to look for Linux drivers, etc, but as it happened, the Pi immediately recognises the connection without drivers and assigned /dev/ttyUSB0 to the device. I then fired up JMRI, re-jigged the NCE Preference to Serial connection and /dev/ttyUSB0 and voila we had layout interfacing going. I was able to control one of Craig's trains no problems. I then restarted the system with the wifi Access Point dongle connected and got JMRI's WiThrottle going. Out came the smartphone and was similarly able to connect to the layout and control an engine.

One thing I will have to investigate is with the Android Engine Driver app I had the speed up to '28' and the engine was just moving. There was another setting to do with max throttle something or other which was set to 25%. I am wondering whether this reduces the '28' setting to 25% or say '7'. Not sure so will enquire online further. One interesting thing we saw was that both the JMRI throttle and the smartphone throttle reflected each other when both were set to the same engine number. So when one's speed increased it was mirrored on the other. Amazing!

So basically the Pi is set to go if I don't want to look at further interconnectivity with say MERG. But I do, so will potter around further. However I will write up my How To, repeat the install instructions to make sure this is OK, and once satisfied will publish them. I might also offer a Pi Setup Service!

On a side not, I also installed Putty and VNC Viewer on the laptop so that I can remotely connect to the Pi and reduce the need for keyboard, mouse and monitor connectivity when in the future the Pi becomes a standalone device providing whatever interconnectivity between the various layout systems I come up with.

One of these days I'll get back to the modelling!

Pi and JMRI photos

As promised in the last post, here are some photos and a video.

My Pi in its case with the DLink modem active as the Access Point

Close up of the WiThrottle screen in JMRI with my smartphone's Engine Driver app connected

The full JMRI DecoderPro screen operating on the Pi

The Engine Driver app on my Android smartphone with 4494 connected

Pi and JMRI success!

This week has been a HUGE THUMBS UP. After re-imaging the Pi's SD card I progressively built the system up and installed JMRI on the Pi Friday night. I got to the point of starting the WiThrottle server within JMRI to see if the Pi advertised the JMRI connection specs to the outside world. And IT DID! So Sunday morning I went the next step and connected up the NCE USB to the Pi as well as the NCE SB3a. The SB3a was then connected to a length of track so that an engine could be tested. After setting up some more preferences within JMRI around the NCE system, the Pi was restarted, JMRI started up, and WiThrottle started. I then went to the Android smartphone, connected to the Pi's wifi signal, started up the Engine Driver app, and voila I connected to JMRI! After acquiring NSGW 4494 (the engine I had on hand) I played with the Android controls and the engine moved up and down the track. Oh wow! I also tested the connectivity on the Android tablet also running Engine Driver. All good. I do have a video and some photos but for some reason Youtube and Blogger are playing up. I'll try again on another day from another PC.

Back to the Pi and wifi connectivity, I was also able to establish a remote ssh connection on the Tablet to allow terminal emulation over wifi. Wow. Also I installed a VNC (virtual network connection) server on the Pi and using an Android app (AndroidVNC) was able to fire up the Pi's desktop GUI remotely on the Tablet. Double Wow! However I have to learn how to drive this. I am also thinking of installing similar apps on the laptop to allow remote connectivity if required.

This week I still have to sort out the persistent naming of the NCE and MERG USB interfaces as JMRI is currently using /dev/ttyUSB0 or 1 which is not easy to remember. Hopefully if I associate these interfaces to something more readable, JMRI will use these. Time will tell.

For those following my progress, I have been writing the steps I took to get this done. I will publish this once finalised.

Oops back to square one!

This week I persisted with the Pi up to the point of causing some sort of system issue and the spare room on the SD card was consumed to the point of only having some MBs left on an 8GB card! No idea what. So back to square one and re-image the card and start again this week. I think I am getting a better feel for the little beasty so hopefully it will not take me long to get back to where I was before the conniption!

Saturday was Club Day but no chance to run trains due to busy meetings. However Sunday was Mothers' Day so I took the boys down to the Club for an hour or so to let Mum have some quiet time! We were the only ones there. Lachlan ran his N scale train and Matthew ran his Thomas and Toby trains. I even got a chance to run a NSWGR 44 Class for the first time in months!

So hopefully a better week with the Pi.

Pi Persistence and a new link

Hi all. Sorry for no update last week as there really wasn't much to update. I have been persisting with the Pi and trying to understand the whole UDEV thing. I discovered I needed some additional 'packages' to allow certain things to be reported. Did this and ran one of the new commands 'udevadm' which was looking very hopeful when it started to hang the Pi. After much colourful language emanating from the study, I decided I needed to research this new development more. It would appear there is a known bug in the Pi whereby the output stack for this command running on the Raspbian OS fills up and then stops the Pi. Hopefully the Linux gurus can sort this out soon. Things like this happen with development boards such as the Pi. I'll keep a close eye on the Forums.

I stumbled on a new link as a result of my membership of MERG, the Guildford Model Railway Group (Sydney, NSW) who 'Wallerawang' as their current exhibition layout, but are planning their new exhibition layout (still early days) which they are hoping to possibly use MERG control for. A fellow MERG member is a club member and also a reader of this blog. http://www.gmrg.org.au/. I'll add this to my Links list.

The weekend just gone was the Brisbane Model Train Show and my club RMCQ was well represented. The lads looked very schmick in our new uniforms. Everyone was consistent. I was only able to get out on Sunday and help out.

So this week depending on the Linux gurus, I might progress with the Pi or not. As I mentioned to the above member/reader a for the Pi other people have been able to get JMRI running on it, as have I, but it is the integration of JMRI into the Pi as an access point in its own right that doesn't appear to be documented or experimented well at the moment, and that is what I am perservering with. That and the ability of the Pi to recognise some generic USB type conenctions such as the wifi dongle to be used as the access point, the NCE USB interface and the MERG USB interface that is keeping me busy trying to work it out. Hopefully the end result is some basic instructions whereby if these are connected the Pi will assign a more meaningful interface name than say /dev/ttyUSB0 to something like /dev/NCEUSB or similar. Then hopefully modellers who use other DCC manufacturers could potentially tinker with my instructions for their USB interfaces.

So if this doesn't move along at any speed I might look at starting some more modelling!

Promising Pi developments

This week I motored along with the Pi. Using the most recent Raspbian OS image, along with some additional packages I chanced upon via research, I was able to get the Dlink DWA-125 wifi adaptor to become a access point and transmit a static address. Woo hoo!
Problem was for some reason the other wifi adaptor which was configured for the Internet dropped out. Hmmm. I would like both to be working but not a big issue as the main outcome is to have the Pi transmitting IP addresses so that hopefully when JMRI's WiThrottle is turned on, it will be able to connect to smartphone/tablet throttles. Having an internet connection would be nice for operating system and application package updating but I could get around this via ethernet connectivity to a laptop or tether a mobile phone to the Pi on those infrequent times when updating might be required.

So half the battle won. Now this week I will look at UDEV rules to lock in specific devices to specific Linux interfaces. The point of this is to allow for say the DLink modem to be always assigned wlan1 say. Then in a similar fashion the NCE USB and MERG USB modules to be assigned specific interfaces.

If I get this working, I will look at installing JMRI and see if the predefined interface for the Dlink modem comes up, and then see if JMRI's WiThrottle starts and broadcasts addresses for wifi connectivity.

As for modelling, just taking  small break while I have the enthusiasm to persist with the Pi.

Pi restarted

This week I put some time into re-familiarising myself with the Raspberry Pi as it has been since December last year since I have potted around with it. I downloaded the latest Raspbian image and put it onto a separate SD card. This is the beauty of this system. The whole operating system and applications are all stored on a single SD card! You want to try a different OS, then just copy it onto another SD card, give it a go and you can always revert to an early or different version by exchanging the SD cards.

Well I tried the latest version and it still doesn't appear to be working exactly like I had hoped. I'm thinking of trying another OS version from a different mob to see if it is better or not.

No modelling this week, however today we went across to Hobbyrama for Lachlan to spend some of his birthday money. Over Easter I introduced him to aircraft modelling to do something different and to start small and easy and work up to more complicated modelling kits, hopefully with a view to railway modelling. So I bought him one of the classics, an Airfix Spitfire kit. He did pretty well with a little help from me. He started painting it this weekend. He then went a bought himself a Soviet WW2 tank over the holidays. And today he bought a Jaguar model car! Very diverse collection so far!

So while I was there, I went around to the railway modelling section and bought a Dapol Country Inn (ie pub) kit to put on the layout beside the shop.

So this upcoming week might be more Pi and start either the pub or yard sheds kits.