Dave,
Thanks for the suggestion. It took me weeks to program it, Paul hasn’t even tried it, and now there’s more to do!!
Joking aside, it’s an interesting thought.
From a software point of view it doesn’t offer any particular challenges, but I think the logic needs to be considered. As you say, on the P3/Release traverser, there’s only one sensible place for the traverser to be parked, but on the other one, between P1 & P2, I’d be very wary of anything automated, unless there were considerable efforts to ensure that there was no risk of stock being on the traverser, or being pushed onto it, when it’s about to be moved, or is moving. A sort of locking bar arrangement if you will.
If Paul does want to pursue the idea, I’d probably recommend a photodiode or similar to detect the loco leaving the traverser on the release road, they are easy to interface with an Arduino.
The locking bar is more challenging. I’ll have to have a think about that. In principle, the points “can tell” the traverser which road to be at in order to meet an incoming train, but ensuring that it’s not blocked,
without fail, is more complicated, I fear.
Meanwhile, I do need to fix one gap in the sketch I sent to Paul last week; if the stepper is connected the “wrong way” the switch that signals that the carriage is in the “down/left/near” position won’t get triggered first, the other one will, and it won’t stop. Couple of lines of code will fix that.
Then I’m hopeful of positive reports that it works as intended.
Atb
Simon