Build a DCC++ base station

To build a DCC++ Base Station you need three things: an Arduino board, a motor shield and a power supply of at least 12V.

The project officially only supports the Arduino Uno and the Arduino Mega. If you plan to use the autopilot function of the software, I recommend the Mega: then you have much more space to connect sensors.

You also have two options for the motor shield: the official Arduino Motor Shield (or a clone of it) or a Pololu MC33926 motor shield. The Pololu shield can handle a little more, namely max 28V/3A instead of max 18V/2A for the Arduino Motor Shield.

Preparing the hardware is very easy. There are only a few steps:

Step 1With a small knife, cut the connection at "VIN" and at "BRAKE DISABLE" both connections (A and B).

Step 2 Put your motor shield on the Arduino .

Step 3Make a connection between pin 10 and pin 12, and between pin 5 and pin 13 with a jumper cable or just a wire

Step 4 Connect the output of your power supply to the input of the motor shield.

Step 5 Connect wires between output A of the motor shield and the track. There are a number of ways to do this, but the easiest is to solder two wires to the bottom of the track (See photo).

Output A is the "main" track, so almost always the one you want. You can also connect a piece of track to output B. This is the programming track, with which you can change a number of settings of the decoders. However, you cannot drive on the programming track.