Little things that go wrong...

Who has shorted the 5Vdc supply to GND on the Nano?

And now it does not even show the power LED, or it is on very dim?
You simply destroyed the MBR0520 diode, labeled D1 in the "+5V Auto Selector" circuit on the board.

How to fix?

Either order another replacement MBR0520LT1G, 0.5A, 20V, Schottky Diode, or promise yourself to never, ever short Vcc to GND again and solder a jumper in!

Diode labeled B2

Getting less expensive Arduinos from Ebay?

Well, a lot of times the USB connector is not soldered properly and you get intermittent power or data to the ATMEGA chip.

How to fix?

Touch all the pins up with a solder iron and flux.

Comments

The One Pin Signal System, using an Arduino

The One (RRRduino) Pin Signal System! Part I NeoPixels: Yes, you read that right, you can control a whole signal system with up to 200 lights by using a single Arduino pin. And this was not my idea, all the credit and the patent goes to my friend Tom, but since I already had something using the same technology up and running using only a Nano, I do not feel too bad telling you about it. Short video first! There is a tiny 8 pin chip out there called a WS2811 which is a three channel LED driver, and you might find them on the interweb as NeoPixel LED Driver Chips. They need power and ground, typically 5 Vdc, and data to be put in the three registers inside the chip, one for each LEDs it can control. So, in most cases out there today, the LEDs connected are Red, Green and Blue (RGB for short) and by setting the three registers each with an 8 bit value (which in English means a value from 0 to 255, since 2 8 = 256, but since 0 is an acceptable value too, the maximum is 2 8 - 1

Not RRRduino, unless you have an MQTT connection via Ethernet or WiFi

JMRI code to connect to an MQTT broker, to publish and subscribe to the messages for signal masts. Of course, we agree to a standard for the MQTT topics, and since you were not here, we settled on "mast.xxxx" where xxxx is a number starting at zero. This MQTT topic is used as the User Name in a JMRI signal mast. Created as a Virtual Mast with the Aspect used as the payload in the message. And, yes, the device under the real mast needs to be programmed with the same name and code for each of the "aspect" payloads to be implemented. A yellow and red LED'd dwarf signal can not do a "Clear" aspect, so make sure "Clear" is maybe set to yellow for "Approach" as well. Virtual Masts with agreed upon User Names. Comments are for the One Wire Signals on the NeoPixel string (see prior post) Virtual Mast The Jython (or Python) code shown here below, is to attach a Listener to each Signal Mast, and to publish a message

Signal Masts in JMRI 4.14, for beginners...

Here are all the notes and files from the Plano Train Show Clinic. You need to have an internal sensor ( IMCOMPORT ) with the port in the value like COM10 or /dev/ttyUSB0 , whatever Device Manager (or /dev/ttyUSBx) shows for the connected Arduino. If you have Panels -> Script Output open, you will see the message: !!! Please add IMCOMPORT with the port in the value!!! The basic idea here is to use the Comment in the Signal Head field to define the position of the Pixel in the string commented to the Arduino, as well as the RGB colors to show for Clear, Approach and Stop (00:00 FF 00: BBAA 00: FF 0000). With all the Heads in the Table, run the python script and now you can update the colors in the Comment "live", keeping in mind that a message is only sent when a Head changes color. We then put the Heads in Masts and use the Signal Mast Logic to do the magic. I like the original Panel Editor more and it works fine as long as you keep using Mast pairs, which require

Everything Model Railroad and RRRduino!

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