User`s Manual
Contents
1. Scenario You have two lo boards lo 1 and lo 2 lo 1 is already set up to control a fascia panel and you would like lo 2 to control an identical fascia panel on the other side of the lay 25 out We begin by mirroring the behavior on the push button attached to Input O on both boards the process is identical for each of the remaining inputs and outputs between the boards Step 1 Set up Learning for Button Down On lo 2 press the Blue button to enter Learn Mode Now press the push button once to select it as down Press the Gold button to mark that button for learning Step 2 Set up Teaching for Button Down On lo 1 press the Gold button to enter Teach Mode Now press the push button once to select it as down Press the Gold button to teach the association Step 3 Set up Learning for Button Up On lo 2 press the Blue button to enter Learn Mode Now press the push button twice to select it as up Press the Gold button to mark that button for learning Step 4 Set up Teaching for Button Down On lo 1 press the Gold button to enter Teach Mode Now press the push button twice to select it as up Press the Gold button to teach the association Now test the association The push button on lo 2 should now trigger exactly the same behav iors as the push button on lo 1 If the layout does not respond as expected you have probably e2. sE S Table of Contents Getting Started 1 1 What is OpenLCB Events 4 The Producer Consumer Model 5 Railstars lo 6 Basic Terminology M 2 Connecting lo 8 Connecting to the OpenLOB Bus 8 Connecting Power 9 lo Inputs 12 lo Outputs 10 Connecting to Other Devices 14 3 Configuring lo Using the Blue Gold Interface 15 The Blue Gold Interface 16 Teaching and Learning 16 First Time Setup and Hard Reset 17 Setting up Learning 18 Setting up Teaching 21 Example Associating a Button with an LED 24 Example Duplicating a Fascia Panel But ton 20 4 Blue Gold Flow Chart 28 Getting Started Congratulations on your purchase of Railstars o You re layout will soon sit on the cutting edge of model railroading technology lo named for the Jovian moon and pronounced EYE oh is easy to install on new layouts and easy to integrate into existing layouts This guide will help you to connect lo and to understand the underlying technology so you can get the most out of your purchase _ amp 5 rs AT A A gt JP w m oO o _ U DZE dd da de de de dd alu ul moe EEE EE INPUTS USB PUR OUTPUTS oe A co USB 9 12VD _G In Chapter 1 we introduce the basic concepts of OpenLCB and the Producer Consumer model to help you understand how o works In Chapter 2 we show you how to connect o to you layout In Chapter 3 we show you how to configur
3. power to the OpenLCB bus 10 Providing power to the OpenLCB bus A Railstars Jo node that is configured to use an external power supply can optionally be config ured to provide some of that power to the OpenLCB bus In this case a power adapter ca pable of providing 50mA 1 000mA is suggested LiD du re EE USB PUR CLEO CAN IN E ONO IO 5U 5 a 3 CAN POWER USB USB PWR Jumper CAN POWER Jumper Configure the board to use an external power source above and then set the CAN POWER jumper to CAN OUT Note If you intend that your Railstars o neither draw power from nor provide power to the OpenLCB bus please remove the CAN POWER jumper entirely lo Inputs lo s inputs are designed to be connected to what are called open collector outputs Put simply devices attached to the inputs should be de signed to short to ground when active and remain disconnected otherwise This makes wiring mo mentary push buttons and other switches as well as logic devices very easy The figure below shows how to wire a momentary push button to an o input INPUTS I i OND Momentary push button on Input O Simply wire one leg of the push button or switch to GND and the other leg to one of the 8 inputs 12 lo Outputs lo s outputs are likewise open collector Put sim ply when an output is active o shorts the output to ground This behavior is identical to standard DCC decoder
4. press on a fascia panel a turnout changing position a train entering a new block All of these occurrences can be represented by Events on an OpenLCB network Importantly Events are not only generated when something interesting happens but also when that interesting happening ends For example a fascia panel node will generate Events for button presses and also for button releases Each Event has a unique identifier called the EventID An EventID permits nodes to distinguish between different Events and hence between dif ferent occurrences on the layout Crucially OpenLCB Events do not have a pre assigned meaning That is there is no intrinsic dif ference between e g a button press Event and a block occupancy Event This is what makes OpenLCB so powerful You get to decide what each Event means and how it is to be used by the various layout control elements on your lay Out Which brings us to the next key concept How Events are made and used The Producer Consumer Model There are two basic kinds of OpenLCB nodes Sensors that watch for specific occurrences on your layout called Producers and nodes that take some kind of action on your layout called Con sumers Many OpenLCB nodes such as Railstars lo will combine the functions of both Producer and Consumer in one node The Producer Consumer Model is a way of struc turing a network On this model when a Producer detects an interesting occurrence it pro
5. duces an Event unique to that producer Rather than being delivered to a specific other node on the network the produced Event is broadcast to every node on the network allowing each node to decide whether to act on that Event or not A node that acts on received Events is called a consumer This is the second element that makes OpenLCB so powerful Every Event is broadcast to every node on the network Thus every consumer is free to act on any Event which allows a great deal of flexibility in how Events can be interpreted and used On this model we can talk about Producers and Consumers being connected by Events By as signing the same EventID to a Producer and a Consumer the Consumer will respond to the Events produced by that Producer connecting the two Typically each Producer and each Consumer can be assigned exactly one EventID To give an example let us suppose that a train enters a new block A block occupancy node de tects the train and produces an Event in re sponse A node powering a fascia panel might in terpret that Event as a command to light an occu pancy indicator on the panel A signal tower node might interpret that Event as a command to set a restrictive aspect on a signal mast A turnout con troller node might interpret that Event as a com mand to move a set of points And so on There is no end to how you can configure your layout to produce and consume events Rallstars lo lo combines a produc
6. e OpenLCB logo is a trade mark ofthe OpenLCB association 34
7. e and Gold LEDs will extinguish to indicate that you have left Learn Mode You can use the flow chart at the end of this chapter to help in following the textual descrip tions below Configuring an Output for Learning Each output has two states On and off There are therefore 16 consumers one for each possible output state Call these states Output 0 On Output 0 Off and so on Press the Blue button to select Output 0 On You will observe that the LED for Output O comes on and any device attached to the output is trig gered Press the Blue button a second time to select Output 0 Off The LED for Output O now 18 flashes to indicate the selection Press the Blue button a third time to move to Output 1 On and a fourth time to move to Output 1 Off Pressing Blue will cycle through all of the outputs output state combinations in this way Notice that once you have cycled through all of the output states continuing to press Blue will then cycle through all of the possible input states as well See the next section for configuring an input for learning O RQ y o OUTPUTS Bae ee eee el NO Output O Selected When you have reached the output number and state that you wish to configure for learning press the Gold Button The Gold LED will blink then both Blue and Gold will go out indicating that the selected output has been configured for learning You are now ready to
8. e the input has been selected as off To cancel the selection press the button or toggle the switch a third time the Blue LED will go out and the Blue LED will return to slowly blinking Alternately you can use the Blue button to select an input for learning if there is no physical device attached to the input Press the Blue 16 times to cycle through all 16 of the possible output states Pressing Blue a 17th time will begin to cycle through the input states The Gold LED will begin to flash to indicate that you are cycling through the input states the output LEDs will light to help you identify the correct input When the LED on Output O in on you have selected Input 0 On when the LED on Output O is flashing you have selected Input 0 Off and so forth Continue to press Blue until the desired input state is selected 23 Once you have cycled through all the possible in put states pressing Blue the 33rd time will return lo to it s normal state canceling the learn opera tion When you have selected the input and input state that you wish to configure for teaching press the Gold Button Both LEDs will go out indicating that the selected input has been configured for teaching The association has been created and you are done Example Associating a Button with an LED Scenario You have two o boards lo 1 and lo 2 You wish to associate a switch on lo 1 Input 2 with an LED on
9. e your lo boards to control your layout Check the Railstars website to find updated or additional documents explaining how to connect lo to a range of layout accessories you may al ready have installed such as occupancy detec tors and turnout controllers http railstars com 1 What is OpenLLB7 OpenLCB is a new networking technology for bringing all of your layout control elements to gether What makes OpenLCB great is that it is open fast and future proof Open means that anyone can look at implement or help to improve the standard without barriers of any kind so that hardware from different manu facturers will work together seamlessly Fast means that OpenLCB can keep up with whatever is going on on your layout without bog ging down under heavy loads Future proof means that OpenLCB is not tied to any particular technology and can easily expand and adapt to encompass whatever new technolo gies may come without leaving older technologies behind It also means that OpenLCB isn t tied to any current technology You don t have to be run ning DCC to take advantage of OpenLCB Working with OpenLCB requires understanding few basic concepts that guide how it works namely Events and the Producer Consumer model Events Events are the fundamental building blocks of an OpenLCB network An Event with a capital E is an electronic representation of something interest ing occurring on your layout A button
10. er node with a consumer node The 8 inputs are connected to 16 Produc ers One Producer to produce an Event when the input goes high and one Producer to produce an Event when the input goes low The 8 outputs are connected to 16 Consumers One Consumer turns the output on and one Consumer turns the output off By default Jos Producers are con nected to its own Consumers such that ground ing input n low turns output n on and disconnect ing input n turns output n off Basic Terminology Node An individual device connected to an OpenLCB network NodelD The unique identifier assigned to each OpenLCB Node Producer A sensor in a Node that watches for an interesting occurrence and generates an Event in response to that occurrence Consumer An actor in a node that responds to a particular Event by generating an action or behav ior Event A representation of some occurrence on the layout EventID The unique identifier assigned to each Event to distinguish between different kinds of layout occurrences 2 Connecting lo lo is ready to use out of the box Only a few con nections need to be made to install o on your layout Connecting to the OoenLCB Bus Connecting lo to your OpenLCB network is sim ple Use a CAT5 cable to connect lo to another node in your network OpenLCB networks must be arranged as a linear string of nodes and the two nodes at the end of the network and only those two nodes must be
11. is trig gered Press the Blue button a second time to select Output 0 Off The LED for Output O now flashes to indicate the selection Press the Blue button a third time to move to Output 1 On and a fourth time to move to Output 1 Off Pressing Blue will cycle through all of the outputs output state combinations in this way Notice that once you have cycled through all of the output states continuing to press Blue will then cycle through all of the possible input states as well See the next section for configuring an input for learning O RQ y D OUTPUTS Ra Ra Ba Eu Ba Zu Ba Zu A Output O Selected When you have reached the output and output state that you wish to configure for teaching press the Gold Button Both LEDs will go out in dicating that the selected output has been config ured for teaching The association has been cre ated and you are done 22 Configuring an Input for Teaching Each input has two states On and off There are therefore 16 producers one for each possible in put state The easiest way to configure an input is to use an input device connected to the input directly such as a push button or toggle switch Press the at tached push button or toggle the toggle switch to select that input as on Notice that the Blue LED lights solid To select that input as off press the button or toggle the switch a second time The Blue LED begins to flash to indicat
12. lo 2 Output 5 such that flip ping the switch up illuminates the LED and flip ping the switch down extinguishes the LED Step 1 Set up Learning for LED On On lo 2 press the Blue button to enter Learn Mode Now press Blue 11 times to select Output 5 On Press Gold to mark Output 5 On for learn ing Step 2 Set up Teaching for Switch Up On lo 1 press the Gold button to enter Teach Mode Now Move the switch up if down if already up move the switch down then up to select 24 that switch Press the Gold button to teach the association Step 3 Set up Learning for LED off On lo 2 press the Blue button to enter Learn Mode Now press Blue 12 times to select Output 5 Off Press Gold to mark Output 5 Off for learn ing Step 4 Set up Teaching for Switch Up On lo 1 press the Gold button to enter Teach Mode Now Move the switch up if down if already up move the switch down then up to select that switch and toggle it a second time to se lect the off state Press the Gold button to teach the association Now test the association Move the switch up and down and observe the behavior of the LED If the LED does not respond as expected you have probably executed one of the above steps incor rectly and it so you might simply try the process again You should not have to perform a Hard Re set unless things get very out of hand Example Duplicating a Fascia Panel button
13. orth Continue to press Blue until the desired input state is selected Once you have cycled through all the possible in put states pressing Blue the 33rd time will return 20 lo to it s normal state canceling the learn opera tion When you have selected the input and input state that you wish to configure for learning press the Gold Button The Gold LED will blink once and then both Blue and Gold will go out indicating that the selected input has been configured for learning You are now ready to set up teaching Setting up Teaching The second step in configuring a new behavior is to select the producer or consumer that will be teaching We begin by pressing the Gold button once This tells lo to enter Teach Mode The Gold LED begins to blink slowly to indicate that Teach Mode has been entered You can cancel Teach Mode at any time by press ing both Blue and Gold simultaneously Both the Blue and Gold LEDs will extinguish to indicate that you have left Teach Mode Once you have entered Teach Mode Outputs and Inputs are selected just as with Learn Mode Configuring an Output for Teaching Each output has two states On and off There are therefore 16 consumers one for each possible output state Call these states Output 0 On Output 0 Off and so on 21 Press the Blue button to select Output 0 On You will observe that the LED for Output O comes on and any device attached to the output
14. r producer or a consumer to another consumer Configuration is thus a two step process First select the consumer or producer to learn Second select the consumer or producer to teach And that s it First Time Setup and Hard Reset Before you begin teaching or learning with o you will probably want to perform a Hard Reset A Hard Reset completely disconnects all producers and consumers on o from all other nodes on the OpenLCB network A Hard Reset is like a fresh start where you can begin anew To perform a Hard Reset press and hold both the Blue and the Gold buttons simultaneously for about 10 seconds the Blue and Gold LEDs will begin to blink warning you that you are about to perform a Hard Reset Continue holding both but tons until the flashing stops The Hard Reset is complete You can always return to a fresh state by using a Hard Reset If you are having problems configur ing your lo you can use a Hard Reset to start over from scratch 17 Setting up Learning The first step in configuring a new behavior is to select the producer or consumer that will be learning We begin by pressing the Blue button once This tells lo to enter Learn Mode The Blue LED begins to blink to indicate that Learn Mode has been entered The next step depends on whether you want to configure an input or an output for learning You can cancel Learn Mode at any time by press ing both Blue and Gold simultaneously Both the Blu
15. s so outputs on lo are wired in just the same way as DCC decoder function outputs When inactive lo leaves the output disconnected This makes it very easy to connect a wide variety of devices including indicator lamps and logic devices to the lo outputs because you get to de cide how to power the outputs The figure below shows how to wire an LED with current limiting resistor to an lo output OUTPUTS SURE RAE mm OND LED on Output 0 Simply wire the anode long leg of the LED to a power source such as the 5V supply o pro vides and the cathode to one of the 8 outputs via a suitable 1500 current limiting resistor 13 Connecting to Other Devices Check the Railstars website for additional docu ments and videos demonstrating how to wire o to a range of layout control devices you may already have installed on your layout http railstars com hardware io io 14 3 Contigunng lo Using the Blue Gold Interface lo uses the Producer Consumer Model to com municate events both internally and across the OpenLCB network See Chapter 1 for details on the Producer Consumer model Each input has two associated producers one to generate events for input on and one to generate events for in put off Each output has two associated con sumers one to turn the output on and one to turn the output off To do anything interesting you must create asso ciations between producers and cons
16. set up teaching Configuring an Input for Learning Each input has two states On and off There are therefore 16 producers one for each possible in 19 put state Call these states Input 0 On Input O Off and so on The easiest way to configure an input is to use an input device connected to the input directly such as a push button or toggle switch Press the at tached push button or toggle the toggle switch to select that input as on Notice that the Blue LED lights solid and that the Gold LED begins to flash To select that input as off press the button or toggle the switch a second time The Blue LED begins to flash to indicate the input has been se lected as off To cancel the selection press the button or toggle the switch a third time the Gold LED will go out and the Blue LED will return to slowly blinking Alternately you can use the Blue button to select an input for learning if there is no physical device attached to the input Press the Blue 16 times to cycle through all 16 of the possible output states Pressing Blue a 17th time will begin to cycle through the input states The Gold LED will begin to flash to indicate that you are cycling through the input states the output LEDs will light to help you identify the correct input When the LED on Output O in on you have selected Input 0 On when the LED on Output O is flashing you have selected Input 0 Off and so f
17. terminated To terminate a node set the termina tion jumpers on lo To remove termination from a node remove the termination jumpers GROUNDED 11 NON GND GROUNDED tt NON GND z O c s or Li res CAN TERMINATION CE TE Nu Terminated Unterminated Connecting Power Railstars lo can be powered in one of two ways From an external power supply or via the OpenLCB bus Powering with an external supply You may power Railstars o using an external power supply that provides a 2 1mm center positive plug and between 9 and 12V DC at 500mA or more of current y arm m E NE lepra j f I EME USB PUR 3 c18 ee ND Q 5U m m CAN POWER JP10 USB USB PWR Jumper CAN POWER Jumper To use an external supply ensure that the USB PWR jumper is set to EXT and that the CAN POWER jumper is removed Powering via the OpenLCB bus The OpenLCB bus can provide a small amount of power about 300mA to individual boards q fu Aa E m aa 3 Team our j ml USB PUR O AN IN m GND 5U CAN POWER f USB USB PWR Jumper CAN POWER Jumper To configure Railstars lo to draw power from the OpenLCB bus set the USB PWR jumper to EXT and then set the CAN POWER jumper to CAN IN Note Drawing power from the OpenLCB bus re quires that at least one other node be configured to provide
18. umers this process of creating associations is called con figuration and is accomplished by a process of teaching and learning specific events Out of the box lo both produces and consumes the same set of events so that grounding Input 1 on any lo board will cause output 1 on all con nected and unconfigured o boards including itself to turn on It is easy to configure o to produce more complex producer consumer associations There are two ways to configure lo Using the on board Blue 15 Gold interface covered in this chapter or with a Mac or PC via a USB connection covered in a separate manual The Blue Gold Interface eo gt BERS O z N_N Blue Gold Interface The Blue Gold interface is a simple way to config ure the behavior of lo The interface consists of two buttons called Blue and Gold and two corre sponding LEDs The buttons are used to navigate the configuration options and the LEDs are used to indicate the state of configuration Teaching and Learning The basic concept behind configuring any OpenLCB is teaching The process of teaching selects an event associated with one producer or consumer and assigns it to another producer or 16 consumer The first Consumer or producer must be set up to teach and the second producer or consumer must be set up to learn In this way you can create associations between a producer and a consumer or mirror a producer to anothe
19. xecuted one of the above steps incorrectly and 26 it so you might simply try the process again You should not have to perform a Hard Reset unless things get very out of hand 27 Blue Gold How Chart lo has three modes Operating Mode which is when o is operating normally Learn Mode which is when o is being configured to learn an event and Teach Mode which is when o is being con figured to teach an event Learn Mode is reached by pressing the Blue but ton Teach Mode is reached by pressing the Gold button While in Learn Mode or Teach Mode pressing Blue and Gold simultaneously will cancel all pend ing Learn and Teach commands and return o to Operating Mode 28 Master Flow Chart Blue amp Gold Blue amp Gold Clearall 29 Learn Mode 1 _ Clear all 30 Learn Mode 2 He Blue Blue x 13 Blue Blue Blue Blue x 13 Blue Blue 31 Teach Mode 1 Clear all 32 Teach Mode 2 Select y Blue Blue x 13 Blue Blue Blue Blue x 13 Select ting a Blue Blue 33 Copyright 2012 by Railstars Limited This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivs 3 0 Unported License http creativecommons org licenses by nc nd 3 0 Railstars the Railstars logo lo the lo logo and lo Layout Control System are trademarks of Railstars Limited OpenLCB and th
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