I do the same. Eventuality you will need to troubleshoot.

Thank you for the kind words! about the DCC conversions, you may want to stay tuned as I may be having something that addresses the topic.

@@DIYDigitalRailroad I will thank you! Oh I'm drinking Pete's house blend, dark roast. Black, no sugar! Thanks again!

I disagree! If you can solder and understand a logical system (or are willing to learn), you can do Arduino! I'm building my own system that does the same as Jimmy's + a bit more, in a slightly different way. Wanna know how I got started? I watched a video on THIS CHANNEL then I went and bought a $50 Arduino starter kit :)

You would just gently pry it off. Hot glue is marvellous, particularly for this application as it's a great insulator, but you wouldn't use it for anything structural :) Failing the gentle application of elbow grease, you can apply heat to soften it up again.

@@milkymoocowmoo Thanks. I will give it a try.

Yes. Jimmy is driving the Tortoises for 2sec with each throw, but they're actually designed to be constantly driven and stalled at the end of their travel (~15mA @ stall). 12v and a DPDT is all you need, and the Tortoise even has an internal switch mechanism (actuated by its movement) that can be used to switch frog polarity and operate signals or panel lights if desired. There's a good reason they've been around for 30 odd years :)

Currently (pun intended). I have 1 amp power supply connected to the 12V as well as the 9V, but obviously the way I have it setup I can swap them out easily.

@@DIYDigitalRailroad If I run two amps through either or both will it cause any issues with the Arduinos (or any of the rest of these components)?

@@scentgrasslakerailway Nope, the components will only draw as many amps as they need :) Voltage is important to get right though, too much (or too little) will cause issues. You can run an Arduino on anywhere from 5-12V, but somewhere in the middle is preferred because it will generate less heat, that's why Jimmy is using a second 9V supply instead of just using 12V for everything.

@@milkymoocowmoo That is excellent info, thank you!

Me too!

Damn scared me right out of doing this

Hear what you say. The word arduino makes my eyes glaze over and my mind start to see rotating pin wheels. However Jimmy makes it as simple as it can be made.

What about us that don’t have or use tortoise switch motors.

hmmmm....this sounds like I need to do a video on it.

Yes I do have a patreon!

The main advantages of an arduino is customization and now it is easy to change my turnout setup. All I have to do is some minor adjustments to the code and I can make custom sequences for turnouts. No additional wiring required. It’s kind of like building a house. Building a house is complicated, but once it’s built, you don’t have to tear it down and rebuild it every time you want to change something about it.

It's advantageous because it introduces a helpful software level into an otherwise entirely physical system. On a traditional layout for example, you might have a control panel of switches with wires running to your turnouts, and probably some indicator lights somewhere in there too. Each [turnout]-[switch]-[light] grouping is its own circuit, independent of other grouping aside from a shared power supply. If you later decided you wanted to interlock some turnouts, you'd need to run more wires. Maybe have a particular turnout route also throw some related turnouts? That's more wires, and potential *re*wiring of existing circuits, assuming your setup would even let you achieve it without causing shorts. Think of Arduino as a middleman. Instead of individual circuits as above, you have inputs and outputs all connected up together via an Arduino "brain". Your switches, buttons, sensors, etc are your inputs, and your code tells the Arduino what to make your outputs (turnouts, signals, lights, etc) do when those inputs are received. To go back to the interlock example above, I could make that change quicker than I can type this sentence because all it would take is adjusting a line of code from "Arduino, when I push this button, throw turnout x" to "when I push this button, throw turnout x *and* turnout y". It also enables the use of logic, which is incredibly powerful. Conditionals, timers, reacting to situations....things that would be incredibly difficult if not impossible without that little brain sitting behind the scenes. I'd also like to point out that Arduino is quite simple to learn! It's not a computer, it's a microcontroller board, so no electrical engineering or computer science degrees required. I have neither and picked it up by watching videos on this very channel, buying a $50 starter kit and following some tutorials.