Stanvac Gates

When visiting Seth Newman’s (video link) where I saw his operating gates and simulated derail at the Water Treatment Plant I just knew I had to do something similar.  I am working on a version for the entrance to Stanvac – my Oil Refinery. I mounted the servo motors and started programming a Sketch for the Arduino controller.

 

At Peter’s we refined the code including angles and speed of rotation for the gates and speed and length of movement of  the derail.  I decided to add a “Blue protection” track light, a flashing red light to be installed next to the moving gates and a green indicator light on the control panel for when gates opening. This was done using a UNO and finally transferred to a Pro Mini for the final installation using the Rx Tx connections.
Here is a video of part of the development.

I have 18V AC accessory power at all control panels so I built a 12V Regulated DC circuit and used a DC to DC adjustable power board to get the 5V Regulated DC required to run the project.

I installed the project on my layout and the results are shown in the video below – the masking tape simulates the gates which I will build and fit later along with the chain wire fence..
Here is the link to the Arduino.ino Sketch.

 

Now I have to teach my operators how to use it!