Have everything in terms of h/w working now. Just getting started on the UART drivers and then the formatting methods to build xbee frames. I’m going for the super simple series one point to point protocol. Technically this is not a ‘mesh’ network but for my purposes, it should do fine. The idea is to have any node talk to any other node directly. I don’t really need any sort of node hopping or self healing right now so I’ll opt for the simple first.
The handheld will function just like a standard R/C transmitter, moving servos and the motor controller in the locomotive. It will also be able to set various switches and relays and trigger sounds.
The big difference here between regular R/C and this- with this method I can do bi-directional data flows. So I can pick up position, speed and current consumption from the locomotive as well as send it commands. Also, since each device is a just another node on the network, an Xbee connected to my Raspberry Pi server will allow me to both control the locomotive and monitor it, the same as from the handheld.
In theory of course. However it is looking good so far. My h/w designs have proved both minimalistic and functional, so far anyhow, so I have a good feeling about getting all this working. The last stage will be the html5 tablet interface I did for the wixel, but that’s way down the road.