Control Lionel Switches with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and Servos!

This project demonstrates how to control Lionel Train Switches from a Raspberry Pi (RPi).

Necessary Hardware

Lionel Manual Switches

• SG-90 Servo
• Female to female Jumper Cables

or

Lionel Remote Switches

• 5V 2-Channel Relay Interface
• Male to Female Jumper Cables
• 22 Gauge Solid Wire Hookup Wires

Hardware Setup

Lionel Manual Switches

• Connecting SG-90 Servo to RPi
• TODO: Setup for building clay structures

Lionel Remote Switches

• Connecting remote switch to the control relay remote switch
• Connecting RPi to control relay
• TODO: Include a simplified wiring schematic

System Services

Since our project relies upon the pigpiod pin factory, start this daemon:

sudo systemctl enable pigpiod

Installation

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/jakee417/Pi-Train-Switching.git
cd Pi-Train-Switching
# Now run the setup helper
./install.sh

And uninstall with,

./uninstall.sh

If this fails due to a User Service, then ensure this line,

export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u)

is found in the ~/.bashrc file followed by a system reboot, sudo reboot. This error is commonly caused when developing from a ssh connection.

Viewing the Web Server

• First, ensure the RPi and client machine (laptop, cellphone tablet, etc.) are on the same WiFi network.
• On your client machine browse to http://raspberrypi.local:5000. If you have a custom hostname, replace rasberrypi with your custom hostname.
• Alternatively, on the RPi you can run,

ifconfig wlan0

You should see something like this (likely with a different inet value),

wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 10.0.0.204  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 10.0.0.255
        ...

Browsing to the inet field with http://10.0.0.204:5000 will also allow you to view the web server.