Hello!
I'm currently working on a homebrew DCC command station for a powering and controlling hobbyist model trains. The standard assumes a use of square AC wave -14.5V/+14.5V of varying frequency, in which a signal of 1 has a length of 58 microseconds, and 0 has a length of ca. 110 microseconds. I am really new to electronics and I came up with this project as a way of introducing by myself to the hobby. Could you guys give me an advice as to what would be the proper components to use in order to achieve a square wave of this voltage?
Well to start with a +/-15V power supply is needed - is this also the power to drive the motor(s)? Then an
H-bridge would be needed to switch/invert the signal at appropriate times.
You can easily generate the required waveform with any Arduino, an appropriate starter board for such a project would typically be an Uno.
The next step would be to determine how much output current is required for the DCC. This would drive the selection of the power supplies and the H bridge - which translates the 0-5 vdc output of the Uno into the desired +/-14.5 volt waveform.
Thanks, gentlemen! I appreciate the responses. There very same wave is also a power to drive the motors. After some reading, I understand that the Arduino will manipulate H bridge direction thus creating the AC wave. I understand that arduino provides enough resolution for these frequencies.
The output current required depends on the number of locomotives+cars used. From my research it appears that ca. 1.5A should be more than enough for my setup. I found a cheap shield that is easily available in my location: Pololu MAX14870. It's 28V/1.7A with max. frequency of 50kHz. Would that do?