[plug] March 14th PLUG talk at Castledare

[Michael Van Delft]

*What:* PLUG's Monthly talk
*Where:* Castledare Miniature Railway (OpenStreetMap
<http://osm.org/way/50330066> or Google Maps
<https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Castledare+Miniature+Railways>)
*When: *Saturday March 14th from 10:30 to 13:00
*What to bring: *Enclosed footwear must be worn.

Next month's meeting will be a little different, rather than our usual talk
at Spacecubed on the second Tuesday of the month, this March we are going
to Castledare Miniature Railway.

Mike Crean has kindly invited us to visit Castledare from 10:30 to 13:00 on
March the 14th.

Mike has spent the last 20 years or so of his career was spent doing many
things, trouble shooting well field, mechanical, electrical, automation and
IT problems for a small company Landfill Gas and Power Pty Ltd whose head
office is in Belmont and are a part of the Westrac
group. LGP have several gas recovery and electricity generation sites
around Perth and interstate. While at LGP he code cut a SCADA (Supervisory
Control And Data Acquisition) package that was used for many years until a
cost effective commercial replacement was found. He also developed and made
a full landfill gas engine management system using Atmel 8535 micros as the
core embedded control device, some of which are now used as signal control
at CMR.

Mike has been an active member at the CMR railway for over 10 years and in
that time has refurbished 3 locomotives of his own and become very involved
in the railways signalling system. The team at Castledare have built a new
signal box at Niana and it is being developed as an automated signal
control station for the Niana area rail network. It has two PC’s on Ubuntu
OS and a Click PLC all controlled from a custom SCADA system implemented
using Gambas3 a VB look a like. This is a very nice package and a true RAD.
The Castledare signals are generally stand alone and are using Arduino
Uno’s connected to our 433 mHz wireless network back to the local signal
box. These signals use ultrasonic train detection or track mounted treadle
switches. Some are also used to operate electro mechanical or pneumatic
points at remote locations.

Mike will be showing us all this and more on the day.
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