Remote Control for OS-Railway - fully 3D-printable railway system!

thingiverse

I decided to make a remote control for my 3D-printed trains because my son has trouble with the smartphone interface and secondly, it was fun. This little NodeMCU-based box can also be used for any other purpose, I've included an Arduino-project that is a WiFi network scanner. This example can help you continue developing this project and integrate a menu to choose between several different targets. This remote works with the standard software for the Hectorrail 141 and sends its commands with HTTP GET requests, basically ignoring the response. This isn't the most efficient way of communicating between two NodeMCU's, but it leaves the possibility open that you can still connect to the trains with your smartphone or tablet as well. When assembling this project, I found out that the box is a bit of a squeeze so be careful when soldering the button legs and bend them to take up minimum space. I've included two versions of the back side, one if you want to use individual cells and one if you want to use a battery pack. I strongly suggest using a battery pack, even if you buy individual rechargeable AAA-cells. Needed equipment: NodeMCU - A dev-board that contains an ESP8266 WiFi micro controller. This can usually be found pretty cheap on eBay, Wish or Alibaba, just compare the picture to the schematic to see that it's the right version. OLED display with 4 wire I2C connection and SH1106 controller. Check out the specification PDF for more information. Buttons - Search eBay for "Tactile PCB push button". Make sure to trim them down until they work well, but don't glue the button frame to the main body before testing! Potentiometer - A 5-10kOhm potentiometer will do the trick. I used a traditional plastic one with a long knob that has been cut down to about 6-7mm length. Power switch - I used a super-tiny toggle switch for this project, but you can use any small toggle switch that works with the button parts included. If not, just enlarge the hole and put a toggle switch there instead. Note: The "esp8266-OLED-master" zip-file contains the library for the OLED display. Place it in the libraries folder in your Arduino IDE installation.