Central power booster or distributed power stations?The MagicRail system uses distributed power stations with independant current limiting. This eliminates the need for power management after a high current booster,  preventing melting axles in derailments that short circuit the rails. Each power station also performs occupancy detection, auto-reverse, transponder detection, and ops mode readback. Matrixing of drivers allows for more blocks per power station. From 4 blocks from a PS02 to 64 blocks from
a PS08.
These features eliminate the need for additional sensing equipment and provide for total sensing of the entire layout. | ||||||||||
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About network interfaces | ||||||||||
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Interface 1 was the original, used by processors like PIC16F628 and PIC16F648 which are not
able to invert the transmit output and also have no HLT timers.
Interface 2 was able to remove one transistor and 2 resistors when used with processors that can invert the transmit signal. Interface 3 is used with modern processors that can invert the transmit signal and have HLT timers, one of which is used to determine when the network is busy.   This removes another transistor, 2 resistors, and a capacitor. The HLT also allows adjusting the timing based on priority and retries. | ||||||||||
Goals of phase 2 | ||||||||||
PS8 is the original power station. It uses 8 pairs of track power drivers to allow for up to 64 matrixed blocks. But it was unable to meet the goal of sensing block occupancy   without upsetting mobile decoders. It can detect transponding, but is hit or miss due to time shared use of one comparator. This also precludes the ability for ops mode readback. Phase 2 processors use CWG or COG devices to correct the timing to within NMRA specifications. So they can scan the matrix of blocks and accurately determine occupancy. Dedicated comparators for each pair of track power drivers allow for accurate transponder sensing, and can do ops mode readback. |
 
 
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