Translations:Zentrale Z21PG/3/en

Central Station in a Eurobox

DCC Central with network, S88, XpressNet and LocoNet connection

Connections of the central station

A very good but also very expensive model railway control ROCO Z21 and the XpressNet gave me the idea to develop a own central station. My intention was to reduce the hardware or/and replace it with software. The self-construction central station should also have a network interface for APP and PC control, XpressNet, S88 and LocoNet so it will be equal or even more powerful then the original ROCO Z21.
Here I will describe the build up of the Z21 DCC Central Station on the base platform of the Arduino (Arduino MEGA buy it on AliExpress for about 8,- Euro) to control the model railway via the Z21 LAN protocol. The basic version need for the network connection a Ethernet Shield with a W5100 chip (at AliExpress for about 5,- Euro). With the ethernet shield you can include the central station into a already used home network with WiFi to control over smartphone hand device or other software for example Rocrail your model railroad. With extensions you can add for example even a WiFi AP or Client (with ESP6288) to the central station.