When everything is powered up, the little Z gauge shorty rolls ahead, comes to a halt, and then travels back the other way once the direction is switched. The throttle slider went to 24 in forward and 34 in reverse, all commanded wirelessly from a phone running the Engine Driver app.
This is a first attempt at DCC. The maker soldered an official Rokuhan decoder straight onto a tiny Z gauge motor, and the decoder is large enough that it travels in its own car. The rolling stock are Rokuhan shorty cars. On the control side, a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino and a shield have been pieced together into one system: the Pi runs JMRI OS while the Arduino carries an older release of the DCC-EX command station software.
Around the layout, a breadboard with jumper wires sits next to the track on the table, and track power arrives through a feeder piece with wires. The maker describes the working setup as feeling like magic, and says getting it to run at all was something of a miracle.
There is still finishing work ahead. The wiring has to be tidied before the ornamental shelf piece can be refitted to the cars, the decoder cables need shortening, and the soldering could be neater. The maker also wants pickups on additional wheels on the to-do list, is unsure which spot in a car one suggested decoder location refers to, and would like to fit tiny LEDs in the cars, possibly later.