Super Operating track and DCS

Never mind, brain pharting. Had to step away from it to reset my thought process. Figured out what I wasn't doing right!  Working fine.

Connect the 2 wires going to a button to the AIU ACC terminals "IN" and "1".   As for the "one connection" confusion, it's because one side of the uncoupler electromagnet coil is internally wired to a rail.

There have been several threads which you ought to review on the dangers of inadvertently leaving an uncoupler "ON" when using the AIU ACC port.  You should use the "ACT" button which of course applies power only as long as you hold down the DCS remote button for the accessory.  If you accidentally press the "ON" button and forget to press "OFF", the power is applied and you don't know anything is wrong until you smell the melting plastic or whatever.  To that end various techniques have been developed to limit the amount of time an uncoupler is powered.  Use advanced search to find threads with words AIU, UCS, uncoupler, etc.

Thanks again Stan. I forgot about the "ACT" button. I did search the forums but didn't use the advanced search  I'll use the advanced search and see what I find.  My brain phart was tying in the ground,  My finger tips can attest to how hot they can get. They are a fire hazard if left energized with that bottom metal plate sitting on the layout,

Oh, and another consideration when you drink the "remote control" kool-aid is whether you want any feedback or indication that the uncoupler electromagnet is actually firing.  With your existing buttons, the wiring connection is direct and there's high confidence that you push the button and the electromagnet turns on.  With wireless remote control, and TBD additional components/circuits to protect the electromagnet, you may find it handy to have some kind of visual indicator when an electromagnet is actually firing....perhaps as simple as a 10 cent LED or bulb.   Plan twice, solder once.

One other thought.  If you have 15 uncouplers, that requires 2 AIUs since each AIU has only 10 Accessory outputs.  Depending on how much rolling stock you have rolling around, perhaps you could put two uncouplers in parallel in choosing the pairing carefully.  So one button press really fires two different uncouplers with one having no effect since there would (presumably) be no cars around.  This might save the cost of a 2nd AIU. 

If there's a real concern about accidentally frying a magnet, you could wire the uncoupler to an AIU SW port, instead. However, it would be a bit more difficult to uncouple on-the-fly, since the magnet would be activated for only a second or so.

As a bonus, you could control 2 different uncouplers with each SW port.

Just remembered another thread about AIU and uncouplers.  In the following post I showed (video included!) how a $2 current transformer (CT) and a couple LEDs can be used as an indicator that current is flowing in an uncoupler circuit:

https://ogrforum.com/t...52#56897700710730552

While it would be spendy to instrument all 15 uncouplers this way, this method actually senses current flowing.  If there is a break in the uncoupler coil or in the wiring to the coil, a detector that senses voltage going to the coil would falsely indicate that the electromagnet is "on".  Depending on how you power your uncouplers, you could use a single CT to sense a common power wire that feeds all the uncouplers.  So the LED would flash when ANY uncoupler was on...and of course it would stay lit if for whatever reason an uncoupler was stuck on from leaving the AIU ACC port "on" by mistake or from a wiring short, or whatever.  Of course this is not a protection circuit to cut power but simply an indicator to give you that warm-and-fuzzy feeling that the uncoupler is actually active.

Great post regarding the CT. I believe I have some CT's. Now to find which bin they are in.   The stuff I am working on is simple. Makes me wonder what some of you advanced guys are working on. My train engineers will be here tomorrow. I sit them at the bench with breadboards so they gain some understanding of the changes I have made. Always leads to experimenting with motors, servos, gears, belts and such. Entertaining   to watch them figure things out.

Thanks to all for sharing your knowledge.