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Table of Contents
MERG West Midlands Area Group
Contact Us
To contact us use the MERG West Midlands Area Group contact form here https://www.merg.org.uk/areagroup.php?area=17
For MERG members, you might also like to look at our area group forum.
Co-ordinator
Allan Gardner
MEETINGS
The next meeting of the West Midlands Area Group will be:
Sunday 14th July 2019
At Titford Pump House, Engine street, OLDBURY, West Midlands.
About Titford Pump House.
There is plenty of car parking – mostly on Engine Street, some within the pump house compound. The address above includes a Google maps link. All facilities are at ground level.
This months topic:
To be announced in due course
Interested in attending?
The meeting is open to all MERG Members.
To give us an idea of numbers, could you let us know you are coming by contacting me allanhgardner@gmail.com or use the MERG contact form above.
We will need a contribution of £3 to cover the costs of the meeting.
Programme
Registration, with coffee and tea available.
10:00 Welcome Introduction
Allan Gardner
10:15 Brief introduction: What are Arduinos,
Where to find relevant sketches, what can be achieved.
10.45 Arduinos and CBUS
Dave’s shuttle and how it was developed
11:15 Refreshment Break
11:30 Arduinos and CBUS
Dave‘s Sound Player how it developed from Alan Turner’s pcb
12:00 Magnetic Identity
Tony to explain why, what and how.
12.30 Discussion: Any Questions and Answers !!
Opportunity to discuss things further
13:00 Lunch
Bring your own or eat loads of cake!
13:30 Practical Workshop Session 1
Tony & Dave will be with us all day so take the opportunity to delve deeper into the world of Arduino. If that's not your things then work on your current project. We’ll do our best to help with construction and problem-solving. Bring your own tools including your soldering iron.
14:30 Refreshment Break
14:45 Practical Workshop Session 2
Continuance of the practical session
15:45 Wash Up and close
Allan Gardner
Meeting dates for 2019
The dates below are for the quarterly meetings for 2019.
- Winter - Sunday 13th January
- Spring - Saturday 13th April
- Summer - Sunday 14th July
- Autumn - Saturday 12th October
We have booked the Titford Pump House for these dates.
Format of Future Meetings
We are seeking views from members with regards to the structure and format of future meetings.
The areas we would welcome comments on are:
- Fixing dates for the next year
- Saturday or Sunday
- Venue
- Meeting format
- Speaker and contents
If you have a view on any of the above, please share with the co-ordinator using the contact form above.
Previous meetings
April 2019
What is Arduino and what can it do for railway modellers
Tony Chamberlain and Dave Thomas will present all things Arduino
October 2018
‘Wiring and Power supplies for the Railway Modeller’
We were delighted to welcome David Roberts as our keynote speaker on that occasion.
David gave two talks in the morning.
The first one, focused on wiring for the railway modeller and included
• Theoretical aspects of electrical wiring • Design & Implementation of electrical wiring • Examples of wires, tools and terminations
His second talk was Power Supplies and explored:
• History • Direct Current (DC) Supplies • Linear Mode Supplies • Switch - mode Supplies • Sources of Power Supplies • Commercial Devices • Surplus Computer Supplies
July 2018
Howard Watkins as our keynote speaker.
The theme of our meeting was ‘Back to Basics’
AM - Two talks given by Howard to include
- Theory and practise of Soldering. - Tools and Supplies - Component recognition - Using LEDs
PM - Practical 'HANDS ON' session to include an opportunity to build a track tester,