Saturday, August 27, 2022

Driver Display Unit (DDU) for Diesel locomotives WDP4/WDG4 (EMD GT46PAC/GT46MAC)




  • The WDP4/WDG4 locomotive is a diesel locomotive used actively by the Indian Railways. It is a locally built General Motors Electro-Motive Division's GT46MAC (freight) and GT46PAC (passanger) variant. More details can be found here WDP4/WDG4 info on Wikipedia
  • The various gauges on this locomotive are Analog and there was a need to digitize them and provide a single console like is common on many locomotive Driver Display Units. 
  • A commonly available industrial x86 SBC which could run Linux and a GUI was chosen.
  • It was interfaced at a location on the loco rack where digital signals were available.
  • It could show a locopilot various readings on the console: Speed, Brake Pipe/Cylinder pressure, BE/TE, Notch position and also various fault conditions.
  • This DDU was used in a few locos and has worked reliably.
  • Below is a picture of a physical meter and how it looks on the implemented DDU.



WDP4 Locomotive
Original Wikimedia image here



No comments:

Post a Comment

Receiving Comments will be delightful! Thanks

Making Minimal Mechanical Digital Clock

Making Minimal Mechanical Digital Clock New devices are so much fun to build or use. Lately been motivated by interesting designs from aroun...