• GCA Hardware
  • GCA WIO
  • WIO First steps

For many years the ORD-3 booster has done a wonderfull job for many railroaders.
That was mainly achieved by the H-bridge chip L6203.
But chips become smaller and smaller, so now there was an idea for a very small booster, which could be commanded for example by a WIO module.
And the decision was made to use a more extended chip L6205PD.
A small cooling is provided on board, but for a correct control of the max current two 5 Watt resistors are needed.
The L6205PD needs to be soldered also underneath and so are the on-board coolings where manual soldering is impossible for even for the bravest hobbyists among us.
The solder paste will be put on board with the help of a dedicated stencil.
The PCB board also needs a double thick copper layer, conform the advice of the chip's factory GCA has tools to solder it with a small soldering machine, so PCB boards can be sold with a mounted L6205PD and cooling devices.
And that idea, -more work to come- , does not appeal to me at my age, but
the other option would be to order these boards with a mounted L6205PD and coolings.
And that is only optional in larger quantities, asking for higher investments, which will not be optionable for GCA.

The designer of a nice housing has agreed to publish the .stl files for this unit.
That enables you to 3D print your own housing to cover this booster.

• Source: https://gitlab.com/rocrail/rocrail3d/-/blob/master/WIO/BoosterSatellite.scad?ref_type=heads
• STL

The WIOpico-1 I/O2 connector can be connected 1:1 to the Booster Satellite J1.
In the WIO setup select DCC in the preload section.

Optional connector for the booster bus.
This is used for connecting another Booster Satellite to provide the same DCC signal.
The WIO connected to the slave booster must be set to Booster.

Connector for 24VDC fan(s). (30 x 30 x 10mm)

Loco Interface Tab:

Switch Interface Tab: