IR Speed Remote Control 8879

[legotrainfan]

Hello everyone!

I've recently bought IR Speed Remote Control 8879 plus all the other things you need to motorise your Emerald Night. However, I have no idea how this thing works. Where do you have to place the batteries? On the backside of it? Removing the screw?

What are all the buttons there for? And how do you programme it if you have two trains that you want to control with it? Much to my surprise, an instruction manual was not included. Can you download one?

[mostlytechnic]

1. Yes, you remove the one screw on the back panel to access the battery compartment.

2. There's no "programming" needed. The two knobs control the speed of two motors (if you have two...). The red button below each is a "stop" button. The black sliding switches reverse direction (so if you want clockwise to mean "forward" and it actually makes your train go backwards, flip the black switch to reverse it). The center orange slider chooses between 4 channels. On the IR receiver, there's a matching slider. So set the remote and receiver to the same channel, and then the left knob/button control the left output on the receiver, and the right half of the remote does the right half of the receiver.

To control 2 trains (assuming 1 motor per train), attach the motor from train #1 to the left output of the receiver, and put the remote and receiver on the same channel. On train #2, put the receiver on the same channel, but attach the motor to the right output. Now the two dials will control the two trains individually.

If you had more trains (or other things), just set their receivers to different channels and move the slider on the remote to control them.

In general, I think the instructions for the remote are in the manuals for the sets that it comes with (so check the manuals online for the 7938 / 7939 / 3677 trains if you can find them) and I guess Lego assumes anyone buying the remote alone knows what they're doing already ;)

Hope that helps!

Edited August 24, 2011 by mostlytechnic

[legotrainfan]

Thank you very much!

[DaddyWhale]

Thanks from me too! I got this remote for my Emerald Night. As far as I can remember, the EN did not come with instructions on how to operate the remote. Though most of the functionality is easy enough to figure out, your tutorial helped a lot!

[legotrainfan]

Does anyone know what to do when the lights of your Emerald Night don't work? After installing all the necessary equipment to make it run, everything worked perfectly. Now the lights don't work anymore. I hope the lights don't have a loose connection, but then it'd go on and off all the time, which is not the case.

[Hrw-Amen]

I am interested to know how many different trains can be controled using one (Or a collection.) of these remotes at once. Not that I have more than two hands of course.

It looks like I can operate four with these as they have four settings, but I have heard people say you can do eight, but I'm not sure how they figure that out?

[AndyC]

It looks like I can operate four with these as they have four settings, but I have heard people say you can do eight, but I'm not sure how they figure that out?

Well you only really need one side of the remote to control a train, so by assigning a train to each "half" of the four channels you can control a maximum of eight trains.

[legotrainfan]

I've just realised that one orange knob is for the lights (switching them on and off) and the other one for regulating the train's speed. Interesting and fun!

@AndyC: Just attach the motor to the other output of the receiver. (See mostlytechnic's post!) Then you'll be able to control 8 trains (or seven if you have the Emerald Night, because one channel is used for turning the lights on and off). I hope I've understood mostlytechnic's explanations correctly.

Edited August 29, 2011 by legotrainfan

[Siegfried]

I've just realised that one orange knob is for the light (switching it on and off) and the other one for regulating the train's speed. Interesting and fun!

Well you can do it that way, but I've always just piggy-backed the motor and lights.

[Hrw-Amen]

Well you can do it that way, but I've always just piggy-backed the motor and lights.

I used one orange knob for lights as well. I figured that way they would not go out when the train stopped.

So what you are saying is that if the lights are plugged ontop of the (Or under.) the motor attachment, then you get another IR unit and attach your motor/lights for the second train to the other pin, then even though they are on the same channel you could control two trains at the same time from the same unit, one with each knob?

I did not realise that. But then at the moment I don't have that many trains.

[whosscruffylookin]

I wonder if it's possible to mod the controller and the receiver so that the channel selection switch only affects one of the two outputs.

That way you could control 7 trains but have a single knob control the lights on all your trains - so they all come on / go off at the same time. So you don't have to give up independent control of lights if you want more than 4 trains.

Hopefully Lego will one day do an RF/Bluetooth controller & receiver with more channels. Not only would this solve line of sight issues, but the receiver could be smaller (some bluetooth USB dongles are tiny). Hard to see how this could be done to be as kid friendly as the current system as it would be more complex than a four position switch and two colour coded outputs.

[peterab]

I wonder if it's possible to mod the controller and the receiver so that the channel selection switch only affects one of the two outputs.

That way you could control 7 trains but have a single knob control the lights on all your trains - so they all come on / go off at the same time. So you don't have to give up independent control of lights if you want more than 4 trains.

Hopefully Lego will one day do an RF/Bluetooth controller & receiver with more channels. Not only would this solve line of sight issues, but the receiver could be smaller (some bluetooth USB dongles are tiny). Hard to see how this could be done to be as kid friendly as the current system as it would be more complex than a four position switch and two colour coded outputs.

You could get this result if you added an extra receiver for the lights to each train. Then set all the light receivers to the same channel, and plug all the lights into the same coloured output.

[Snapshot]

I wonder if it's possible to mod the controller and the receiver so that the channel selection switch only affects one of the two outputs.

That way you could control 7 trains but have a single knob control the lights on all your trains - so they all come on / go off at the same time. So you don't have to give up independent control of lights if you want more than 4 trains.

Hopefully Lego will one day do an RF/Bluetooth controller & receiver with more channels. Not only would this solve line of sight issues, but the receiver could be smaller (some bluetooth USB dongles are tiny). Hard to see how this could be done to be as kid friendly as the current system as it would be more complex than a four position switch and two colour coded outputs.

I don't think an RF receiver would be much smaller as most of the volume would be the power control circuitry and PF connectors which wouldn't change much. The advantage would be that it could be a more regular shape which would not need to poke out of the top of the model.

[whosscruffylookin]

You could get this result if you added an extra receiver for the lights to each train. Then set all the light receivers to the same channel, and plug all the lights into the same coloured output.

certainly beats modding in terms of hassle, but apart from cost, there's the issue of finding the extra space. I'll think again if I ever get to >4 trains...

I don't think an RF receiver would be much smaller as most of the volume would be the power control circuitry and PF connectors which wouldn't change much. The advantage would be that it could be a more regular shape which would not need to poke out of the top of the model.

Looking at the internals here: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=442112

I think that by removing the channel switch and the IR sensor, the bulk of the circuit looks like it could fit inside a 4x4 brick without too much effort. It might also be possible to integrate it into a battery box, saving the cable between box and sensor.

[legotrainfan]

Has anybody else experienced any problems with a motorised Emerald Night? A technic element must have become dislocated. This is just an assumption. The battery box is completely recharged. The motor moves, but the engine does not. First it moved nicely without any problems. Just the battery box didn't have enough energy. I also removed a locking problem caused by the pushing rods and one construction flaw (technic gear falling off), which were mentioned here, even before I motorised it. I hope it's nothing difficult to fix. I don't like disassembling complex sets just because of one simple problem.

[peterab]

Has anybody else experienced any problems with a motorised Emerald Night? A technic element must have become dislocated. This is just an assumption. The battery box is completely recharged. The motor moves, but the engine does not. First it moved nicely without any problems. Just the battery box didn't have enough energy. I also removed a locking problem caused by the pushing rods and one construction flaw (technic gear falling off), which were mentioned here, even before I motorised it. I hope it's nothing difficult to fix. I don't like disassembling complex sets just because of one simple problem.

There are whole threads here of fixes for the emerald night, have a search for them and check if any of the problems discussed are the one you are experiencing. There is also an article in railbricks which covers many of the tweaks. Unfortunately the EN becomes less reliable over time, and the tweaks are needed.