Mixing PF element and old 9v elements

[Lego Otaku]

Anything special that I might need to do to put the PF IR tower and battery box to older 9v motor and light systems from 1990's?

Remote controlled monorail would be nice. The old 9v battery box would be a problem since IR tower has different type of connector on bottom, and the battery box (both 6x AAA or rechargeable) is a bit taller and only comes in newer grey which won't quite fit with old grey or red/white of the old monorail sets.

[JopieK]

There is a convertor cable:

http://shop.lego.com...nsion-Wire-8886

I'm not sure what you mean by PF IR tower, I guess you mean PF IR receiver? That is totally different from the Mindstorms IR tower at least!

It is doable though:

http://blog.brickbui...d-monorail.html

[Lego Otaku]

Hmmm so it can be done but it looks like the wire from 9v battery is hacked to PF style connector? Wouldn't using a second PF converter cable to get power from battery box to the IR unit work for less hassle?

Forgot there was official IR tower from Mindstorm set. I hadn't seen mine since I retired the RCX bricks because finding USB version wasn't easy, didn't have a reason to keep legacy serial port on modern computer, and last I heard, USB driver was limited to only 32-bits and won't work on 64 bits OS. I use the newer NCX anyway and Arduino for more I/O and other advanced use.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Lego Otaku

[JopieK]

32-bits software works also on a 64-bit system, but one needs to run compatibility mode then of course. I don't see right away why he hacked the 9V, but there must be a reason for it I guess, or you could first try to use the cables as they come.

[codefox421]

32-bits software works also on a 64-bit system, but one needs to run compatibility mode then of course. I don't see right away why he hacked the 9V, but there must be a reason for it I guess, or you could first try to use the cables as they come.

The PF wires have GND, C2, C1, and 9V lines. The PF IR receiver only takes power from the 9V and GND lines, but the backward compatible connector on a PF extension wire only supplies power to C1 and C2. Therefore, something non-standard must always be done to power an IR receiver from a legacy battery box.

If you're willing to do some custom electronics, there's an open-source implementation of the PF IR receiver, which could be made to pull power from the C1/C2 lines, and I'm working on an open-source PF bluetooth receiver, which I've designed to take power from both 9V/GND and C1/C2.

[JopieK]

Easy to do with an Arduino or other microcontroller indeed!

I already thought that the wires would be the problem indeed!

[pacc]

Cool codex.

I've been looking at arduino but more and more leaning towards the ir- receiver and it's integrated motor shield, adding perhaps bluetooth to that. Now if you have a solution....

Do you have a BOM and perhaps a reference design you started out from that has some documentation already?

[JopieK]

Well, read my article in Railbricks about the Arduino, next issue will have a more advanced one, I can also help you out since I have a lot of experience with Arduino (I'm an Informatics teacher and also create Arduino-like boards for both hobby and educational purposes).

I am now moving most of my own train stuff to XBee with the Teensy 3 (arduino compatible ARM board of only 19$) but for my school I use our own Arduino Pro mini + XBee + motor controller board. For my own layout the XBee nodes send IR signals to the trains, for the school system, the control itself is totally arduino (replaces the IR receiver etc.)

[pacc]

sure, but skipping ir and xbee would half the things for me initially since any phone with bluetooth could do that part.

the add-on boards and master slave radio solutions seems great, but for a specific purpose a complete solution seems competitive. (and you can even hope for some spare io to play with once that is up and running)

Eagerly waiting for your article though. any solution that gets a following has an edge.

[JopieK]

Then you should use BLE of course: Low energy bluetooth. Then you can drive it directly from your phone! Some android phones can already do IR and make a LEGO train run out of the box b.t.w.!

[Lego Otaku]

The only device I have that does blue tooth is my android tablet. I think I'll stick to IR controller from LEGO for now as it's smaller and more portable and doesn't need weird looking connector to recharge battery

Edited October 19, 2013 by Lego Otaku

[codefox421]

Hey pacc, thanks for reminding me I needed a BOM. It's true; any phone, computer, tablet, etc could fill the role of the remote control as long as it sends commands the receiver is expecting.

Some android phones can already do IR and make a LEGO train run out of the box b.t.w.!

I didn't know there exist phones that are IR capable. Cool info JopieK!

[JopieK]

often teachers learn a lot from students ;) (and even... most teachers don't care, but I at least try to really care!)

[pacc]

My phone has IR, but the API from sony dont support the parameters needed for lego pf, Samsung currently has an edge there. For BT 4.0 the phones are blocked by bad google API's which I hope will get fixed if I get a KLP upgrade since it is not a hardware problem there either - but if you run a motor I guess you can use standard bluetooth.