LEGO Control Center II: Remote control and program download

[Toastie]

33 minutes ago, amine said:

The vintage technic lights blinks in reverse polarity.

Ha! I did not recall that - but you are right!

Best
Thorsten

[Toastie]

@amine

I just found an 8-pin ILD74 (double) opto coupler flying around here ... and quickly made this:

It is rather small and works quite nicely (no power supply required). The part on the right of the diagram (+/- and 10kOhm) is just illustrating the pull-up resistor inside Interface B. No harm is caused when the 9V terminal is attached the wrong way around on an Interface B input; it just doesn't work ;) On my Interface B, the left contacts of the 9V terminals are + and the right are GND.  

The short 9V wire goes to any Control Center output (polarity does not matter), the long goes to an input of Interface B (yellow or blue), GND goes to both emitters of the two internal transistors of the ILD74 .

This is absolutely straight forward, and there is nothing special - it is simply your idea, @amine, made with rather old resurrected electronics ;)

The two internal LEDs of the ILD74 only light up, when the polarity is right - and they "protect themselves", as one is always conductive, so that the voltage drop across the non-conductive LED is such that it can easily deal with that. The resistor on the right in the photograph (and center in the diagram) determines the reading for forward (or reverse, depending on how the 9V LEGO wire is attached to the CCII output terminal). The other coupler output goes directly to the (+) input terminal of Interface B. As only either one can be on, or both are off, the reading for the Interface B input is unequivocally determined. Here is what I recorded in raw mode of any input:

off: 1023 - forward: 10 - reverse: 108. As said, you can use other resistor values of course. 

There is one advantage: There is no latency. The moment you press a button on the CCII, the reading changes on Interface B. 

The ILD74 costs less than 1€, there are also quad couplers < €2. Virtually all the low power electronic opto couplers will work though. Three ILD74, six 1 kOhm resistors, and three 9V cables cut in half  or made from scratch and you are good to go. You can simultaneously press buttons on CCII and the timing is pretty accurate.

Just an idea!

All the best
Thorsten  

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Toastie

[amine]

47 minutes ago, Toastie said:

@amine

I just found an 8-pin ILD74 (double) opto coupler flying around here ... and quickly made this:

It is rather small and works quite nicely (no power supply required). The part on the right of the diagram (+/- and 10kOhm) is just illustrating the pull-up resistor inside Interface B. No harm is taken when the 9V terminal is attached the wrong way around on an Interface B input; it then just doesn't wok ;) On my Interface B, the left contacts of the 9V terminals are + and the right are GND.  

The short wire goes to on Control Center output (polarity does not matter), the long goes to an input of Interface B (yellow or blue), GND goes to both emitters of the two internal transistors of the ILD74 .

This is absolutely straight forward, and there is nothing special - it is simply your idea, @amine, made with rather old resurrected electronics ;)

The two internal LEDs of the ILD74 only light up, when the polarity is right - and they "protect themselves", as one is always conductive, so that the voltage drop across the non-conductive LED is such that it can easily deal with that. The resistor on the right in the photograph (and center in the diagram) determines the reading for forward (or reverse, depending on how the 9V LEGO wire is attached to the CCII output terminal). The other coupler output goes directly to the (+) input terminal of Interface B. As only either one can be on, or both are off, the reading for the Interface B input is unequivocally determined. Here is what I recorded in raw mode of any input:

off: 1023 - forward: 10 - reverse: 108. As said, you can use other resistor values of course. 

There is one advantage: There is no latency. The moment you press a button on the CCII, the reading changes on Interface B. 

The ILD74 costs less than 1€, there are also quad couplers < €2. Virtually all the low power electronic opto couplers will work though. Three ILD74, six 1 kOhm resistors, and three 9V cables cut in half  or made from scratch and you are good to go. You can simultaneously press buttons on CCII and the timing is pretty accurate.

Just an idea!

All the best
Thorsten  

 

WOW THATS AMAZING 😁

[Toastie]

56 minutes ago, amine said:

WOW THATS AMAZING

Thank you, but it was >your< brilliant idea! I just assembled a couple of old/used pieces of electronics and cables lying around.

Your version is 100% pure LEGO! 

Best
Thorsten