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Posted

I got one of them really old but cool lego control labs that uses a serial cable, it allows you to control 8 motors and 8 sensors. It works fine on a normal serial port but when i use usb to serial convertor, it gets soo far then errors. Has anyone got this to work? What about using a USB to serial with the old rcx 1.5?

Posted

Your best bet is to hook this up to an old laptop, if you have one lying around. USB/serial converters are often unreliable with old hardware. I think the software for it is also DOS based.

How well does the Control Lab itself work? I was thinking of getting one myself, but I've heard that there is a noticeable delay between issuing the command on the computer and the output actually turning on.

Posted

I like programmerable stuff as I do it as a job (not hardware). It took a little while to get this going e.g find a computer with serial, find a test program, find a activex control etc (can send if needed) but i really like it. its got maybe a 1 second delay less than the mindstorm rcx if you ask me, and gives you access 8 motors!!

Let me know if I can help mate

Posted

I would have probably just used it as a manual controller, like the control centers. I guess with the advent of the PF system, you can get 8 motors off a single controller now anyway, and four IR receivers would still be cheaper than getting one of these control labs from Bricklink.

Posted

where do you get them PF stuff cheap then as I paid £50 for my control lab and the pf stuff would cost a lot more for the amount i need (8 motors 4 battery holders et etc)

Posted

The IR receivers are $15 on Lego S@H here in the US, so four of them plus a battery box would be $67 as opposed to the $100+ control lab prices on Bricklink. Not sure what the prices are like in other countries. The remote control costs an additional $10 but you really only need one for all of your models. I just use the one I got from 8275 for everything.

You can also run them from a 9V AC source by using the trick described here and avoid using batteries. I hope TLG brings out a dedicated PF wall-powered source at some point though.

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