Toastie

Shoot. Can you turn the brass gear manually when lifting the motor away from the remaining gears? If it does not, then it seems to be the motor, if it does, then further investigation (e.g., apply an external power supply to the motor after de-soldering one of the original wires) seems to be warranted. Best Thorsten

Whoa!!! That's an announcement! So, Interface A had 6 outputs and 2 inputs. Interface B had 8 outputs and 8 inputs. Interface C has 1 output and no input? Seems to me more like a smart power supply rather than an interface? "Smart" as in providing Wi-Fi/BT/BLE/MTQQ/etc. connectivity and control (well, all that an ESP32 provides). This should also allow for control via home-integration/assistants. So yes, it is an interface! And very nicely done - it has a really appealing look. Congratulations on your achievements!!! Bringing such a device to the market is really something. With that USB port connected to the ESP32 hybrid controller inside (not only for diagnosis, but power-programming!), along with an X-channel USB switch, you can also orchestrate a nice X-channel Interface. Sensors can be hooked-up wirelessly. It will be a little pricey though - well interfaces A and B were sure as well! All the best, and thanks for sharing! Thorsten

Hmmm. There is this little screw; when you remove that, can you get the motor out? It seems it is connected with cables to the PCB. If you can get it out: Does it spin without any load? If not, then it may be the motor. Next step would be to learn more about this motor ... Best Thorsten

As I said, I'll be back ... @BrickTronic Jo, "quick" question - do you think, this could work? I just ordered a couple of 74LS85's - these are really powerful! Specifically: The B inputs are floating, when a corresponding switch S is not closed. Well, as far as I remember, LS chips are quite stable regarding open inputs as they are internally pulled high. If not, then I would need to add 4 pull up resistors to the B inputs, right? Also, an address is inversely selected, right? All S closed = 0000 (0), all open = 1111 (15). Correct? Thank you very much for pointing me to 7485, a really enjoyable chip! (I know, the nerd I am. It's OK ) All the best Thorsten NOTE: For the first time, IC6b, pin 6 connects correctly to IC1a, pin 11 (and not 12 as always before in this thread)

EDIT: Go to the second quote below: Jo has just >>sunk<< my approach described above. Yeah, why not using 74LS85? I tell you why: I had never heard of it, just looked at its function table a couple of minutes ago, had to read Jo's question 5 times, and finally, got it. This is >so< elegant!!! First: Thank you very much Jo for checking!!! I trust your assessment very much, you know that. Second: 74LS183 would be "easier to use" as I have them floating around here. I had exactly scribbled down what you described. Nice. And yes, using the now obsolete IC3a/b would make nice inverters. However, here is more about my choice of 74HCT238 over 74LS138: I'd like to be able to "restore" the 9771 card to its original design/behavior - for no obvious reason than - I want to. Don't ask me why; I am trying to do that with all the "ancient" machines I am tinkering with. It is simply my respect for the original designers and hardware layout - I know it sounds absurd, but so is the entire world of today All I need to do is cutting 3 traces on the 9771 card (>tiny< cuts with a razor blade ) and then solder >tiny< loop back wires to a female DuPont connector I am planning to reversibly hot glue to the enormous empty space area of the ISA card. If I now plug in a male DuPont connector with 3 bridges, it should work as before on addresses dec 925 or dec 926. For the new address range 920 - 927, I'd remove the male DuPont connector and replace it with a little perf board, carrying the 74HCT238, 8 bit DIP switch, 8 diodes, and two 1k resistors. To make it work, I have to additionally wire A0, A1, +5V, GND in parallel to the female DuPont connector, which are unused in original mode, but populated when using the lill' board ... And why 8 addresses? Just to theoretically outpace @evank's Apple ][ setup; he uses up-to (I believe) five 9767 cards ... The difference would be: My hardware addition only works on an IBM XT system with the 5161 extension box with 8 cards. But I don't have 5161, nor 8 9771 cards. It is just for fun, that's really all. I am busted, though, when he finds an Apple expansion board ... BUT, be aware folks, I am prepared to go to 16 cards should that happen - I shall then just swap 74LS238 with 74LS154! As I said: More crazy stuff to come. Because you are a brilliant genius, Jo, and I am a lousy chemist pretending to know a bit about TTL circuits. This is insanely elegant, and I will certainly do exactly that! Let me draw up your proposal! My original approach using the DuPont loop back connector and the additional lines A0, A1, +5V and GND lines still works as intended, but I just need one 74LS85 and a 3 bit DIP switch. Need to order the former, have the latter. And the best part is: "These devices are fully expandable to any number of bits without external gates", says the data sheet. Thanks a million, Jo, you made my day!!! I will be back ... Best regards Thorsten

Wait — does that mean, you can charge the Cube while it is, e.g., running a motor? I never checked that on my Cubes. This would mean, that you can charge them on the fly, is that so? Missed that as well, nice! Well, I am using the Cubes always in combination with the LEGO PUp remote (and an ESP32 “in between”). Thank you for the heads-up! Best Thorsten

Oh yes, these devices are really cool. As are >of course< your mini and maxi trains, as per default! How do you control the BT Battery Cube? With the Tenka app? I believe another design challenge is sometimes the location of the USB charging port. When I began using the Tenka Cubes, I did not think about that much, but when I needed to recharge them for the first time, I did some design changes :D All the best Thorsten

Oh man!!! I so love steampunk - this is really absolutely fantastic! So much love for details - and at the same time “functionality”. I am leaning towards the less dark side of steampunk, and so see that here as well. Another thing I love is how well DBG and old gray elements mix, it looks so perfect and blows some life into even simple walls! Congratulations - this is really mind-blowing. Thank you very much for sharing + all the best Thorsten

Oh, that is not necessary! First, as I said in the text somewhere (and I now added that to the picture caption), I don't have any 5161 nor multiple 9771 cards! The picture is taken from a reddit post. Second, what I will do is taking my single 9771 card sitting in my IBM XT, and cut two lines on that one. Then I'll just place the 74238, 8 DIP switch, 8 diodes, 2 resistors on a perf board, glue that board on the large free area of the LEGO ISA card and connect it with 6 wires to the 9771 circuitry ... Sorry for the confusion - I wish though I had all these machines ... Best Thorsten

Long time, no post! OK, time for more totally crazy stuff. This is all made up, but it can exist in reality, as you still can buy fully functional IBM XTs (#5150 or #5160), as well as IBM expansion units + interface cards (#5161) … ("Wer wartet mit Besonnenheit, der wird belohnt zur rechten Zeit – nun, das Warten hat ein Ende, leiht Euer Ohr einer Legende … RAMM – STEIN …") Let us assume, you have an IBM XT. Maybe the #5150 – with just two floppy drives and cassette BASIC. This means you have 5 ISA slots available, one for the floppy controller, one for the graphics card, one for the printer port. That leaves you with 2 ISA slots. Let us further assume, you have the IBM 5161 expansion unit (https://vintagecomputer.ca/ibm-5161-expansion-unit/), which is essentially a passive 8 slot ISA backplane - with an interface card sitting in a beautiful IBM XT enclosure. This card connects via a thick data cable to the additional interface card required in the XT, so now only 1 ISA slot in the XT is free, and 7 in the expansion unit. Top case: IBM XT (#5150 or #5160 with two 5 1/4" floppy drives); lower case: IBM expansion unit (#5161, with one hard drive). Internally, there is a passive 8 ISA slot back plane connected via 2 interface cards, one in the XT and one in the expansion unit. NOTE: THIS IS NOT MY STUFF, this is taken from this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/dpt47y/expanding_the_ibm_pc_with_the_ibm_5161_expansion/ Let us further assume, you have a truly epic LEGO Technic Control 4.5V project going, which requires operating 6 x 8 = 48 LEGO 4.5V motors and 2 x 8 = 16 touch or light sensors at the same time, controlled by one BASIC program. (I know at least one person doing such stuff, but he is limited to 5 (or so) slots in his Apple ][e clone, right @evank?). Let us further assume, you have eight 9771 ISA cards as well as eight 9750 Interface A devices at your disposal, which is perfectly matching with your epic project demands. The problem is: 9771 cards only provide two addresses you can select from: dec 925 or dec 926. This is a true dilemma for your epic project! But: Don’t give up! Here is a rather simple proposal to expand the address range for 9771 cards by a factor of 4 = 8 individual addresses! You only have to cut (reversibly!) two traces on each 9771 card and add 6 wires (reversibly) to a tiny expansion board, which easily finds space on the large empty top area on the 9771 cards. Further below is the proposed circuit diagram, and yes, I will try that in the coming dark months with my own 9771 card sitting in my IBM XT (#5160). And no, I don’t have the 5161 unit, no 8 9771 cards, only 2 9750 interfaces, but I honestly believe it should work. I also don’t plan for any 48 4.5V motor project, well, in the near future. Just select any >one< (or more, but that does not make that much sense) of the S1 DIP switches for the address range dec 920 to dec 927. All this is called “fundamental research” some people refer to as a true waste of money. But, this is what I do in my professional life all day ;) BTW, this fundamental research opened the door to ASML's clean rooms - two of my PhD students are now allowed (after taking some online training and tests) to get keys to the clean room, where the proto scanners are located - @JopieK knows, what's going on there. Oh, and I will try to low level format, partition, and then soft format any of the three 30 MByte Seagate 238 RLL hard disks I found recently. If anyone works, it will go into the XT, the Seagate ISA RLL controller is waiting (another ISA slot gone …). Here’s the proposed diagram –just ordered a couple of 74HCT238s. The LS version is hardly available anymore; 74LS138 are, but then I would need to invert its diode OR’ed outputs. Bread board is in the planning, so stay tuned! This is gonna be bigger than the microchip. Changes/additions to the original 9771 card are R2 + R3, IC6, S1 (8 DIP switches), D1 - D8 (OR gate). EDIT: THERE IS STILL THIS NASTY BUG IN THE DIAGRAM: IC2b, pin 6, connects to IC1a, pin 11. Pin 6 and 12 need to be connected. Sorry! (I sure hope, that @BrickTronic is watching this, as I screwed up so many times, and he caught it!) All the best Thorsten

@Kaero: I so love this council. I try to teach this very approach every day in class, in the lab, in private (when appropriate, of course). I also love your immediate reply - after 4 years of posting the original content. It tells a lot about this forum and its community. What a fantastic marvel. @J_A_C: Welcome to EB! Once you get started - with whatever you have available - making some progress, post here again! Pictures/photos (you should upload to any such hosting services and simply link here, as EB does not host such media), whatever comes to mind. And then unleash the wisdom of the community here! All the best Thorsten

@Auroralampinen Nice one! But how do you want to organize this? There are your reviews in the other thread. I have my stuff in dedicated threads. Should all Pantasy content go here? All the best Thorsten

Yeah, I do as well. Why? I don't know, but I do. There are bigger things, we don't know, @Auroralampinen. Maxi big things. Da Frorce, you know. Let's just enjoy ourselves in the Community Forum, people hardly visit. Well, essentially they don't. But: It is what it is. The Chinese company CaDA, who apparently is "playing along well", has a dedicated thread (but not a sub-forum, @R0Sch) on the LEGO Technic forum on EB, where we all stick strictly to LEGO - or not so strictly. And the Chinese company Pantasy has not, and nowhere else on EB, a dedicated thread. So we show the superior Pantasy sets in the Community Forum. Good enough for me Best Thorsten And no more distractions, of course.

Uhm, not "forced", just smoothly sailing - to the Seas of East Asia. Funny though that they come-up with you-name-it molds and pieces, although these are soo unbelievably expensive, that TLG simply can't do it without slapping another-one-bites-the-dust prices on such unobtainia . And yes, I never took any Latin classes. Thorsten

Doesn't that mean, that Technic back then >was< a mix of every piece TLG had available to make technical stuff? When I look at my 1980's Dacta sets or the 1990's Technic sets - they are full of System plates, bricks, whatnot, in addition to all kinds of Technic beams and parts. OK, there weren't as many Technic parts back then but. We had this discussion before, I know. I for myself will always mix what I have for technical stuff. Modern City-style as it seems. Best Thorsten

This is very, very friendly voiced! Mind-blowing (when comparing to TLGs stuff - just look at the flooring!!!) - in the meantime meeting expectations when comparing to other sets from Pantasy. Nice review, thank you for all the details! I may have to get this set ... All the best and keep them coming! Thorsten

Dear All, after @Auroralampinen has very recently posted an excellent and very positive review of the Pantasy #85021 Steam Punk Airship set in this thread, I thought I briefly share a couple of things I did with my own copy of that set, purchased earlier this year. As you can see in @Auroralampinen's review, all 3 propellers, as well as the fins in the back, plus a number of decorative gears, are connected through a serious drive train to one single knob on the starboard side of the ship’s body/aft upper structure. Manually turning this knob turns on everything. This location is fully compatible with installing (literally just adding and securing it with a couple of plates) a Tenka Cubit Motor Cube others here on EB as well as myself have used to motorize their MOCs/models. In the recent past, I used two of these motors to get my Pantasy #85007 Steam Punk Suspended Train moving on elevated track consisting of 5V/12V rails, see here. The motors are propelled by the Tenka Bluetooth Battery Cube, which has BL connectivity (well, as the name says ^^). As described in the above referenced 85007 thread, and particularly owing to @Asper and @Ts__, these cubes nicely hook up to an ESP32 Devkit 1 board or the like, provided the appropriate libraries are referenced in the PlatformIO plugin for Visual Studio Code. Not only one of them Cubes, but many can be addressed, if you like. In addition, the ESP32 also knows how to hook up a PUp LEGO remote (#88010) and there you go, you have two dials and 7 buttons at your disposal for remote control. Upon turning the two BT Battery Cubes, one in the train, the other one in the airship, as well as the LEGO remote on and firing up the ESP32, all three devices connect and I can control both train and airship using the buttons. Or do some automation, as shown in the 85007 thread. ... yeah, there always is. In addition to propelling the propellers, I wanted to lift the airship into the air, and then have it circling around. There is not that much free airspace in my attic (first, it has sloped walls, second all sorts of things are hanging from the ceiling: Tie fighters, propeller airplanes, X-wings, helicopters …), so the radius of that circle needed to be small. Nevertheless, a 3 kg heavy bunch of ABS bricks exerts some dragging force to the mount when pivoting around. mount that airship to one of the two stacked glass disc insulators (4 discs) I saved from being trashed by the Deutsche Bahn years ago when they renewed the overhead lines for local trains nearby. The insulators are simply beautiful. Thick green glass, as if they were made from emeralds. All these years, both of them were sitting in my workshop in the basement, and I could not come up with something appropriate, well, until now . This calls for making a ceiling mount for the insulator and a turntable for the airship. Well, and using another motor for turning the turntable. I selected a second Cubit Motor Cube, as then I could fuel that thing using the BT Battery Cube installed in the back section of the airship. With regard to getting electricity to both motors: The propeller drive is easy, two female Dupont connectors + two insulated wires, as Cubic elements use Dupont style connectors to connect, it is that simple. For juicing the turntable motor from below (to prevent wires from tangling up upon multiple 360° rotations) I decided to running current through the two steel wires carrying the airship. Each is wired from the wooden mount attaching to the turntable through the airship’s roof down to the white 1x4 technic bricks (as seen in section “bag 5” of @Auroralampinen’s review), over to the adjacent side, and back through the roof to the mount. I then made a cable with one Dupont connector with 2 insulated cables and soldered the ends to the two ship-carrying steel wires. The turntable motor uses also a custom cable: Dupont connector, insulates wires, soldered to two alligator clips. The latter are just for the looks – it is more steam punky. Well, nonsense, this way it is much easier to get the airship off the hook for maintenance and stuff. Well, and it >is< more steam punky. Here are a few photographs of the ship and the mount: The entire assembly nicely "swings", when the ship is pivoting. Finally: Yes, I know, much more powerful turntables are readily available for purchase. But there is a strict rule implemented here: If there is a chance that I can make "a thing" from "stuff" I have available in the house, I have to use that "stuff". Upon failure, there are chances for negotiating that rule with the house authority. What was available? All sorts of scrap wooden pieces, as I do the flooring, some furniture, and other wooden construction etc. in/around the house myself. Screws, nuts, and bolts. Used IKEA curtain rod brackets. And little rollers – I simply forgot why I bought them – maybe they just looked … handy, one day. Ah, yes and LEGOssss of course. Particularly these large curved gear racks and worm drives. So here’s the plan I made before firing up the power tools (I do everything in PowerPoint/MLCad/c/p, so forgive me for the crappy "plan"): * This view is with the top removed; the LEGO gear racks attach to the top though and are just shown for alignment purposes, see below. On the right are these mini "rollers" I bought some day for no apparent reason. *Two rollers are not shown, because I so not know how to do that in PowerPoint. And, these were my simply my blueprints. There seem to be cold, riveted girders, nobody uses anymore ... who you gonna call? Lastly, here is a very brief, very crappy video. I will do that again, with more finesse , leading to a just crappy video. I am simply not good at this, nor do I have the appropriate gear. Good excuses, aren’t they? https://uni-wuppertal.sciebo.de/s/6ZmttgTE7igfGQR All the best, Thorsten

Well, once again, a wonderful review! Thank you very much @Auroralampinen!!! And again, I fully share your assessment. There is one thing I like to comment on, though: True, but the model is sturdy enough to lift it up into the air and spin it around! Here is my Airship with a suspension mechanism consisting of two thin steel wires, a custom turntable (LEGO pieces, a Tenka Cubic Motor Cube, some rollers, leftover wooden floor pieces, and nuts and bolts I found in my workshop), a Deutsche Bahn stacked glass disc insulator (4 discs, salvaged from a construction zone not far from my place years ago), and well, a mount attached to the ceiling. I was a bit nervous when hanging that insulator, as it weighs a ton. Add the about three kg for the airship ... All this would crash down onto my Pantasy train station and other train stuff. But so far so good; it appears as if my stud finder found the upper collar beams hidden behind the drywall panels ... The airship also has a Cubic Motor Cube attached to the main drive, very easy to do. A Tenka BT Battery Cube propels both, the airship mechanism and the turntable. I am using the two steel wires to lift the airship to also route electrical juice to the turntable motor. And as per usual, this is remotely controlled/automated using the same ESP32 Devkit1 board I am using for my Pantasy suspended Steam Punk train along with a LEGO PUp remote control. Left dial = train, right dial = airship + auto-sequences. I surely don't want to hijack your thread, here is just one picture; I will open another thread in this forum to show a bit more. I also made a very brief video, which I need to do again, but I don't have the time for right now. This thing happily spins around. And yes, I have to put a brown plate to hide the yellow stuff ... All the best and thanks again (!!!) Thorsten

I also believe, we need a dedicated Pantasy BAS topic here in this forum: Mindstorms is essentially dead. PUp is not that much of a blaster, due to missing physical remotes - and being forced to use smart devices. New motor control systems are generally appreciated here. There is CaDA motor stuff (highly appreciated here, for whatever reason, I'll never get), MouldKing stuff (not so appreciated, I get that, MK behavior wise) - and so on. Now, we have Pantasy motor stuff and are forced to hideout in the Community Forum. Fine with me; I regularly visit/post there, as I am all 3rd party since TLG went into - anything else, it was "before" - for me, into oblivion. It may turn out that BAP is all crap. Honestly though? I >seriously< doubt that. Not with what they have accomplished so far. And they are going steep. With every set/technology they introduce. I'll wait and see. @Auroralampinen Just post your findings here - using all LEGO bricks and pieces of course - other than BAP of course - and then wait for the reactions. Maybe a total smash-down (so just revert to Community), or not. All the best Thorsten

Thank you @Auroralampinen for these wonderful reviews!!! I totally agree with your assessments (the critical sections ;) - man Pantasy so dwarfs LEGO with these sets. In all aspects - including prices. All the best and keep let them coming!!! Thorsten

I absolutely do! Whoohoo!!! Actually, I own 5 1x8's in exactly these colors with my name engraved (Jeff made for me) - they are proudly placed on my desk and I admire them every day (not the name, but the fact that somebody well known on this forum made these for me). But more importantly: Your "diorama" is simply perfect. It would be so nice if it comes through! I'd purchase it right away. All the best and good luck! Thorsten

Whoa! That could develop into a true fun discussion!!! I believe there are exactly 41 threads on this issue here on EB ... this thread could thus give the answer to everything! Some weird machine is also still deeply thinking about this issue, I was told. Maybe we'll have to wait, but maybe this thread, #42, will reveal the secret! Just to fire this up: The real question is: Does a plural of LEGO exist at all? This would mean that there are several LEGO companies? Possibly in other universes? See here: https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/lego-group/the-lego-group-history Regarding true AFOLs, LEGO should be all caps, shouldn't it? As per the other discussions here on EB: It appears as if there are no Legos on this planet or even this universe, there are only LEGO bricks ... or plates, or, well pieces. And finally: I absolutely don't care. In my world, I have Legos from LEGO - and Pantasies from Pantasy - or Mouldkings from MouldKing. I do also refer to bricks from the latter as "sort of Legos" or Solegos. Sometimes even Legos. And yes, LEGO can sue me for that, so I only do that in private. (I am just kidding!!!) Here is to feeling good Best Thorsten

For me, there were too many colors, when they added more to red, yellow, green, blue, black, white, gray: I am color-"blind" - at a rather advanced scale. With the former palette, I never had much trouble; with what is currently available, I just installed a container for unidentified (possibly extraterrestrial) plastic pieces, or UPPs. From time to time, my daughters skim it and "click" pieces of the same color together. These go into the identified plastic pieces container as IPPs . When there are enough IPPs with a color name tag on the batch, I may use them ... And yes this is my very personal problem, I learned to live with "it" and actually have a lot of fun with "it". Just one example: On one ASMS conference in the US, I was selected as judge for best poster presentation. When that very friendly person explained to me, where my batch of posters was, she referred to the color coding (ASMS assembles some 7000 people each year). I said, that I am so sorry, but I am color-blind, just give me the poster numbers. She replied: "Oh dear, I am so sorry, do you need a wheelchair?" In Northern Germany we have a saying, that "you look like a cow when there is thunder to be heard". That was definitely my look. Much later, I got it and burst into laughter, leaving people around me with a look, cows show, when there is thunder ... Here is to the colors, cows, thunder, and to feeling good! All the best Thorsten

The Internet Archive seems to be another good place for archiving/preserving, doesn't it? It works perfectly well for pre-1990 "electronic" LEGO stuff, such as the Technic Control (4.5V) line - thanks to folks like @evank and others. Best Thorsten

@Auroralampinen Thank you very much for that screenshot! I really appreciate it. Best wishes Thorsten