Toastie

Oh, that's for sure: The 9V system made things "wider" - the 12V system is indeed "tight". But fully accepting 6-wide trains. Which in itself meant: Stick to 6 wide, look at overhang, take all the 12V gadgets into consideration. I like that: Operating within clearly set limits. Now, I also believe that the 9V system not only made things "wider", but also much more "versatile": All of a sudden, the motor was the power pickup - and thus saved money (on the TLG side that is). With regard to the 8-wide and pricey set's issue: Yes. But you know, they do make sets that are insanely pricey. What also comes in here is - I guess - the "how many sets can we possibly sell with this totally overpriced set": 8-wide, bold in appearance, and very nice, clocking in at $400+ (but should be $200 or less, and folks will figure that out). This is a 100% no-brainer in 18+ sets. But then: How many train heads would take that route? Paying insane amounts of money for ... what "we" (don't count me in) can make so much better? I believe train heads just don't like to take that overpriced route ... they simply make their very own MOCs, excelling whatever TLG could possibly come up with, giving the constraints the designers are facing: Make it cheap, for mass production, and then ... move on. 8-wide and TLG? No. 8-wide and 9V track? Yes. But TLG will stick to 6 wide - of course they do. They most probably would do that with FX tracks and R100++ curves as AFOL-set standard: Profit rules. And of course: Absolutely nothing new here. These pictures from Torben are from another world: The "World of Imagine it". Nevertheless, and that is my take: Just redesign - whatever it takes - the 12V drive of the 12V switch points. And then let your beautiful 8-wide 12V BR80 ride the 12V track. With very best regards, Thorsten

I take it and then send it to @ZeldaTheSwordsman with free shipping - PM me for address etc. You would need to pay postage to send it to me, though. Best, Thorsten

Oh man - that one is nice as well. Very nice. You guys are really taking it seriously - and much more importantly: With creativity! What I like about the IKEA furniture is the "system" approach. When you're getting used to this system, it is almost as building with LEGO or LEGOs . L/R is an issue here as well - TLG's fairings don't have that printed on them yes I know - very funny. I also like the IKEA approach: The Malm series looks like being made from 5 cm of bold wood/composite or whatever; it really is a thin cardboard type material glued together with a paper mesh - and some very nice outside finish. Yes, you can't use that stuff for wild rides of any kind, but: It is minimally impacting on the environment. Well, and pushing revenue at IKEA headquarters to insane numbers. But, you know: Same old: TLG is doing exactly that as well. The other thing is the cool "nordic" approach - functionality first, clean lines, no fudging around. Including saving resources. Price? Well - priceless. My world. Again: Very, very nice rooms you have @kbalage and @Jim! All the best, Thorsten

Tyres ... These are my tyre boxes (I am not into cars ) Almost all (I'd say 90%) are in "good surface condition" - 100% of those feeling like "real rubber" tyres (left box). The small pre-1990 tyres not shown here, in another box are good as well. These are the bad ones - from the years 1998 - 2005 (Mindstorms sets, RIS and RDS, and some truck - was it a crane?) Yes, one can use alcohol and the like to get the liquid type layer off - however, after a few years with the same result as above. Also these don't feel rubber'ish they are more plastic like ... Best, Thorsten

Ahh - that's good to know! As I said, never opened one. Strange that these switches seem to degrade in a way which is resulting in almost similar behavior for RCX/Scout buttons: You have to press the rubber harder and harder. Oops - just read your last post - it now makes sense (my need to press harder and harder on all of my 10+ MicroScouts. Thanks for sharing the pictures - now I know what to do next Best, Thorsten

I did not open a MicroScout (yet) but on the RCX and SCOUT, which will probably feature the same button type, careful cleaning of the button inner surface (some sort of carbon material attached to the rubber), as well as the printed circuit board (the two copper pads "closed" by the carbon) always worked, without need of replacement parts. Cleaning = removing "dust" with a cloth first, then use contact cleaning spray - but surely NOT WD40 or the like. I am using this: https://www.reichelt.de/us/en/contact-60-100-ml-oxide-removing-contact-cleaner-kontakt-2010-p9462.html?CCOUNTRY=550&LANGUAGE=de&GROUPID=4070&START=0&OFFSET=16&SID=93864a34b28fc8084dd88cc0deedf68bff49fe84015d4da016504&LANGUAGE=EN&&r=1 Best, Thorsten

Ahh - nice. I just wanted to guess the furniture company - I was reminded of Malm (desk), PAX & company; 50 and 75 ... These are in our home all over the place. With regard to the design choice: Well, L/R is an issue everywhere, isn't it? I just spent the w/e with retrofitting my ebike with a different 10-speed cassette, chain, chainring ... I believe the official statement becomes obsolete, when you let folks know there is a door L and R . Then there is the pitch and height issue ... making L and R identical would require to change the hole pitch ... that one has a long history though, and myriads of Komplement items, using that one - or changing the height of the PAX series ... hmm ... could make other folks nervous ... Anyway: This is a very nice room you have now - really nice. I like "The White" as well - no distractions figuring out what other colors are there Have fun and as much time as possible in your LEGO room!!! All the best, Thorsten

I believe this is the best option - and leave the rest to the firmware's speed control algorithm. It does not get any faster, as the adjustment is done on the hub w/o much critical BLE communication. Setting identical motors to the same speed should do it - within "degree" resolution errors, that is. I believe monitoring power is sufficient though, as load is not an input parameter for speed control as this is the deviation causing parameter; there usually is "set point" (speed), "signal" (rotations per time/degrees per time) as inputs, and "power" as output. In this case, the control algorithm should also "know" the mass of the object and how much torque the power source can build at given rpm. This is mostly not feasible, instead, the parameters within the algorithm are adjusted (optimized). Changing the load on one motor though will need time to correct for - I believe the hub algorithm is of "generic" nature, as it has to serve many (and very different) builds. An "optimized" PID algorithm - reaching as fast as possible the set point (your selected speed) after detected deviation w/o overshooting - needs the P, I, and D parameters, well, optimized. Which is usually a chore to do manually. I don't know whether these parameters are accessible - I believe so, when you use other programming environments than the LEGO app. Pivotal to the success of PID control (speed setting) - generic or optimized - is what @Gimmick wrote above: Required power should never come close to 100% to maintain a selected speed. At 90% power level, slowing of all four motors (speed reduction) should kick in and then maybe attempting to recover at 70%. This would be handled within the app program. The required BLE traffic for that may be tolerable, critical speed control is done in the hub, as said. Good luck! This is an interesting project! All the best, Thorsten

Could be, I don't know, no clue. BUT: For sure, your MOC is the hottest and coolest aircraft, resembling the 172P! What a nice model - fantastic!!! All the best, Thorsten

Nice one!!! Best wishes, Thorsten

So this is, what this great company, caring so much about virtually everything, the core of the matter? Why don't they make it the core of the matter, to simply be better than these other entities? Oh my. I am loosing ever more with TLG. But: Who cares, I know. It makes my life so much easier, though, as I feel much more "freed", to just walk away. Play well. Thorsten

Well, open it, have a look and report - if you see fit - here. I have tons of degrading tires from "all over the time" spanning 5 decades. The thing though is, there is not a gooey mess, there is surface "liquification". It is much less the late 1980's; it is much more so the 2000's and on. You can wipe that goo off, securely play with the sets, but degradation will continue. It is the fate of everything artificially made "soft" - for grip or whatever. Such things are made for the grip, but not for lasting forever - even not for so long. Best, Thorsten

According to Brickset, 10124 is the "Wright Flyer"? Best, Thorsten

I am speechless. And so happy. Now I can walk through your - "warehouse" (it is so much more(!) than that) - and see how you did make that become reality. It is beautiful. You know, in real life, my group is working with rather - congested - experiments. Whenever a new student comes in, it is "Oh my, I may not ..." I try to stop them right there - because that is not the point. It may be complex, but it is built from basic elements. OK, the way of assembling them is the - "thing". Also, not the point: Once put together, the "thing" becomes a "method". To be used by others. To even try more complex "things" building on that now established method. I try very hard to get that point across. However, experiencing such a nice, detailed and well-thought-out documentation of that "thing" you made, is so much more than that: It means to recreate (which is a passive "action") the way of actually making it. Not just looking at awe, but having the chance of "following", grasping, comprehending. Wonderful. Thank you very, very much for a) going through the pain fun of making the instruction and b) of sharing it to the public. Tipping hat, a slight nod, and a bow. With very best regards, Thorsten P.S.: While the laptop/graphics card approaches critical temperatures, why not frying an egg on the case? Some salt and pepper and the hour of waiting vanishes into a time to remember. Here is to you

Wow. That is incredibly nice - so many things to discover. And this is how a 12V train organ with 4 full sized manuals looks like! I always wanted to see one - it finally happened! Have great fun with your new attic, your layout, and life! All the best, Thorsten

And I am not into many other things . Familiar with typewriters? From the good'ol days? When you typed something and then the right end of the carriage came close, you would be pushing the lever on the left end of the carriage so that you end up at the left end and can do more typing. Moving it to the left end (by pushing it to the right ) = carriage return (CR), the mechanism in the carriage also moved the platen one "line" up by rotating it = line feed (LF). You won't believe how many weird names from that time are in use today for ultra-high powered computers ... tabulator (tab), backspace, shift, cut and paste ... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter, scroll close to the end). Now, on any text editor running on a computer, there is normally no carriage nor a lever ... but at the end of a line in the editor window, or word processor, you usually hit "return" to start a "new line" provided it does not do that automatically. In the programming world, you always have to tell the program (e.g. Pybricks) where the end of a line of code is. And that is in many cases a "carriage return" + "line feed". When you hit the return or enter key/symbol on your keyboard or smartphone, you insert a CR and LF character, which is the same as inserting "A" or "b" - but CR LF don't print on the screen; they are just stored in the file; when you type: Print "Hello world" and hit return, the computer reads: Print "Hello world" CR LF. Some editors (word processors) on smart devices/computers just do that one CR and no LF or the other way around. On many programming editors you can tell it, what to insert at the end of a line: CR or LF or CR+LF. In your code there is only LF at the line end, in the code copied from the Pybricks website there is CR+LF at each line end. Best, Thorsten Thanks a lot, Werner!!!

When I open your code in Notepad++ with the option of showing all characters, the end-of-line character (EOL) is a linefeed (LF, 0x0A). When I copy the code from the Pybricks website, EOL is a carriage return (CR, 0x0D) followed by 0x0A, i.e. CR LF. Could it be that something on your phone strips the CR at the end of line? Happens indeed here and there when using different viewers/editors. I have no clue though what the EOL code for Pybricks really is. Best, Thorsten

I understand. Never used before Python - I tried to read the code, @Polarlicht wants to upload, and just did not understand how the interpreter/compiler can tell, where a loop/while/if beginning with the ":" structure actually ends. The indentation then makes perfect sense. Good to know - I may also try it ... Are 4 spaces equivalent to one tab? Best, Thorsten

That is 100% correct for the syntax - but usually (and as far as I have seen it with BASIC, VB6, Pascal, C, C++, NQC, RobotC , tabs and spaces (and sometimes other characters as well) are treated as "white space" by the interpreter or compiler. They are just for the "looks" and structure appearance. Well, that is what I thought. That is also why I thought removing these white spaces should not change the code itself at all. However, I just looked up "indentation" regarding Pybricks - and it really does matter, even one space too much (or less) may result in non-functioning code, according to discussions on GitHub. I looked at the code in Notepad++ (using the copy button on the referenced website or simply c/p the window content) leads to the same result: All appears to be good with the code - every indentation is exactly 4 spaces. So this is then maybe indeed a c/p issue when using the smart device - would have never expected that. Best Thorsten

Saw that as well, also the price ... Well, 8 x 22.5 = 180 degrees = 1 half circle. Could mean anything where 8 curves of any size/radius make a half circle. I believe though that there would have been a lot of noise from TLG should they decide on diving into the competition with other products. I believe these are R40's. But who knows Best Thorsten

That is important information!!! Thanks for doing this! It means that you may be to resolve the issue by "just" removing all the spaces - creating the indention just for making the code "looking nice". Does PyBricks "natively" use tabs for indention? This messed up things in the past, as the tab code was replaced upon copying, by replacing the tab code with x spaces, x depending on the IDE settings. No clue, just guessing. Best, Thorsten

Hey! Don't feel sorry at all - it's a discussion. I don't have the problem, @Polarlicht is suffering from that issue. Which is not nice. Knowing that it works to copy the code on a win10 machine and loading it up onto the website and then into the hub via BLE connection tells that it actually may be a phone issue. Let's see what he finds out with the dongle. Thanks for that info! Best, Thorsten

Let's assume there is some sort of grating in between them - or some light, but secure pathway ... Passenger close to the door: "Excuse me, where is the dining car?" Know-it-all conductor: "Through that door, two cars ahead". Passenger opening the door, thinking: Wow. How on Earth did @dtomsen make this? We're in an R40 radius?? Walking onto the grating, carefully, thinking: This is insane. But the force is with me ... Later on in the dining car: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/89a7cc04-7d83-4911-a3ba-d361eb89fe25 Best, Thorsten

But that does not explain @Polarlicht's problem, does it? You are describing something that was/is missing, he is facing a corrupt program (at least, this is what I understood). Question is, did the program that did not have the subtractor control work for the remaining functions? Or was it corrupt in the first place? I find this very strange, to say the least. For me, the initial starting point is: Does the PyBricks program for the CAT work on other platforms? May have been answered yet, I did not follow all the content in this thread. Best regards, Thorsten

I am in total love with this. The combination of a very nice and well-thought-out build - the mechanical hardware - in combination with rather powerful electronics (the electronic hardware) - in combination with your very nice software - for me - clearly demonstrates a) what is going on today out there and b) the future. It is the combination, that makes the difference (for me). A true Technic project! My world. Thank you very much for sharing!!! All the best, Thorsten