Tcm0

There is a difference between both listings I think. One is for the "set" that contains just the motor and is sold by lego, one for the "part" that comes in serveral sets (but only with one plastic bag instead of two and maybe without the papers).

BL sellers obviously don't part the sets out for the motors. They will continue to part the sets out for other parts and thus they will have motors that they want to sell.

As I said, bluegreen :P The german translation for teal (and I'm from germany) is blaugrün, which translates directly to bluegreen

What a bad reason :D They made the SPIKE hub yellow because the RCX was yellow but that was a mindstorms set. Now the new mindstorms isn't yellow but bluegreen.

I don't know if they use the same protocol

The EV3 sensors use UART, too. I2C is mainly for NXT backwards compatibility.

I wouldn't get my hopes up for an extension cable. We are missing L, XL and the SPIKE motors (the SPIKE Large motor should come in a technic model this summer). In addition to that the Control+ hub isn't available yet either. So my guess is that the sets will be both motors and the Control+ hub. But I don't understand the people that want even more motors. We already have 7 motors in the powered up line. It should be enough.

It would be great if they could at least supply a train car basekit with magnets, wheels, maybe a train baseplate. Then you could MOC your own car. But without that prices for these basic elements are too high.

The winter village train was creator expert. You can argue that the disney train fits in that theme as well, even if it's not officially creator expert.

I think that they use the crocodile because it's one of the most iconic trains. Where do you take the information that they are afraid of bluebrixx or that it's strong competition? The set was probably in development before they knew BlueBrixx.

Powered Up doesn't support SPIKE yet and I wonder when it will support the hub because that uses another type of bluetooth connection. The motors work but probably only because they work exactly like the other ones. SPIKE Sensors are not supported (yet).

According to https://www.stonewars.de/news/lego-10277-krokodil-lokomotive-im-sommer/ The set will not include powered up, but it can be added afterwards (like we have seen with the haunted house). However, they will not use the train motor, so no speed regulation with the official remote.

Just a note: it's far worse in the non-educational region. Power Functions Powered Up Boost Control+ Mindstorms (and the duplo train that uses the bluetooth protocol, too) probably the mario hub

Yep :)

BLE is only supported for Windows 10 so some products use(d) the BLED11D as "workaround" since it doesn't use the official windows BLE stack. However every BLE compatible dongle should be fine since you use Windows 10.

The SPIKE Prime hub has BLE. They use Bluetooth for computer/ tablet/ handy communications and you can use BLE to connect to other powered up hubs if you know python etc. https://www.facebook.com/groups/SPIKEcommunity/permalink/1018569395187959/

You can either turn the motor physically around (and change it with the other wheels) or you can make a custom control configuration in the powered up app.

Yes, the official Powered Up app now supports it. However, it's a bit complicated. The Power Functions protocol supports different modes: some have speed control (0-7), some have a timeout (they stop if they loose connection to the sender) and some control one or both power functions ports at the same time. You can try to find a fitting mode in the Power Functions RC protocol: https://www.philohome.com/pf/LEGO_Power_Functions_RC_v120.pdf After you found one, you have to find the right values. There is a binary representation of each mode, that helps. You need to find 3 hex values (0 to F) for the "Power Functions Send" block in the powered up app. Each of these is one nibble (4 bit that can either be 0 or 1) from the binary representation of the mode you want to use. You can ignore start, LRC and stop. The first nibble is always the channel. Toogle is always 0 (except if stated otherwise for the mode). The second nibble represents the mode. There is an address bit that's always 0 (except if stated otherwise. But the document states that the receivers don't support the address bit so it's the easiest to just select 0). The third nibble (and often part of the second nibble) controls the actual motors. How - that depends on the mode. You have to read and understand the stuff under the binary representation to use it. Now you've got binary values for each nibble you want to use, so 12 in total. Google "binary to hex converter" and enter them. You will get 3 values from 0 to F. You have to use 2 blocks to control Power Functions with the sensor. One block to set the sensor into the right mode (it has to be used at the beginning of the program or after you changed the mode to something else) and one block that transmits the signal. The first block is always sensor port and 7. 7 stands for the power functions mode. The second block is always sensor port and then your power functions nibbles as hex values. The first is 0 to 3 depending on the power functions channel etc. You can also use variable inputs but that requires a bit of maths magic because the app isn't really made for such a low level. However here is an example program that uses a bit of math magic to control a power functions vehicle with the powered up remote (you still have to have a phone, a powered up hub and the sensor): The second image shows the content of the "my block" (the block with the arrow) in the first picture. It translates the remote inputs (-1, 0, 1) to the power functions values (2, 0, 1). Please do not press either red stop button on the remote. That will destroy the math behind the program ;) Can you tell which mode this program uses?

I was able to look through my old hard drive and I actually have a backup of the monobrick firmware: http://technicmaster0.no-ip.biz/Technicmaster0/Mindstorms/EV3/Firmwares/imagefile_2GB (2).img.gz The backup is from december 2014 so it should be the latest image file (as far as I know). However I suggest to use a newer .dll file. You can find one at http://technicmaster0.no-ip.biz/Technicmaster0/Mindstorms/EV3/Firmwares/Monobrickfirmware.rar (this one should also include support for audio playback and the mindsensors sensor multiplexer which never got pushed into the main branch, but I'm not sure about that).

The problem with the EV3 bricks is that they are much too large to fit into a normal train. I'd say the way to go is either powered up or power functions. One idea to "safe ports" would be to use the Powered Up distance and color sensor to control power functions trains. It isn't as powerful as a power functions remote so you may be able to make different "track sections" with a total of 8/16 trains or something. But figuring that out so that there are no overlaps might be pretty complicated. Another option (in the same direction) might be to use SPIKE Prime hubs for switches etc. They can be controlled via USB or run autonomous and have 6 output ports. It can also control 4 Powered Up hubs at once. But they are pretty expensive and the official programming is still limited.

I'm not sure about the variables that contain the battery level and the speed level but you could do something like that: switch (X/10) { default: case 10: case 9: Y = 70; break; case 8: Y = 75; break; case 7: Y = 80; break; }

You may be able to build your own SD image. The repository for the SD image is: https://github.com/Larsjep/monoev3image However I think that the tool to build it (xamarin studio) is discontinued. Sorry :/ I might have the image somewhere but I don't have access to the storage devices right now (or in the next days). On the other side it might be as easy as running the make_image.sh... although it probably isn't.

Regarding the wrong color readings: make sure that the sensor has the right distance to the bottom. I don't know the exact value out of my head, but it should be somewhere near 2 studs. Maybe someone else here knows the exact value. Also, you can make it drive slower over the colors. That way it has more time to react. You can also put more plates behind each other (so that it has 6 studs time to detect the color, not just 4 or 2). To your second question: you can make a trigger for each color. That way it acts like the duplo train base. But make sure to make a normal "start" block that runs one to start the train ;)

The app suplies self-configurable remote layouts, so you can do a mix of automation and remote control (like go forward if the slider is up but stop anyways if there is something in front of the train)

I don't think that it makes sense to buy the batmobile set. It's cheaper to buy the hub from bricklink (it costs below 20€) and the motors from lego (they cost about 15€ each).