Tcm0

Just an idea, I'm not sure if someone mentioned it already. It would be cool if the PF top would work with normal batteries in the lego PUP battery compartment, too. That way we would have a modular power source system.

Sorry to hear that. I think that he used mainly of the shelf hardware so you can probably find pinouts in the arduino community. Maybe some pins are defined at the top of the program, too. Feel free to ask in this forum if something doesn't work. I'm sure that many members here would be happy to help.

Mine got shipped out today. What would the changes for keybrick two be? Also, please announce it a few months in advance so that I can start to save up :D

The website is available with the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20170411230008/http://www.lucabellan.it/ardutrain/ However keep in mind that data like images and downloads can be missing

You can use the SPIKE hub with the robot inventor software and the other way around. They require a firmware update but that's due to a mismatch of the fws bundled within the apps. However the start animation (heart vs arrow) stay the one of the hub.

I don't want to question any of the mentioned youtubers, but why would they be more neutral than other youtubers? Especially since racingbrick is a fan medium and gets sets from lego for free?

but let's be honest, the bluebrixx rechargeable battery box, or to be more precise the sender, is crap :P

The line is between "adds functionality that isn't/wasn't provided by lego" and "uses lego compatible bricks in the same shapes that lego makes/ is in direct competition". Talking about sbrick, buwizz, trixbrixx etc is okay. Talking about mouldking, bluebrixx, ausini etc isn't.

You can control the 3rd motor if you make a half a second press on the green button on the remote if hub and remote are connected. That way you can switch between A+B and C+D. I have to say that it is funny to drive around with a remote controlled R2D2 :D

:O That works, thanks for the hint. I wonder why there is no documentation on that. Well, actually I don't wonder about that :D

You can probably get the powered up passenger train for $70 to $80 new, depending on the deal (at least here in germany we can get it for about 75€ from time to time). Used ones are probably cheaper.

Yes it was possible and I think that it should be possible but currently it doesn't work relieably.

Theoretically: yes. It's even listed as a feature on the product page (at least here in germany... wait. I think they removed it). Practically: there have been issues in the past which don't seem to be solved so far. It worked in the past but it doesn't now.

You can connect a 4th motor (tho especially control+ motors might not work) but it will only work with the powered up app because you have to tell the app which motor you want to move.

Order the electronics at bricklink. Receivers go for 20-25 euros and motors for a bit more than 10 euros.

And risk that they steal the idea and don't pay anything.

Today the 5th part got published: In this part we will discover a few possibilities of the "trigger with color"-block.

If you use scratch, you have to go into the left column and enable extra blocks for the motors. There you can select power control. You can use the angular motors with the power blocks but not dumb motors with the speed blocks. Maybe this will become more clear if I explain the backgrounds. Speed normally refers to the actual speed. Let's say that you stop a motor with the hand. Which speed does it have? Yes, it's 0 although there is power on the motor. So power controls the actual power that the motor can use to spin. Speed is not a value that the hub can directly control. It sets a certain power and measures how fast the motor is spinning. Then it can give more power if the actual speed is below the expected value or it can give less power if it's above the expected value. That's the reason why speed control only works with tachomotors and power control works with all motors.

The motors are almost the same as in SPIKE, but they have another color and another internal ID (so it might cause software issues for hubs that don't support the ID). The "dumb" motors from the batmobile work with power control, not with speed control (important difference in this case!). You can use them with the RI hub (I think that they work with the scratch software environment but I'm not 100% sure. They work with python 100%).

There's also the NXT sound sensor. It can measure how loud a sound is (but can't detect what's beeing said etc). It works with EV3.

PF LiPo's didn't disappear overnight. They were on sale (I think at least 30%) for a few weeks and I think that there was an official statement about the discontinuation of power functions (but that might have come later). The rest of PF will be discontinued by the end of this year according to that statement. The major issue I see is that this statement wasn't spread as much as it should have been.

You have to turn the pixles off manually I think. Otherwise they stay activated.

You can use PUP sensors with the SPIKE/ Robot Inventor hub, but only through python programming.

Can you let it see in different directions? Heaters and similar IR sources might interfere with the signal.

Thanks for the honest answers. I'm definitely looking forward to buy one (and probably more over the time). I would be a bit cautious with Control+ hubs. They are prepared for rechargeable batteries and I'm pretty sure that there will be an official solution sooner or later.