nbTMM

Worth noting that there are counterfeit PF cables out in the wild which are much stiffer than the genuine Lego PF cables. If you are buying cables from china then they are bound to be counterfeit. They use stiff, shiny plastic insulation on the wires whereas the Lego PF cables use flexible silicone rubber which has more of a matte finish.

Pretty effective app, thanks! There are two issues I've come across, maybe they are related. The first is that I lose connectivity within 15 seconds to a minute when using the app on an LG Nexus 5X (Stock rom Android 8.0.0). The disconnection message I get is "Failed to connect to Sbricks.". Somewhat worryingly the Sbrick seems to still be connected as it continues to power the motors in whatever the last state was until I press the 'OK' button on the disconnection message box, then the Sbrick immediately stops what it was doing. The disconnection seems to happen only when i'm pressing buttons - if I just don't press any buttons on the gamepad (or just press a button once in a while) then it stays connected indefinitely. The faster I press buttons, the more frequent the disconnection happens. Spamming joysticks or triggers seems like a sure fire way to cause the issue. The problem occurs when using an I-pega PG-9021 gamepad (Bluetooth) or Xbox360 wireless controller (USBOTG), with Sbrick firmware versions 18 and 20. However I haven't experienced any disconnections when using the Ipega and Sbrick with firmware 20 on a Samsung Galaxy S2 (Cyanogen mod Android 4.4.4), so maybe its a problem related to Android 8, not having root, or the bluetooth hardware in the Nexus 5X. The second issue also concerns pressing a lot of buttons or moving the joysticks back and forth many times. It seems like this generates a lot of commands to be sent to the Sbrick and they start to queue up, leading to severe lag as the Sbrick slowly works it's way through the queue of commands. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the app or the Sbrick hardware but it doesn't seem to happen when spamming sliders on the official Sbrick app. If it is the hardware then maybe the solution is to only issue commands as fast as the Sbrick can process them. Here's a video that shows both issues happening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si9zcAiBh1I

Holy grail: Not sure at the moment, pretty satisfied with what i've got already (near mint 8880, 8448, 8466, 8480, 8421 etc). An RC buggy set would be nice to make MOCs faster and more powerful. Dream: Agreed. Some of the best sets are non-vehicle sets. Stuff like the X-Y plotter and robotic arm from Control Center 1, and how the B model of 8868 oscillates the pneumatic function, even though by modern standards their mechanics are rather simplistic. I also really enjoyed the days of the old un-geared motors that ran at multiple thousand rpm because they made for some impressive gear trains to drive mechanisms at low speed. I can see how it is not viable from a business point of view to make sets like that anymore though. The average 8-16 year old would rather a large truck to play with, even if it is mechanically uninspiring. I guess Dacta/Education and Mindstorms aspire to cover this area instead. Still, it would be nice to see TLG use the B-model instructions to create something wildly different instead of vehicle especially when the primary model is also a vehicle. Regrets: Buying MISB medium size sets before collecting all the flagships - had to disassemble all the smaller sets to make room for the larger ones :p

Making the indentations isn't too difficult, i've done it successfully to create custom length cables and to turn broken ones into smaller sizes. Use a small cutting bit on a rotary tool (dremel) to cut the indentation. It helps to meanwhile mount the cable in a drill and have it rotate around slowly so you get an even cut. The indentation doesn't have to be perfect, or even down to as small diameter as the original cables for the ends to snap on. Simply cutting a semi-circle profile (as opposed to square profile as per factory) seems to work just fine.