Gunners TekZone

Haha... Yes, I suspected as such... But admittedly still have to Google when I see just the numbers. It is not that I can't memorise things, in fact I think I recall much more than I suspect... It is mostly that all my memories get jumbled up without other clear marker clues or recall procedures. As a basic example, I can remember my phone number, but only if I say the whole thing (same with the order of letters in the alphabet). But don't spell at me or ask me my current age (without giving me time to figure it out in my head, or better, my fingers ) And yet, I am self taught in most everything technical/programical/electrical that I know to do... go fig. Anyhow, enough about my issues... This is about repairing/enhancing LEGO interface stuffs... Repairing my mind is up to THE LORD

As I understand... and in totaly layman terms as I can formulate them... More current capacity is always better than not enough, but what is useabe is still limited to the lowest common denominator in the circuit (in this case, but perhaps not limited to, the motor drivers). But NOT the same with voltage... Too much can allow the extra current to push through and fry stuff.

Hah... Says the teacher to the noob I am (dare I say very?) technically proficient at an intuitive level, and capable enough with tools and sharp objects... But due Dyslexic/Dyscalculia issues I am often hobbled at every step when it involves using or recalling letters, words, numbers... oh my! Thus I stay mostly at a hobbyist level. I can't even keep these numbers straight in my mind, so I use the names for these LEGO/Dacta interfaces... But I get by

My understanding of current usage (amperage) is that a properly designed device will only use as much as it needs, or has been designed for. Having more available current is just a nice buffer to keep things stable under full loads, but doesn't automatically increase load capacity.

Nicely done!! I might consider something like that on this one Interface-B of mine... I don't like to hack vintage stuff that is already fully functional, like my Interface-A (unless it is simply plug in, like your original Arduino interface). But stuff that already needs repair is fair game :P

I am totally out of touch on latest computer stuff (especially considering I used to be a PC tech)... But I think USB A (3.x) would be totally out of it's power league for that. USB-C should be OK (depending on specs... I think those are all over the place. 1 connector to rule them all... unless you use it with physically matching but electronically incorrect host or peripheral :P

Kinda?. Yes, in education. With PyBricks it stays relevant. Long retired, yet still very capable... and $$$. Aren't we all to some degree :D Wow! If mint, it might be worth more to sell it... For more of the current Spike stuff? (The yellow and cyan? coloured stuff... And some educational stores sell to anyone) as it is fully compatible with the last generation (now retired) 51515 Robot Inventor System (the teal coloured ones) which is also better with PyBricks :D That said... The EV3 has a capable linux based CPU, so lots of programmable options. I have couple of EV3 sets (and NXT), but rarely do much with them, as the newer stuff is just simpler to get running with PyBricks... Not affiliated, honest ;) YES! I was actually looking for one with power delivery (haven't found one) .. for this exact reason. But then, I don't have a PC with USB-C, let alone PD capable, anyhow. So wouldn't do me any good.

Yes, you got it! And it was my "True love... of tinkering" that helped with its reason to "live" :D Partially... At the time of initial diagnosis, I had removed the 3.2K resistor (the 1st component on the trace from the CPU... so that effectively cut) out the transmission circuit. And no serial cable was hooked up, so not receiving alternate transmission. At this time, I am debating ways to use the original cable to transmit the signals from the CPU to the USB-TTL Serial Adapter, which I hope will physically replace the DB9 connector... if it fits.

So, while in my mid/late 50's and having been dealing with ME/CFS for past decade... I recently found that getting back into LEGO was a great self-help/therapeutic method to get my brain back into gear (but a rather big hit on the bank... Pro Tip: never have one-click purchasing available for online shopping while under the influence of a very foggy, groggy, unfocused but desperate for stimulus brain). After I got past the costly Classic Space nostalgia, I decided to stick with the equally costly :P MINDSTORMS, Technic, trains and things that actually did stuff. I am fairly new to the vintage LEGO computer interface devices of the late 80's-90's... I have the Control Center II, Dacta Interface-A, and now three Dacta Interface_Bs... And I instantly fell into a minor obsession with the Interface-B. My 1st one came from Europe (I is in Canaderpia) a few months ago, and was thankfully fully functional. But I had to learn how to use it with the old Control Lab on Windows 7. Now a few months later, I wanted MOWR!! So I found a very low priced one in the US, on ebay. I received it on this past Christmas Day... YAY!!! However, while it powered on (as seller had stated, but wasn't able to test further) I discovered that nothing happened. It would not properly connect to the program, it just kept going online/offline (based on the Stop LED on the device). Needless to say there was great disappointment... There is very little information on the internal workings, that I could find, so no help there. And since the ebay return would still ding me the shipping costs, I opted to keep it for "parts" and the seller gave me a partial refund. I then noticed he had a 2nd one... So he gave me a good discount on it and I panic purchased it (the only others I could find online where going for 2X-3X the price). Then over the next few days I got curious as to what I could salvage from the one dead one I had... Opening it up showed no signs of burnt or overheated parts. I had the idea of gutting it and using H-Bridges and optoisolators to convert the top connectors to an Arduino or something, and basically make my own type of interface. I ordered the cheep parts on Aliexpress and called it done. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- But... I couldn't let go... I prayed over it, and shortly later had a gut feeling that I needed to dig deeper. But due the ME/CFS, digging deeper into electronics was something I haven't been more than a basic hobbyist in (and that in the distant past) and thus it wasn't a thing I felt mentally/physically focused enough to do. But the feeling persisted. So after doing a metric butt ton of Googling about the Interface-B, troubleshooting serial communicating issues, and how this Interface used such serial phrases to initiate and complete a connection... I also came across someone's reference to using an oscilloscope to read and analyze serial signals. Now, I have a dirt cheep digital one, that doesn't support the serial translation (of course, that would be too convenient)... But with time and some tracing, I managed to see squiggly lines when the application sent it's opening signal: p\0###Do you byte, when I knock?$$$ But I had no way of telling if that was what the squiggly line on the oscilloscope ment. Another dead end and I had I take a break. Then another inspiration hit... Years ago, I used to mess around with Arduinos and other microcontrollers to combat the grogginess, before my health totally nosedived... And I still had a few USB-TTL Serial Adapters. Combined with a terminal program I like, called Termite, I managed to use the TXD pin on the adapter, insead of the scope, to poke and prod at board traces. And this time I ran into the readable incoming signal from the PC!!. Now I had an idea where that circuitry was, so I started looking for the interface's response: ###Just a bit of the block!$$$ ... But couldn't find it in the area I expected it to be... Thus I figured the logic was dead on the board... Took another sad sleep break. Then the formerly unthinkable kicked in... "Let's poke around the actual CPU while under power... What could possibly go wrong with such little pins and my exhausted shaky hands" :P However, instead of randomly poking around, I got smrt and found the pinouts for the on-board CPU (Infineon SAB 80C515-N): Thankfully I saw there was some test points leading out from those pins... Less likely to short something out. And behold! Both incoming and outgoing signals visible!! It's Alive!! A quick look followed the trace (on the backside of board) to the area in the serial circuit that the transmitting signal should be found. And I was able to find it on the incoming side of a 3.2K resistor, but not on the outgoing side. Odd. So I shorted out the resistor with some fine tweezers, and suddenly the link between the PC and the board connected... It's Alive and Talking!! Now this is a very tiny surface mount resistor... and I don't have. So I simply removed it and shorted it out... Hey if it works, who cares :P Well that was a (relatively) quick repair and I have two fully functional Dacta Interface-Bs to mess around with... I was elated and praising THE LORD for giving me the energy and insight to do something I haven't been able to manage in many years... Sure beats bingeing on NetFlix while I sleepily drool on the cats on my lap :D But now... What about the 3rd panic purchase on another Interface-B that I had made? I live on a disability income, so even at discounted pricing it was a now unneeded expense. Oh well, wait and see, perhaps I can return it and eat the shipping cost, or possibly resell it if I didn't find a good use for it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- And so, almost three weeks later, I received the 3rd one (insert mini rant: ebay's International Shipping Service is costly and slow... Booo, ebay... Booo!! ). And much to my dismay... It too failed in the same way... Powered on but NO communication! What are the odds??? Is this a common failure point? The serial transmit circuit is the most heavily used, as the Interface-B is constantly sending out data, whereas it only receives when needed. Anyhow, I figured no problem... I opened it up, shorted the resistor and... Nothing??!?!?... Very sad and confused face :( There was no quick "resistor bypass fix" for this one... Something is completely blocking or garbling the signal (based on following tests). And after many loooong hours testing and trying... I gave up, accepted the loss (return still wasn't valid option) and bagged all the parts for storage... I then quickly prayed over it and repented for what I knew had been an impulse purchase (particularly as spending $$ on food is generally preferable)... And went to bed... Wherein I had some further insight 💡 while either drifting into sleep or a dream... I can't really tell at times. I couldn't keep the thought out of my mind... So after a day of rest to steady the hand, I tested my theory of bypassing ALL of the serial circuitry, and hooked a USB to TTL Serial Converter Adapter directly to the CPUs' RDX and TDX pins, while running the repeating initialising msg from Termite on my PC. And behold, Again!! That worked!!! So... Now I wait for when I am alert and focused enough for the fine soldering, and my plan is to bypass the original circuit and transplant in the new USB-TTL Serial Adapter into the casing... Basically, my plan is to replace the DE-9 Serial connection with it. I will follow-up with another post when I am finished. Anyhow... I truly hope this will help others with a "mostly dead" Interface-B to take a closer look and poke around. You just might discover an easy, or unique, repair option. These are getting rarer and more expensive as time goes on. But with greatly appreciated efforts from @Bliss over on another topic (link below)... They are now easier to get running on modern PCs, and will run with Python programmability!!! Take care and GOD Bless. Feel free to post your own Interface-B repairs here if you have any. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hah... Thanks. It does seem to be a looming "profession". The 1st one was a simple resistor bypass in the device's Serial Transmission circuit. But this 2nd one is not so simple... Something is really wrong in the circuit. But I was just able to prove a way to make it work again So a little bypass and transplant surgery is in order But gotta wait until I am feeling well enough for the delicate soldering. And I think I will open up a new topic to document the repairs for others, as I am thinking this might be a more common issue in "dead" interface-B's that power up, but don't function. I'll drop a link here when that happens.

Alas... My 3rd Interface-B arrived, but was also DOA... I guess having only two working Interface-Bs will have to do... 1st world problems :D

Well that was quick (NOT!!!) I am not even going to list all the issues... But the one relevant one might be, needing to set user permissions for the port ~$ sudo chmod o+rw /dev/ttyUSB0 And I did use rcx=RCX('/dev/ttyUSB0') in the script. But, at last... I was able to confirm that YES, it will run in Linux using a Serial IR tower and USB-Serial adapter. Nap time

I don't see why not... Python is Python (well, assuming not trying to use too old of either version or code ;P ) For me, the issue is more... How to Linux... Hah! But I have a VM of Mint handy, let me test and see.

Was in the 2nd pic (Commodore-128 masquerading as a LEGO workbench :P )... But the table a bit crowded, as I was testing my 1st LEGO capacitor that I had recently received, mostly DOA. Whie not (yet...???) applicable to this topic, I have some clips of my Interface-A running on LEGO Lines on my YouTube page: EDIT: Sorry, I no longer have or maintain a YT page. But with your Serial to the Interface-A's "parallel like" interface adapter, it may not be long before we can add it to this topics' "Run ALL the LEGO on Python" goal!

Haha... And I thank you for that :P Silly thing is, I just recently installed Python 3.8.6 after realising it couldn't take the latest... (and being aware of the constant changes they make, version to version) Doh!! The focus be foggy after my last batch of thoughtful tinkering I realise that now with Python, I can easily use newer versions of Windows... But the PC I want to use for my LEGO applications (QBOX 2060) can't effectively run Win10 (no display driver... I have tried and tried). But it is nice and small, and most importantly, has four (4) serial ports... Great for an IR tower and my 2 (soon to be 3) Interface-Bs.

Some functions not compatible with Win7? For my own reference do you have some additional context? This will help keep things quickly locatable from other topics... Well until we fill it up over the next couple of years as well Loving the work you have been doing, bringing a common python base to many vintage LEGO serial devices... And the results that are making it easier for the likes of myself, who can't always bounce around between different programs/languages without losing focus on the task. Thanks again!

Just finishing loading it now... It has been awhile since I used any of mine :) Looking forward to this!! WORKS NICE!

What firmware did you load onto the RCX? Or is it just using the base ROM (which does nothing in my tests).

That is a good idea!... But due to the Python programming language (and the length of that older topic) I recommend you copy your last post and start a fresh topic for this new RCX/Python mashup, as @Toastie recently did for his BASIC one.

Best not to copy/paste images directly into a post. Eurobricks doesn't "host" images and has a limited allowance for attachments. That was how I ran into issues on my prior account. As when someone's quote includes your image, you can delete the original, but not from the quote. However, it still counts toward your attachment allowance. I use the "Insert other media" button and "insert image from URL" option... Using a link from my public folder on Dropbox.

BTW... It was many a years ago, but I actually tried out a version of BASIC that ran on an ESP32, if memory serves correctly (and now I need to find that again, both the memory and code). UPDATE, Is is actually a ROM-based BASIC interpreter already in the SoC. Now wouldn't that be an interesting combo with the Interface B... And possibly the Interface-A as well?

Not a problem. I like what you have done so far with the .net Script, for it's apparent compatibility, stability and multi-device use. I will treat this raw Python version as a separate entity in testing and operation.

Sooo sorry to have overwritten your posts. BTW... Thanks, but I am hardly "experienced" I am merely riding on the coattails of @Bliss 's much more advanced work. But I can agree, it is often better to keep a topic consistent. So I am glad you are re-doing this one. Easier for me as well to keep track of as well I will have to give this a slower and more thorough read... I find I miss way too many details if I rush myself with info-overload.

I had just sat down to type out my progress so far with endurance and multi-Interface-B testing your script in my MQTT code. All very stable!!! While my Python skills are barely above "Hello World", I was able to have the MQTT script running while also swapping button and action commands across my two Interface-Bs. One running the MQTT and the other a train.. bth running on my LEGO PC (Win7 32), and that makes me very happy that it works there instead of only on my primary Win10 64 laptop. I am still probably a week away from getting my third one, but it is at least in Canada now :) I had actually been working through that Shamlian code again, just today... And while I could get some limited connectivity (until timeout) and was trying to trace the logic though the module... That was as far as I could reliably get. So I basically came to the similar conclusion: That it was either more severely broken, due age, than I could track down, or I was clueless. Honestly, I suspected both answers where equally valid :P That was when I switched to the simpler multi-Interface-B tests. I am very glad you could do what I couldn't!! I am looking forward to testing your legob.py script!!