Subject:
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Re: Need Decision Help - Buy RIS 1.5 now or 2.0 later
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Sun, 11 Mar 2001 05:17:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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504 times
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On Fri, 9 Mar 2001 19:12:28 GMT, "Gustav Jansson" <GJansson@aol.com>
wrote:
> I need to make a decision about purchasing Mindstorms kits for my sons
> school. We have decided to buy 5 or 6 RIS kits. The question is, should we
> buy 1.5 kits that I can get a hold of now or should we wait until fall to
> get the 2.0 kits?
>
> So far, I have heard that the 2.0 RCX brick is physically identical to the
> 1.0 brick. It is not clear to me if there is any internal changes, does
Strictly speaking, there is a difference, physically, between the 1.0
and the 1.5 or 2.0 RCX (I have a 1.0 and a 2.0). The 1.0 has an
external power jack. This doesn't effect the physical characteristics
of the RCX as far as where and how you mount other Lego pieces to it,
other than that, if you have the 1.0 and are using an external power
source, you will need to leave room at the back for the wire to go in.
RCX 1.0's are almost impossible to find these days. I can't speak for
the RCX 1.5, but there are certainly changes within the RCX 2.0. The
speaker has been moved out from under the LCD and moved below the
"motor C" output. I believe (although I wasn't specifically looking
for it) that the LCD is a different model, although it shows the same
display. The external power jack is gone along with the bridge
rectifier and filtering capacitors. The PCB has been redesigned such
that these components aren't just absent, but the pads to which they
were attached are gone too, so there's no easy hope of adding your own
external power jack. The RCX 1.0 uses three ELEX10402B DC Motor
Controllers to drive outputs A, B, and C. The RCX 2.0 has replaced
these with MLX10402 (made by Melexis Inc.) I'm still waiting for a
data sheet on these parts so that I can confirm the electrical
specifications of the outputs.
I purchased the RCX 2.0 (now being distributed in RIS 1.5 sets - RIS
2.0 is still unavailable) for 50% off at Future Shop, online during
their January clearance. I would suggest, since all indications are
that RIS 2.0 isn't going to be that remarkably different from RIS 1.5,
that you look for 1.5's on sale. If you can't find them now, and you
have time to wait, you might see them going on clearance when the new
2.0's start to arrive in the fall (so I hear).
Given that students in a classroom environment tend only to get enough
exposure to lab equipment (I'm counting this as "lab" equipment) to
learn the fundamentals of the current lessons, I would suspect that
the 1.5 sets would be sufficient. That is, it probably wouldn't be
worth buying 2.0 sets at full price when the 1.5's *might* be
available at a discount. My reasoning is this: since a student likely
wouldn't get enough exposure to the RCX to really learn the more
subtle nuances of the device, any new bells and whistles that Lego
*might* add to the 2.0 probably wouldn't get used much anyway. Since
the 1.5 adequately covers the basics of robotics anyway, you should
still be able to teach a good quality course without paying full price
for bells and whistles that the students likely wouldn't get around to
anyway.
My 2 cents worth (3 cents Canadian)
Matthias Jetleb
VA3-MWJ Strictly speaking, there is a difference, physically, between
the 1.0 and the 1.5 or 2.0 RCX (I have a 1.0 and a 2.0). The 1.0 has
an external power jack. This doesn't effect the physical
characteristics of the RCX as far as where and how you mount other
Lego pieces to it, other than that, if you have the 1.0 and are using
an external power source, you will need to leave room at the back for
the wire to go in. RCX 1.0's are almost impossible to find these days.
I can't speak for the RCX 1.5, but there are certainly changes within
the RCX 2.0. The speaker has been moved out from under the LCD and
moved below the "motor C" output. I believe (although I wasn't
specifically looking for it) that the LCD is a different model,
although it shows the same display. The external power jack is gone
along with the bridge rectifier and filtering capacitors. The PCB has
been re-designed such that these components aren't just absent, but
the pads to which they were attached are gone too, so there's no easy
hope of adding your own external power jack. The RCX 1.0 uses three
ELEX10402B DC Motor Controllers to drive outputs A, B, and C. The RCX
2.0 has replaced these with MLX10402 (made by Melexis Inc.) I'm still
waiting for a data sheet on these parts so that I can confirm the
electrical specifications of the outputs.
I purchased the RCX 2.0 (now being distributed in RIS 1.5 sets - RIS
2.0 is still unavailable) for 50% off at Future Shop, online during
their January clearance. I would suggest, since all indictations are
that RIS 2.0 isn't going to be that remarkably different from RIS 1.5,
that you look for 1.5's on sale. If you can't find them now, and you
have time to wait, you might see them going on clearance when the new
2.0's start to arrive in the fall (so I hear).
Given that students in a classroom environment tend only to get enough
exposure to lab equipment (I'm counting this as "lab" equipment) to
learn the fundamentals of the current lessons, I would suspect that
the 1.5 sets would be sufficient. That is, it probably wouldn't be
worth buying 2.0 sets at full price when the 1.5's *might* be
available at a discount. My reasoning is this: since a student likely
wouldn't get enough exposure to the RCX to really learn the more
subtle nuances of the device, any new bells and whistles that Lego
*might* add to the 2.0 probably wouldn't get used much anyway. Since
the 1.5 adequatly covers the basics of robotics anyway, you should
still be able to teach a good quality course without paying full price
for bells and whistles that the students likely wouldn't get around to
anyway.
My 2 cents worth (3 cents Canadian)
Matthias Jetleb
VA3-MWJ
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Need Decision Help - Buy RIS 1.5 now or 2.0 later
|
| I need to make a decision about purchasing Mindstorms kits for my sons school. We have decided to buy 5 or 6 RIS kits. The question is, should we buy 1.5 kits that I can get a hold of now or should we wait until fall to get the 2.0 kits? So far, I (...) (24 years ago, 9-Mar-01, to lugnet.robotics)
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