Subject:
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Re: Lego robotics style
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Mon, 10 Feb 2003 04:15:15 GMT
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Original-From:
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Bruce Boyes <bboyes@systronix.STOPSPAMMERScom>
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Viewed:
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626 times
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At 02:36 AM 2/10/2003 +0000, John Barnes wrote:
> At the risk of beating this subject totally to death, I have one more
> comment to make regarding RCX and possible alternatives which has not, so
> far as I can remember been aired here before.
I think the discussions of "where next" for Lego related technology have
been very interesting and worthwhile and quite possibly some interesting
hardware and software will result.
> Style
>
> I think it is very appropriate that add-ons for and possible replacements
> for the RCX be correctly packaged. Neat brick style packaging and the use of
> Lego's brick like connectors "make" Lego robotics.
We have the connector part solved I think, but at this point JCX is a
motherboard with daughter boards sticking out of it and Lego connectors
branching off. It does not have the nice Lego style package, which I admit
would be attractive. We've racked our brains - as you might imagine - for
over a year on the packaging issue:
1) Cost. Nice molded enclosures need nice molds. The Lego parts are made to
better tolerances than most molded plastics. In fact, Lego has designed
much of their own tooling to support this and that's one reason none of the
Lego clones are even close to the real thing in terms of fit and finish. At
the moment I don't think we have the resources to fund the several molds
required to make such an enclosure ourselves. Plus, such an endeavor is not
in our area of expertise.
2) Connectors. If we put JCX in an enclosure then we must get all the Lego
and non-Lego connectors (RJ45 for ethernet , Dallas 1-Wire RJ12 or
pluggable screw terminals, and servo motor wires for example) and other
bots such as an RF antenna out somehow. Lego uses what I presume may be a
patented connector on the RCX. It's very elegant and clever, and beyond our
ability to fabricate. We have tried to buy the RCX connectors in bulk, but
to no avail. The RCX connectors would let us panel mount the Lego I/Os much
as the RCX does.
Some users told us they want the option of screw terminals instead of Lego
connectors, so JCX has those. JCX supports a variety of non-Lego devices
such as graphical LCDs with touch screens, and the CMUcam self-contained
sensor for autonomous vision. More non-Lego connectors and mechanical devices.
At the moment the production JCX has the Lego(tm) style 2x2 connectors on a
small daughter board which attaches to the sensor and motor boards via a
small 10-conductor ribbon cable using standard IDC receptacles.
3) Flexibility. Since users can snap in their own boards, and we will
encourage others to design JCX plug ins, an enclosure needs to be able to
accommodate boards which we don't even imagine at the moment. Optical fiber
I/O perhaps, pneumatics, etc? The RCX comes one and only one way, no
options, so it's easy to enclose it.
We've got a pile of every brick and plate Lego makes, trying to imagine
crafting some enclosure out of them. I have not come up with a good
solution there.
So John, you are correct -- at the moment JCX will look a lot like "boards
and wires". At least it will be easy to reach everything. :-)
JCX backplane is 100x100 mm and the daughter boards are about 50mm tall
above the backplane (some are a bit taller, some shorter, and there are
several common SimmStick sizes from numerous vendors which people could
also use.
There are no doubt some very well-qualified mechanical designers on this list.
Maybe someone else could take the task of crafting an enclosure for JCX and
making it available? We would welcome such an effort and would assist if we
can. If you are interested in that please contact me.
(And thanks to the list for putting up with this traffic which may seem a
bit off-topic to many.)
Bruce Boyes
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Lego robotics style
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| Wow you guys are on the fore front of all this cool stuff. Come on Give Me some of that stuff and I'll build a big Scorpion Mecha with like 40 motors or something. It will be all Mechanical and have all kinds of gizmos and doo-dads. Literally Dozens (...) (21 years ago, 10-Feb-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Lego robotics style
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| At the risk of beating this subject totally to death, I have one more comment to make regarding RCX and possible alternatives which has not, so far as I can remember been aired here before. Style I personally like the packaging "imposed" by my (...) (21 years ago, 10-Feb-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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