Subject:
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Re: Woohoo!! Long Live Lego Trains!!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 12 Jan 2001 15:46:58 GMT
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Viewed:
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713 times
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In lugnet.trains, Eric Brok writes:
> Looking at what Playmobil did some years ago, a likely 'major change' of
> Trains is replacing the expensive metal tracks by plastic track (like Duplo
> train) and have the trains battery-powered & radio-controlled.
>
> Eric
What I would love to see is a convergence of Mindstorms and Trains. Both
moving to a "signalling supererimposed on power" type system (a bit like
DCC). So all LEGO electrics/electronics would work the same, motors, train
motors, lights, switches, sensors etc. All would connect to a single port on
the (new) Mindstorms RCX or (new) train controller to get both power and
commands. This would be cool...
1) RCX could be much smaller and have almost unlimited capabilities (you
just daisy chain as many motors and sensors as you need)
2) Much simpler wiring up of train layouts. (Although non-isolating points
would be preferred)
3) Advanced train control capabilities
4) Headlights on trains wouldn't be speed dependent.
5) An RCX could control a train layout.
6) An IR or USB bridge could be designed for communication with a PC.
I say a bit like DCC, because DCC is a bit limited in capability...
1) Receiving commands from sensors is almost impossible with DCC.
2) DCC is electrically 'noisy'. I would prefer a DC system.
3) DCC is not very high bandwidth.
4) DCC is single master. It should should be possible to daisy chain RCX's
for multi-master (multiprocessor) systems.
I suppose what I'm proposing is a 'LAN', a LEGO Area Network.
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Woohoo!! Long Live Lego Trains!!
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| Looking at what Playmobil did some years ago, a likely 'major change' of Trains is replacing the expensive metal tracks by plastic track (like Duplo train) and have the trains battery-powered & radio-controlled. Eric (23 years ago, 11-Jan-01, to lugnet.trains)
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