Apps in Google Play Store

We have pushed the initial production releases of the Brick Buddy and the Power Monitor to the Play Store on Google.  This allows everyone to view the capability of the apps and the equipment they control.  The Apps are free.

Next Things

Well I have recovered from the Bricks by the Bay.  Finally sorted my 10 pounds of Bricks that I bought for future development.  August is Maker Faire month with one in Seattle and on in Tulsa.  Therefore I will be working on cleaning up the product line and finishing the temperature sensor.project. 

Also Google is requiring all Apps target Oreo or later, starting on Aug 1.  So the next few days will be spent cleaning up the different apps and pushing them to the store.

Planetary Space Base Presentation

I have posted the presentation I gave at Bricks By The Bay.  You can find it here.

 We had a great time and will post some pictures later.

Bricks by the Bay

We will be at Bricks by the Bay at the Santa Clara Convention center this weekend.  So this will be the last blog post until that is done.  Too many things to do with the Planetary Space Base MOC setup, the presentation on Friday AM and then running the vendor booth.  Hope to see you all there.

LEDs for the Platforms (Part 2)

So I have developed this method for mounting hidden LEDs and those that act as overhead lighting for enclosed spaces.  I am using  very bright (>5000 mcd), wide angle (110 degrees), dome shaped LEDs.  I have used these to light portions of HO train layout and they work very nice.

Here I have mounted a pair to a perf board that I cut up with a dremel tool.  If this proves useful, I may do a small PC board for this purpose.

The dome shape is clearly visible on the one laying on its side.  In this case, as opposed to the Laser cannon setup, I have included a dropping resistor (120 ohms) in each path.  These are SMT0805 resistors.  I realize this is not for everyone, but for me it was the most compact method. It is mounted on a 1x4 tile (using the Kragle) so it just snaps into  place as shown here.



This dual light set was designed for the vertical generator to be mounted in the charging room across from the glass window in this picture.  It will be connected to the random PWM generator to produce a random intensity bright flashing light.

Here is a single mount design.  This is intended for mounting on ceilings to light up a compartment with the look of a domed overhead light.  I mounted these on 1x2 plates, so that it would be centered and still have some attachment strength.

Finally a lot of the small Laser Cannons are done with robotic arm ball joint.  Here is a series of pictures that show how this is done.  All of these designs use the PICO LED from BrickStuff.  The first design uses a 1x2 round brick to  connect to the ball joint.

This design uses a technic 2L connector.  

In all cases I had to drill out the ball joint barrel to run the wire.  In the first case I also slice one side of the perpendicular connector with an Xacto knife so I could run the wire through the connector.  In the second case the hole went al the way though the perpendicular connector since the wire is on the outside.

The challenge with all of these is running the wires.  When multiple LEDs are present I will connect the ground returns together to at least reduce the number of wires that I have to hide.

LEDs fo the Platforms (Part 1)

Started working on the LED lighting.  Here is how I did the laser cannons in the original Control Center Platform.  

I used the BAR (30359x) as the Laser cannon barrel.  The hole in the back end will fit a 5mm LED just perfectly.  The only issue is the tube in the 1x2 portion prevents the LED from seating fully.  So I use a 5mm drill bit (0.196") to create a counter sink in the tube.  It doesn't take much and I want to keep the tube for strength of the connection.  While the final result is ruffed up and not as clear as it started, the degradation in light transmitted seems to be minimal.  When I first tried this, I completely removed the tube, but the difference was barely noticeable, so I decided to keep the tubes.  Also I am using very bright LEDs, >6000 mcd.

  

This picture shows the two LEDs mounted.

From a pure engineering point of view, it is not a good idea to parallel up LEDs directly.  Not every LED is created equally and the difference in voltage drop across one can lead to excessive current in the others.  With that said, I have found that if doing this with only two LEDs and if the display is not running permanently, there is little chance of a problem  Plus I tend to buy these LEDs in lots, which generally gives almost identical characteristics. 

This picture shows the completed installation.  The dropping resistor is picked to maintain 15-20mA per LED from a USB power source, about 120 ohm.

And here it is with the LEDs on.  The light is overwhelming the camera sensor, so it is not very good.

Generally I use red LEDs.  But I have used blue in translucent neon orange part before with interesting effects.   Unfortunately the camera cannot capture this.

Final detailing will be a red cone on the end probably as seen here in the original control center platform.  Since these are further apart, the cross plate will not be used.

Jet Pack Base Build (Part 2)

Now that the motor infrastructure is in place, it is time to construct the top.

This shows the covering with holes for the drive shafts for the two towers and the hole for the rising platform.

This sequence of pictures shows the construction of one of the tower base supports.

I had originally started with bars in TAN, but did not like the look.  I had black ones so tried them.  They are not perfect, probably Sand Green would have been best, but they are not available.  Also had two on each side, but the edge showed though, so I reduced to one on the right facing side.

Here is both towers and the back wall.   For the deck plating I went with Light Bluish Gray (LBG) tiles and tiles with blue and lime accent.  While not evident in the pictures, the LBG is from old sets and there is some discoloration in the tiles, greenish from UV exposure probably.  This gives it a used look that is more realistic.  In the model train world this is called weathering.

Shown here is the rising platform.  As I may have said in an earlier post, I have given up on motorizing this feature for now.  Not enough time. 

These two pictures show how the support section for the towers was built.

This next set of pictures shows the detailing.  First the side glass is installed.

Now some Minifig detailing is added.

Finally the front glass is installed.  Spare Jetpacks are hung on the walls.  Two Minfigs are in line to board the elevator and two are on the elevator.

Next time we will finish up the Jetpack Base, waiting on some bricks to arrive.

Jet Pack Base Build (Part 1)

The final platform is the Jet Pack base.  This is intended to be an area where the Jet Pack Squadrons work from.  There will be two squadrons the Blue and Green, which will be designated by the detailing of each minifig.

There are two motors controlling antennas for each squadron.  Below is what the base looks like with the gear trains installed.  The first one is the full view of the platform.

This is a closeup of one side.  I wanted the antennas to spin a little faster than other ones, so the gear reduction is not as great and I may still take it down some more.

You will notice that the base platform was modified to squeeze the motor and gear train into the corners as much as possible.

Here is the what it looks like with the top framing installed.

Initially I wanted a rising platform in the center back for moving the Jet Pack Minifigs from the outfitting area to the launch area, but this just became too hard for the time frame I have.  So I built this with as much space a possible for this.  If I get everything else done for Bricks by the Bay, then I may revisit this.

Horizontal Generator Build (Part 3)

I had this large area out in front on either side that I was trying to decide what to do.

At one point I was thinking about a crane to lift the canisters out of the charging area,  But this looked very complex to be able to rotate both in azimuth and elevation.  So I started thinking of other options.  One one of my many visits to the Lego store I took pictures of the $800 Falcon.  I was fascinated with the detailing that had been done as shown here.

and the detailing in the new Y-Wing shown here.

So with this as inspiration, I came up with this.

 

Here are closeups of each side.

 

This is still a work in progress, though the theme is mostly done.  What I learned was that light bluish gray (LBG) on LBG doesn't work.  You will notice that the first picture has more dark bluish gray (DBG) as the underlying structure and all of the texture parts are LBG.  This has a much look as the texture stands out.  Still need to find transparent dark blue bars to replace the transparent light blue ones.  There will be some other tweaks as well.  Overall I am happy with the way this turned out.  Will probably extend this design detail to the laser cannon platform as well.