Brick Fest Live Pasadena - This Weekend

 Pasadena Convention Center

Jul 13-14  Sat 9-5 and Sun 10-4

Lets be there😎

New Container Ship

 

This is the first Lego Space set I had.  And t is the only that has survived me and to kids.  For some reason it has remained mostly intact.  I have used it in the display on and off, until the floating platform was built.  Since then it has been a fixture in the display.

Well time has moved on.  The Starfleet Voyager was a little big for the platform and is a classic implementation.  The display it self is not as boxy and for the most part studs are tiled over. 

This was my first idea for a replacement.  It is very similar to the original.  But it ended up being even bigger.  

Which led to the this.  It is a little smaller than the original, but keeps the lines of the my first idea.

Different views.  I am working on instructions and will post them on the website when I get done.  I may yet revisit the original idea and finish it also.

Loose Ends #4

 

For the last month or more I have been working on Software and Device firmware.  I have not posted because this work is extremely boring, except for a very few.  Last summer I embarked on a project to consolidate the all the device firmware and the PC/Android software.  It was extremely cumbersome to constantly have to make the same changes in multiple places.  But this project was much larger than I thought.  But it has made a huge difference in developing new features, since they automatically deploy across all the devices where applicable.

The PC interfaces are now going to be consistent as are the Android interfaces.  The device API will also be consistent.  If the feature is not available on a particular device, a special message will be returned to indicate non-availability.

These are the updated interfaces.  You can see the difference in the Light Buddy 2 interface at the top of the page and this one here.  Brick Controller ONE did not have PWM control of the LEDs or the Motors, so that functionality is not shown.  All the other brick and light controllers have some form of PWM.

More on these updates later.

 

 In between I have been working on the tera forming and landscaping of the plateau area.  While it is generally flat, there still needs to be some kind of terrain.  This takes a lot of plates and tiles to do.  Once the terrain is done, then it needs to be landscaped.

Finally I have been trying to get the first Light Controller up and running again.  When I did it the first time was right at the start of COVID.  Then all the parts disappeared.  Now that most are back, I am updating the design.

Floating Platform - Show Assembly

 I have made what I think will be the last expansion of the floating platform.  As discussed in this post. I made the changes to eliminate the interconnecting cables.  This has made show assembly much simpler.  Previously it would take 15 to 20 minutes to assemble this area on site.  Now it is under 5 minutes.  This video shows the process.

Brick Fest Live Schedule

Here is the Brick Fest Live events we plan on attending and displaying at.

July 13-14  Pasadena CA

July 27-28 Reno NV

Aug 17-18 Pleasanton CA 

Aug 24-25 San Diego CA

Sep 14-15 Sacramento CA

Hope to see everyone at these events.

 

 

 

 

Floating Platform - Fixed

 In the last post, I discussed the assembly problems with the floating platform.  Since the potential to break wires was very high, I needed a new solution..  Thus I spent the last few days working this out.  The floating platform is the first place where I expanded the use of the old 9V 2 x 2 connectors as described in this post with implementation ideas in this post.  I took this to next level and used these ideas to eliminate the wires between the platforms, thus it is truly plug and play.

This is the structure that I built to connect to base plates in the floating platform.  The orginal version had different ends, not sure why I did that, but it complicated the assembly.  It had to go on one way, but it was not obvious which way that was.  This is the first change I made, this still goes on way, but that is for electrical reasons.

First I placed a distribution PCB in the base and connected one of the 9V connectors.  This is where power will be inserted to the floating platform.  It will also serve as distribution point, if needed.

This is what the final assembly looks like from both sides.

I built three of them.  Two have power distribution and one does not.  The one with out power distribution still has a connector in it.  There are no wires.  It is used to connect the power between the connecting base plates.

The wire that ran between base plates is now replaced by three 9V connectors.  Two of them are on the base plate and connect to the distribution PCB on the floating platform.  This is shown in the two pictures above.

To ensure that the 9V connector stays in place and to provide a guide, a 4 x 4 plate covers half of the 9V connector.

While this goes together very nicely now, there is still one problem .

This connector is in the support structure.  In the picture of the support structure above, the studs on the left are one polarity and the studs on right are the opposite polarity.  That means that the platforms that connect to the support structure have to be mirror images of each other, electrically.  To solve this problem the connector and cable on the mirror image platform have to be reverse wired.   

Now this can cause a large problem, especially with Brick Controllers that have minimal reverse power connection protection, since all of their power connectors are keyed.  So in the picture above you can see there are red tiles and plates.  These are there to indicate which base plate side connects to which side of the support structure.  Finally I will install an LED on the base plate that has the Maintenance shed.  The Shed can only be installed when this LED is on, that will indicate that wiring polarity is correct.

Finally while doing all of this, I also finished the floating platform.

I added  the final landing base plate, the one on the far right.  I also added a small work area at the grey octagon.  I was originally going to add a 16 x 16 plate, but this angular implementation adds more character.  This new work area will have the fueling station, since it is accessible to all three landing areas.  More on this later.

Floating Platform - Assembly Problem

 

Well I thought I had solved the assembly and made it much easier.  That turned out not to be true.  

Over the weekend I was at the BayLUG meeting.  I had taken this to the meeting to test the setup process.  It had been about 4 weeks since I had set this portion up on the build table.  Thus I had completely forgot how this goes together.  But it needs to be obvious.  There has to be guides that ensure it can only together one way.

Obviously this was not the case, as I struggled for 15 minutes or more trying to align the three platforms.  Plus the cable that runs between the base plates is just too short.  

So it is back to the build table and another attempt to simplify this assembly.  My limitation on the display is now the time it takes to setup and tear down.  At 3.5 hours of setup and 2.5 hours of tear down, I am pushing the limits of what is allowable.  I cannot add much more because there will not be time for setup and tear down.  I would have to radically change the way the display is assembled.