Bot Bench I'd Rather Be Building Robots
Thanks to a very generous person named Thorsten on the ROBOTC forums I am now the proud owner of
- A RCX 2.0 brick
- An IR Tower
- An RCX remote control (not pictured)
- A USB<->Serial converter
I’ve been asked in the past to add support to my ROBOTC drivers for communicating with an RCX using the HiTechnic IR Link sensor. It seems he is very keen to have support for it as he was more than happy to send me one of his babies for me keep to be able to start working on it. Now I have no excuse for not making it work. I had better start reading some documentation on the RCX’s internals and IR protocol. If anyone has suggestions as to where to start, please leave a comment.
Thorsten’s done some pretty cool things with his RCXs as you can see from the video here:
There is also an article in Railbricks #3, page 44, where he gives an overview of some of the hackery he performs. Well worth checking out.
Once again, thank you Thorsten!
You would absolutely be my hero if you did this. More than you already are. I have two 1.0 bricks that still work, but I have never used RC with them.
Start where ever you want, I would suggest motors, rotation sensors and touch sensors. Personally, those would be the parts I use most with the RCX. I found that the block that HiTechnic uses with NXT-G was pretty complete. Emulate that and I think you would make 99% of them happy.
So you have some RCX’s that don’t work? You can probably get almost any non working RCX’s working again. I have been able to fix 75%+ of the RCX’s that I attempted to fix.
No, I said that currently my IR Link driver does not support communication with the RCX. I have no broken RCXs. The one RCX I now own is working perfectly fine.
Let me know if you need some support here and there. I have two RCXs that I pull out now and then. I don’t have the other hardware, but who knows.
I do not have RobotC, but I do have the hardware (both types of IR towers, RCX remote, 8 working RCXs, 5 rotation sensors, 6-7 light sensors, many touch sensors, over 20 motors, over 20 wires, a few lights…). Actually, I also have a scout. If I did have a RobotC license, I would help as well. If you want me to test anything, I will do what I can, but again, I do not have RobotC.
You can evaluate ROBOTC for up to 30 days without a license. You would also need a HiTechnic IRLink to make this work.
That comment was actually directed at Chris Shepherd Re:”I have two 1.0 bricks that still work…”.
I have an RCX 2.0 kit, and it came with a USB IR tower. Not sure if that changes anything, but it does mean I can’t plug in my RCX without hacking it.
NXC and NXT-G already have drivers for this, and I think the NXC drivers would be easier to get to.
Any chance you can make the driver compatible with the Spybot (has visible light link and IR comm compatible with IR tower), scout, etc?
NXT-G cannot program an RCX. I am not sure what you mean. If you are happy to send me a Spybot and/or a Scout to work with then I am happy to work on a driver. It’s very hard to add support for devices I don’t have, sorry.
You probably already know about these two, but they pretty much cover everything:
http://graphics.stanford.edu/~kekoa/rcx/protocol.html
http://graphics.stanford.edu/~kekoa/rcx/#Protocol
It’s what I used to get an RCX talking to a Playstation Portable through its built-in IR port.
You could read the RCX firmware from a file on the NXT and send it too.
I have both those URLs open in my browser as I type this 🙂 I am not sure how useful it would be to host the RCX’s firmware on the NXT, though. The first version of the driver will include messaging, sensor and motor control. Additional features will be added later 🙂
– Xander
30 is hardly enough time to test stuff. I do have the HT IR Link.
I’m not really in a position to help you there. I don’t work for the Robotics Academy (makers of ROBOTC), HiTechnic, Mindsensors, Lego or any other NXT-related company. If you don’t have ROBOTC then you won’t have much use for this driver either.
I do this on a voluntary basis in my own spare time. Everything I do is possible because of the benevolence of others; hardware companies sending me sensors to test and write software for, individuals such as Thorsten who donate hardware for me to use to write software, that sort of thing. They give me something I like and I give them something in return that they (hopefully) find useful. I’ve never been paid cash for writing drivers for any company or person, ever. I have nothing to give you but my driver suite, the time I’ve put into writing it, the documentation and the various other aspects that come with supporting a piece of software. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to ask for RobotC, I just thought that if there was a way that I could help, I wouldn’t mind, even though I wouldn’t get anything out of it.
ROBOTC is well worth getting, IMHO. It’s not terribly expensive ($30 usd) and it comes with a lot of very cool features. Best of all, it works with my driver suite! What more could you possibly ask for? (free backrubs, perhaps)
I thought it costs $80. Maybe that is just if I get it through Lego Edu. Anyhow, thanks for telling me, I might get it. I love your humor.
If you go here: http://www.robotc.net/purchase/nxt/, you’ll find that the digital purchase is a mere $30. However, if you’re really, really keen and have a lot of spare cash, you can get a hard copy on a CD. Seems like a bit of a waste really. If you’re that keen, I will buy a license for you, download ROBOTC, burn it to a CD and sell it you for $60! Bargain!
Okay, I see the difference. That seems kinda stupid; $50 just for a CD. LOL, I don’t think i’ll need that CD.
Well, it would make for a very exclusive beer coaster. I am not sure many people have one. That’s some serious bragging rights, right there.
LOL, VERY exclusive.
Hello mate, so glad you started this, I did offer you one of my rcx’s. So have you managed anything yet mate