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Originally Posted by Rohith Surampudi
that is extremely cool, how did you wire the legos into the VEX controls?
ps. nice pictures, very clear and crisp
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Hi Rohith
Thanks! I credit a beautiful, bright cloudy day here in Oregon for the pictures. Perfect light.
As for the Lego motor interface,
here's a picture that will help explain:
You basically just take apart a VEX motor module and desolder the DC motor from the circuitboard, which contains the electronics to decipher the Pulse width Modulation signal from the controller and to drive the motor.
To get to the motor, you need to remove all the gears. The last gear at the bottom of the stack, the large white flat one, will come off with a gentle pry with a small screwdriver. This will reveal the second motor screw. remove the screws, and pry apart the bottom part of the module.
After desoldering the motor, you then re-solder a lego wire connector in place of the motor terminals (snipping off the excess wire- not shown in the photo)
This would make a great beginner solder project. Just be sure that you wear eye protection whenever you solder, especially when using the vacuum solder pump. Also- I use lead-free solder, which works well, just keep in mind that you will not get the same shiny finish that you get with lead solder that tells you that you have a good solder connection.
Keep an eye out for these motors at RadioShacks- now that they are on clearance, many stores have frequent Clearance blow-outs. Just last week I snagged a few more Vex accessories at an additional 25% off. $7.50 motors gave me the courage to take one completely apart- which turned out to be very easy and informative.
Steve