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Does the five foot train tunnel have a curve in it?
LOL nope, it went straight across as in the starting point in the photo below
btw I do NOT advise using glued checkerboard plates because the slight warping of these plates becomes amplified as you build higher
@joshhall I can bring a bunch of 2×4 green bricks that I did not use to the next LUG meetingAttendance at St. Joseph’s Church gradually declined and financial burdens prompted the diocese to sell the building. Now under new ownership, the church has been resurrected as a coffee shop. Renamed Joe’s Cafe, it is once again meeting the social and spiritual needs of the community.
> my entry for a winter village contest … thanks to @tfdesigns for the barista 🙂
I got to see this yesterday in person, and these pics don’t do justice to the “stained glass” windows Greg has in this thing, especially the round one in the back!!
Wow that looks great! When I read the first part of the email alert I thought Greg was talking about a real local church.
How is the round stained glass window made? It looks like a clear baseplate on its side with 1×1 plates or tiles on top (facing inside)?
a clear baseplate on its side with 1×1 plates or tiles on top
We have a winner!
@greg you continue to be the King of the Christmas Village. Outstanding build and I love the backstory. Old churches have some amazing architecture and it is a shame whenever one is demolished. I really love the double bay windows in the back using the newer curved window piece and the pearl gold diamond windows.
They just released photos of the entries in the winter village competition. The only design constraints were 1) winter theme 2) real LEGO parts 3) a footprint no more than 32×32 studs. Some impressive projects … I think the ones below were all done in LEGO studio.
Anyone have experience with RCX bricks? I am trying to resurrect a train crossing project that I was given.
I might be able to help. I’ve used an RCX brick to assemble a monorail block signaling system and last year I spent some time figuring out how to program one using a modern computer.
That is awesome! I need to construct some simple code and probably use a RF transmitter (with a RS232 cable) to transfer the program to the RCX. The goal is to use it at the train show at the Carnegie Science Center, mid-January.
You misspelled “next week”
Josh
Keymaster
You misspelled “next week”Ok that pushes up the timeline.
Yep, my tower is USB. I have a Linux virtual machine set up to work with it (the drivers are 32-bit which won’t work on my 64-bit host, but the VM has direct access to the USB). I programmed an RCX with it just last winter.
Virtual Box software uses present-day computers as “virtual platforms” to create a Windows environment to run the old LEGO RIS (Robotic Invention System) code-writing program. I downloaded Virtual Box but I received an error that Virtual Box “only runs on the amd64 architecture.”
If you’re running a 32-bit Windows PC VirtualBox v5.2.44 should work. If you’re using a Mac then it depends on what type of CPU you’re running.
My notes are not formatted well for sharing, but the broad strokes are I created a virtual machine using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (it is unsupported, but still available), copying in some custom RCX firmware files I found online, installing g++, building the firmware, push it to the RCX brick, and finally building my program and pushing it as well.
The older versions of Ubuntu came with RCX IR tower drivers which is why I used that particular version. The important VirtualBox settings were around file sharing from host to guest and direct connecting to the USB port. I recall having to change permissions on the IR tower device to access it in Linux. I have a list of sites I used as references, but this forum doesn’t like multiple links per post.
After a bit of trial and error, Ravine Dan Texas Ranger got this mechanism to work! When the train comes past the first light sensor, the gates go down. At the second sensor, they come back up.
Had I known this existed, I would have abandoned my efforts.
I got the parts back in August, but completely forgot about them – I’ve been working other things. I first had to remove the corroded batteries from the RCX / intelligent brick and clean the terminals.
Until today, I didn’t even know if we would get the crossing working. If it weren’t for Dan, I would not have been able to write or transmit the program. And since it is measuring light levels, it might not work properly if the Science Center lighting is significantly different from Dan’s living room.
Also, the RCX runs on batteries, there is no existing way to plug it in. The batteries have to run the program, the motors and the lights … AND if the batteries of the RCX are removed for too long, the programming is lost. So there are still plenty of things that can go wrong.
Regardless, I am sure there is room for more than one crossing. 🙂
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