Bionicle Manas
8539 Manas, 2001: two crab-shaped robots, each with motors and its own infrared handset, three AA cells in the robot and three more in the controller. It hears the one-way 76 kHz remote link, the carrier LEGO used for about a year and dropped.
Reach
| Capability | State | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Drive the motors from the handset in the box | works | one handset per robot |
| Three robots at once on three channels | works | a dial on each robot picks the channel; the handset has a fourth setting that talks to all of them |
| Read anything back from the robot | out of reach | the link is one way, the robot is a receiver |
| Drive from the bridge | out of reach | the bridge emits 38 kHz and cannot be modulated up to 76 kHz |
| Drive with a Power Functions emitter | out of reach | 38 kHz will not touch a 76 kHz receiver |
| Drive with a 76 kHz emitter of your own | works, untested here | the family is decoded and open-source LIRC generators exist; none has been pointed at a Manas here |
What it hears
The 76 kHz IR family, one way, shared with Spybotics, RC Nitro Flash, the DUPLO RC Dozer and the early RC Train (IR). Channel selection is part of that family's message format, and the frames, timings and command tables live in the protocol note. Nothing that speaks 38 kHz speaks this, in either direction: a Power Functions receiver ignores a Manas handset and a Manas ignores a Power Functions remote.
Reaching it today
The handset the set shipped with is the only thing that works out of the box. If you also own Spybotics, its remote in Control mode drives a Manas: the remote's first two channels are Manas channels. Anything else means building a 76 kHz emitter and driving it from a published LIRC generator; the bridge is not that emitter.
Links
- 8539 — Rebrickable · BIOsector01
- Decoding the carrier and the frames: ofalcao.pt
- Generators for the family: github.com/JorgePe/ir-spybotics