EV3
The 2013 MINDSTORMS brick, and a small Linux computer you program over USB, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. One of its two optical sensors hears the Power Functions infrared remote link, in one mode of it and no other.
Reach
| Capability | State | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Program the brick over USB, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi | works, untested here | LEGO's own way in; nothing optical involved |
| Drive motors from the 45508 IR Beacon | works, untested here | with a program running, beacon channels 1 and 2 move the outputs directly |
| Heading and distance to the beacon | works, untested here | beacon mode, on one of four channels |
| Proximity with no beacon in front of it | works, untested here | the sensor lights the room with infrared and reads its own reflection, 0 to 100 over about 70 cm |
| Colour identity, reflected brightness, ambient brightness | works, untested here | the colour sensor lights red, green and blue and reads back three ways; input only |
| Read Power Functions Combo Direct from any emitter | works, untested here | twelve values, one per combination of the beacon's five buttons, 0 for nothing to 11 for both blue buttons |
| Read Combo PWM speed steps, Extended, Single-pin or Single-output | documented, no effect on device | the protocol carries all four and an EV3 program has no way to see any of them |
| Drive it from the bridge | out of reach | the bridge sends Combo PWM, so it will not move an EV3; a Combo Direct emitter would, and that is a firmware change rather than a hardware one |
| Drive an 8884 receiver from the EV3 | out of reach | the sensor only receives, and its own emitter does proximity and nothing else; the 45508 beacon can |
What it hears
Power Functions, and only that: LEGO's EV3 Hardware Developer Kit says the beacon transmits the LEGO Power Functions infrared protocol and the sensor's remote mode receives it, same 38 kHz carrier, same bit timings, same four channels. The frames and the timings belong to Power Functions RC (IR). What reaches an EV3 program is narrower than the protocol: a single number for the button combination, which is Combo Direct and nothing else. The colour sensor is not a link at all — it senses and returns values, the way every optical part on the NXT does. Every link a LEGO brick can hear, on one page: How the links work.
Reaching it today
- The 45508 beacon from the box. Its buttons drive motors on channels 1 and 2 with a program running, and beacon mode gives heading and distance.
- A Power Functions remote sending Combo Direct: the same codes, so the sensor reads them.
- Your own program on the brick, over USB, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, deciding what each button combination means.
- Not the bridge, until it learns to send Combo Direct.
Links
- 31313 MINDSTORMS EV3 (Rebrickable) · 45544 Education Core Set (Rebrickable) · 45508 IR Beacon. See Sets & bricks index.
- LEGO's EV3 Hardware Developer Kit names the beacon's protocol as LEGO Power Functions and gives its timings: 421 µs low bit, 711 µs high bit, 1184 µs for start and stop, on the 38 kHz carrier, four channels.
- The EV3 the other way round, as a light source for a VLL brick: JorgePe's Python transmitters blink one from an EV3 output port and from the EV3 status LED — VLL emitters — options & status.
- Related: NXT · Power Functions (IR) · the carriers side by side in Frequencies & wavelengths.