Lego Nxt Driver

[Mariela Coxon]

Basicallyyou need to re-flash the firmware onto the brick. I've done this a number of times as I use an alternate firmware called LeJOS (runs Java). There shouldn't be anything that breaks from this (not any further than what you've got). Make sure your batteries are not going to die on you while you re-flash the firmware. Just give them a charge.

You should now have a working brick. However, any programs you may have flashed to it are gone (and probably were already gone, as discussed in #1). All you need to do to restore those is write the programs from the Mindstorms NXT software on your computer.

Read the RobotC NXT Forum thread Firmware Update & Arduino IDE Issues (Renamed). The only post that count is the 31th post. Simply go to the Device Manager with the brick connected, choose the Bossa Device, choose property, pilot update and replace the Bossa device by the Lego Mindstorm device.

I had same issue with Windows 7. I double clicked on the "Bossa Program Port" driver and pressed "update driver", then selected the "LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Firmware Update Mode" driver instead. Then it was possible to connect to "LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0" and update firmware.

So I've recently dug up my old Lego Mindstorms RIS 2.0 (RCX) and have spent the past few days trying to install it into my Windows 7 laptop. It worked fine, except it could not find the correct drivers for the IR tower. Installing it on a Windows XP Virtual machine has given the same result.

The LEGO Mindstorms NXT driver has the same vendor ID (vid) but not the same PID.When you modify the .inf file and deactivate the driver signature, the driver is well installed, but tower is not able to communicate with leJOSdriver found here:

I was asked via PM about the quality of BBB wheels, and how they compared to LEGO's steam engine drivers found on the Emerald Night. I gave my opinion, and I thought it would be a good tool to spark conversation.

First off let me say I am a very biased opinion on this subject. It really is no secret that I am a huge supporter of Big Ben Bricks, and this will probably look like a huge advertisement for Ben's wheels (says the man who just posted a huge advertisement for Ben's wheels above this paragraph).

I have bought hundreds of dollars worth of wheels from Ben over the years, and I've never been disappointed. I also own two copies of the Emerald Night, so I feel that I can adequately compare the two reasonably well. Let's examine some of the different areas one would look to compare the two products- Quality, Cost, Availability, Function, and Form.

Big Ben Bricks wheels are very high quality injection molded plastic wheels. Their colors match LEGO bricks in both color and shine, and, of the colors I own, anyway, do not look at all out of place on a LEGO steam engine. I have owned Big Ben Bricks wheels since 2006, and have been running them on my locomotives the entire time. I have never (knock on wood) had a Big Ben Bricks wheel break, not even after falling off a table onto a concrete floor in a show (even when the weighted - with a pile of nuts and bolts - tender fell on top of the locomotive after it had hit the ground). The wheels turn perfectly smoothly and, at least on mine, show no signs of being at all unbalanced.

Big Ben Bricks offers five train wheels. The small train wheels go for $1.50 USD each, and the other four - Large Blind, Large Flanged, Medium Blind, and Medium Flanged - all go for $3 USD each. Ben also offers special bulk amounts which will lower the price. The best deal gives you 4 each of the drivers plus 8 small wheels, giving you a price of $2.10 USD per driver and $1.05 per small train wheel.

LEGO only offers small train wheels direct via PaB. In order to buy the drivers you must buy the Emerald Night. Availability on Bricklink is limited to the sellers who have parted out the Emerald Night (in the case of the drivers). Currently there are 25 and 41 lots available on Bricklink for Blind and Flanged drivers, respectively. You will be limited to where these shops ship, which I did not investigate.

Big Ben Bricks will ship to anywhere in the world. I am unaware of what quantities Ben keeps on hand for his stock. I can say that his wheels have always arrived at my house within only a few days of paying for my order, so he's never run out of stock when I've ordered (and he can get more when he needs it).

I have not put them side by side, but as best I can figure LEGO's and BBB small wheels and large and blind drivers are the same diameter and all accept Technic axles. They also have technic holes to accept connecting rods in the exact same spaces.

Now maybe it was my particular copy of the Emerald Night, but I found that the LEGO drivers were more loose on the axles than the BBB drivers I own, that is to say, they were easier to pull on and off the axle. This can be a bad thing during operation, but like I said - maybe it's just my copy of the Emerald Night.

One major difference is that LEGO's small PF train wheel and flanged drivers have grooves molded into them to accept an o-ring, and BBB wheels do not. I find the groove distracting and a bit ugly, but that's personal taste. The groove might cause performance issues, i.e. the groove catching the rails oddly causing it to grind or jump the track, but I have not tested it so I cannot say for sure.

I have noticed that if you try to use wheels and drivers with installed O-rings on non-powered locomotives, such as push trains or tender powered locomotives, the O-rings cause a lot more friction and can add more strain to your motors, robbing you of pulling power. I tried this very thing on one of my smallest locomotives because the LEGO small train wheel was so much cheaper, but the locomotive has twice or three times the resistance to want to roll as it once did. If you do not like the groove in LEGO's wheels without the O-Rings, and you plan to design a tender powered or push engine, I highly recommend BBB wheels for the best performance.

However, if you plan to create a locomotive that has powered drivers, I recommend LEGO's drivers - the added friction of the O-rings, while not 100% essential, will certainly give you a much greater performance. I also use LEGO's small wheels on all of my Power Functions tender-driver engines.

Big Ben Bricks also offers a Medium driver in both blind and flanged varieties, for those who want to build locomotives with smaller drivers to scale with your other train MOCs. These wheels function just like the large drivers, except the medium blind drivers cannot be attached overlapping the flanged drivers like the large drivers can. You can, however, space the wheels closer together using creative building techniques.

Visually, the big difference between LEGO's small wheels and BBB's small wheels are the spokes - LEGO's wheels are solid disks with depressions imitating spokes, where BBB small wheels have hollow spokes. In my opinion the hollow spokes are much easier to see when the train is in motion than on LEGO's wheels. It also allows for using BBB's small wheels in other, non wheel applications, such as the vents/fans on top of a diesel locomotive, or on the side of a building.

Buying non LEGO parts for a LEGO MOC is a non starter for some people, and if that's the way you feel that's fine. However, I would like to point out that of the many LEGO purists I know in the train community, the vast majority of them make an exception for Big Ben Bricks wheels, and say that they are the only non-LEGO parts they will use. It's a testament to the quality of wheels Big Ben Bricks produces, and only reinforces why I recommend them so.

Thank you for taking the time to share on Train Tech. I'd like to see more of our "train experts" share information like this, as the content is great for both new and old fans of LEGO trains. I for one didn't know much about these wheels other than hearing about them.

I haven't spent nearly as much on Big Ben Bricks trainwheels, but I have purchased the large and medium drivers from Ben and the small train wheels from Ben. Much like Tony, I also have purchased two Emerald Nights. My experience with both LEGO and BBB has been extremely similar to Tony's.

As much as I love the quality and color selection of Ben's wheels, when I did power the drivers on an engine using Ben's Large Drivers, the engine was pretty much tapped out traction wise with just a couple of railcars in tow. As a result, the point made above has me strongly in the LEGO camp for Large Drivers.

Just my opinion, but I really think that steam engines should (if at all possible) be powered through the drivers. Power Functions is just so good at putting down power through the drivers (if they have traction bands) that it seems a shame to not power the drivers.

Tony, this has been very useful! I have been looking around for train wheels trying to decide what to get, and I am seriously considering some BBB wheels. So thanks for this article, an interesting and very informative read.

The BBB wheels look very nice and for a long time I've wanted to buy them, but as mentioned the lack of traction is a big issue. I think they might have better traction on the 9V metal track compared to the plastic tracks. I use the 12V track and I doubt the wheels would work at all on the notched plastic rails... :(

I really like the real spokes on the small BBB wheels but I also really like the counterweights on the Lego drivers. Growing up near Germany (and with a dad collecting N-scale trains) means that for me steam engines have red wheels so I'm glad BBB makes red wheels. I can't say much about traction as I don't have a layout at home and I haven't run the E.N. or my own model on a show layout.

As MrP noted above the BBB wheels are slightly thicker than one brick and I find that problem for two reasons. It means the driving gear has a slight offset so it won't line up with the cylinder. It also means the top of the wheel won't fit in a 1-stud wide slit. (let me know if this doesn't make sense and I'll do a picture to show what I mean)

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