Lego Mindstorms Ev3 Download Old Version

[Angelique Syria]

LEGOMINDSTORMS EV3 is the latest generation of LEGO MINDSTORMS, released in 2013. LEGO has stopped selling the NXT system in retail stores, but NXT products and support may continue to be available through educational channels for a while.

The main difference between the NXT system (the Programmable brick, motors and sensors) and the EV3 system is the brick itself. The EV3 brick features a more powerful processor, 4 motor ports (instead of 3), a micro SD card slot, a USB host port and a Linux operating system. In addition, it has a slightly larger screen, more buttons, and it is possible to control the EV3 brick using both iOS and Android devices, as opposed to Android only for the NXT. See this article for a list of technical specifications of both bricks.

On first thought, you may wonder why you would need these features. First, the micro SD card slot can be used to add extra storage to the brick by means of a micro SD card. Additionally, the USB port can be used to link up to four EV3 bricks so that you can control up to 16 motors and 16 sensors on one robot.

Although the general user will not notice on the outside, the brick runs a Linux based operating system. Basically, this means that your robot almost resembles a full computer, a bit like the Raspberry Pi! This means that you can add other devices to the USB port on the brick, such as a WiFi dongle for wireless connectivity (Figure 2), a USB keyboard for extra input, or a USB webcam for object detection.

Both versions of the EV3 set contain two Large motors. They are comparable to NXT motors in terms of speed and torque, although their shape is slightly different to make building easier. In addition, both sets have one Medium motor, comparable to the Power Functions Medium motor. As is the case for NXT, all three motors have rotation sensors for position and speed control.

The cable connectors in the NXT sets and EV3 sets are the same, so that many of the EV3 and NXT devices can be used together. Some combinations are compatible, others are not, as discussed in the next. You can see a demonstration of two possible configurations in the following video.

You can connect all official LEGO NXT motors and official LEGO NXT sensors to the EV3 brick. For example, you can have a configuration with an NXT Touch Sensor, an EV3 Touch Sensor, an NXT motor and a Medium EV3 motor, all connected to the EV3 brick, as shown in Figure 4. You use the NXT devices in the EV3 software as if they are EV3 components, as demonstrated in the video.

You can also connect some unofficial NXT Sensors to the EV3 brick, such as some sensors from HiTechnic, Mindsensors and Dexter Industries. However, these companies will have to create programming blocks to facilitate the use of these sensors in the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 software, which has not yet been done for all sensors. If in doubt, contact the manufacturer of the sensor. If you have a very old version of the NXT Touch sensor, it may not be compatible with the EV3 without some modifications (see the comments by Philo below).

It is not possible to connect the new EV3 sensors to the NXT brick. However, you can use both Large and Medium EV3 motors with the NXT brick as if they are normal NXT motors. Figure 5 illustrates this (see video above for a sample program).

Both the NXT and EV3 can be powered with 6 standard AA batteries. Alternatively, they can be powered with a LEGO rechargeable battery. The LEGO EV3 battery and LEGO NXT battery have a different shape, as shown in Figure 6, so you cannot use them interchangeably.

It is also possible to use the EV3 software to program your NXT bricks. If you have both NXT and EV3 bricks, this allows you to program both using just one application. Note that this does not give your NXT brick additional features. For example, you still cannot use EV3 sensors on the NXT brick. It just helps keeping all your programs in one place. The EV3 software (home edition) will be a free download from the LEGO MINDSTORMS website [click here], so you can use it even if you do not have an EV3 set.

The reason I ask is because I am also thinking of getting a second EV3 brick + extra building parts so that together they can build one larger robot (3-4 motors seems a bit limited to me if you are considering moving two legs, two arms, torso and maybe the head + having hands to pick up things ?

3.

also am confused about the bluetooth commander app : it says you can control your robot with the app but does a camera exist (and programming in the brick) that you easily build on the robot to see on tablet where the robot is looking at and going (ie streaming). My son now has a parrot jumping sumo and would be nice for the lego robot to have similar capabilities

D batteries will not hurt anything, as long as you do not exceed the maximum input voltage specified for the controller. The D batteries will give you more current, or the same current for a longer time. The capacity of a battery is measured in Amps/hour, or milliamps/hour for small batteries. When you place batteries in series positive to negative to positive etc. +_+_+_+_ the voltages add up. When you place them is parallel, with all of the negatives connected together, and all of the positives connected together, you get the same voltage but more current is available.

My understanding is that the EV3 rechargeable battery had to differ from the NXT rechargeable battery because the battery compartment now has to have 2 mechanical latches (or a screw) due to toy safety regulations. But both batteries use the same DC charger.

UARTS are used for asycronous serial communication. No clock is required and the timing of the bits is determined from the leading edge of each character. A minimal full-duplex interface requires three wires, TxD(Transmit Data), RxD(Receive Data) and Ground. The full duplex means there can be data going in both direction at the same time.

plain serial is a lot simpler, easy to implement, and built in to all sorts of embedded devices with very simple resources. It is extremely easy to use with Linux. If you have no need to network a large number of sensors with few conductors, plain serial is easy and used very often, older or not.

I have played around with the EV3 software on the NXT and the NXT medium motor did not work. I was able to get the large motor to work. The color sensor, touch sensor, and the untrasonic seemed to be recognized and it appeared that the sensors will work, though I have not tried to create a program combining the motors and the sensors yet, and think that is something that the kids can play around with and explore.

Out of the Box the x1676 Electric Mindstorms NXT Conversion Cable does not work for the analog input, as the EV3 checks for presence of NXT-Sensors by using Pin2 as an Input that shall be grounded to Pin3 by the NXT Sensor.

The cable was designed not only to attach Sensors, but to be a motor / Lamp / Led driving cable as well, thus only connecting Pin 1 and 2 to the two poles of the RCX / PowerFunctions 22 stud connector.

I downloaded the Education EV3 and have been trying to get started. There is a lesson on Multitasking that implies you can drop a path similar to what we do with NXT. I cannot catch the flow path and split it. I can get a spread, so there is a place to grab, but if I try, I wind up moving a block.

Do you have a piece of magic to share?

After the first output is attached as an input to the next block, I bring out the block that will be run in parallel and drop it unattached on the screen. Then I left-click and drag another data line from the first output to the input of the unattached block. Finally I arrange everything to look nice.

I am looking for the 4 extra builds that are shown with the education version, particularly gyro boy. I purchased the education and home edition. The home edition software is all I need, but I would like instructions for the other education builds that seem to be only available with the education software. I am hoping that someone knows somewhere else that the instructions can be found.

2. I can not get a USB drive to work for storing information like an on brick program or the results of datalogging experiments, I can only store those on an SD card. Is it possible that the USB slot is only for wifi dongles and the like and not storage?

NXT motor blocks allowed you to designate the motor using a variable and wires. My initial look at the EV3 software seems to preclude motor selection using variables and wires. Do you think this is correct?

I just tried it on mine: worked fine. In the software, use a color sensor block. Select either reflected or ambient light. The brick will automatically configure itself for the connected sensor. So the same program will work with the EV3 color sensor, NXT color sensor, or NXT light sensor.

It will still work if you are using the NXT color sensor, but I could not get the light sensor to function with a color block. There is a way you can cheat though: if you use a NXT sound sensor block, that will use the light sensor. Use dB for reflected. And dBa for ambient.

Yes, the EV3 software is great but there should be a conversion tool to change the NXT code into EV3 code, because there is such a HUGE library of programs out there in NXT that should not be just trashed ?

We have 2 new EV3 robots and we cannot get them to charge nor turn on. It seems like they are charging but then we cannot get them to come on. All we get is a quick red flash then nothing on the screens. Ideas? Please help!

I am a teacher and am new to lego robotics. We have an NXT brick that we are trying to run on the EV3 software. Our EV3 brick runs fine, but the NXT will not work. We did a firmware update and it connects to the software now but it says file error on the NXT brick whenever we try to download and run a program. Any ideas? I am very new to all of this so any help would be much appreciated.

I cannot get it to recognize option 2 (button push and release) of an NXT touch sensor. I also cannot get it to recognize a RCX (using the converter cable) sensor/motor at all. I am guessing it is because they changed the touch sensor from digital to analog (so they can measure the degree that the sensor was pushed). So while the NXT sensors can technically work on the EV3 I hope the make blocks specifically for the NXT and legacy(RCX) sensors/motors.

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