Monday, March 20, 2006

On Lego NXT Connectors

Dave Breaker just pointed out to me this site in Australia. It has some great photos and closeups.

It contains a good general introduction to the hardware, and shows the connectors in more detail than previously shown. Here's an interesting image.


The motor connectors in the NXT brick, and the connector inside a sensor. Original image here.

The article has some interesting information on the connectors used by Lego.
There is a new wiring and connector system for all the motors and sensors. Uses a 6 wire flat cable and plugs known as a RJ12 6X6 DEC MMJ Modular Plug. It is similar to an standard RJ12 plug but has an offset clip. [...]

On the 4 robots I was playing with there were already several of the plastic release clips broken off from the plugs so I think a crimp tool and a bag of Dec MMJ plugs will always be close by.
Despite the potential brittleness of the connectors, it would be great to be able to make more cables. However, I'm not sure about that RJ12 DEC connector claim. Doesn't that connector have its clip offset to the wrong side?


RJ12 6x6 DEC MMJ connector

posted by Filip @ Monday, March 20, 2006

4 Comments:

At March 20, 2006 9:08 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

The RJ12 DEC plugs are with the wrong offset. So they cant be used for lego applications.

This means that they have made there own plug.. So hopefully lego makes it possible to buy the connectors seperatly because i think there will be a great need for those in a few months time..

 
At March 21, 2006 2:28 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wonder what was their reasoning for using a proprietary connector. I can undertand not using the standard RJ-11, because it could be mistaken with a standard phone cord and people might try to plug it into the phone jack or something. However, if they had used the RJ12 DEC connector, it would have been easier for people to make their own connections and still different enough that someone wouldn't mistake it for a phone connection.

 
At March 27, 2006 1:40 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

If the measurements of the plug is the same as the RJ12, then we might be able to modify the RJ12 tool to accept the offset clip..

 
At March 28, 2006 9:22 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

The connectors will probably be available for purchase. There should be more news on that after the NDA is gone (after April 30).

 

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