If you are a regular reader here, you might remember the exciting wireless technology for lighting up LEGO creations developed by i-Brix (see: Update on i-Brix Wireless Lighting for LEGO). After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the i-Brix team has been hard at work to wrap up the design and manufacture of the first i-Brix kits. One of the biggest hurdles for i-Brix was to meet FCC regulations, which they recently achieved. I know many of our readers are supporters of i-Brix either via the Kickstarter campaign or some other means, so below I have included the most recent updates I received from Dustin Culton, the creator of i-Brix.
We’ve been busting our butts behind the scenes to get the i-Brix system to comply with the FCC requirements for transmission frequency levels and allowed limits – and we are excited to say that after months of fine-tuning, we’ve been able to accomplish this goal. Thanks to the amazing work of our engineer, final FCC testing has been passed by i-Brix!
This is wonderful news for us and our backers and it gives us at i-Brix the gears we need to head towards production. The electronics circuitry for the system driver is now finished, receiver circuitry (a.k.a. i-Brix bricks) is tuned to final transmitter frequency, and we are presently sourcing materials and components for the systems.
We won’t be shipping kits in the next few weeks, but we’re closer than ever to getting things wrapped up. We have PCB (circuit boards) that need to be cut and assembled, and bricks that require micro electronics and other components that will require manufacturing. It sounds like a lot, but those steps were on hold due to the need to pass FCC limitations testing.
Please note that with us heading towards the finish line (so to speak), you’re likely to begin seeing i-Brix in the media and LEGO-related sites as the anticipation builds for i-Brix to hit the streets. We will always do our best to answer inquiries, respond to media requests and to keep you all in the loop with the latest i-Brix details. Thank you again to all of our backers that have stayed with us on our journey – we believe it will be worth the wait.
As you can see, that’s a lot of good news, and the i-Brix team can finally start wrapping up production of the first i-Brix kits, and have them shipped to backers of the Kickstarter campaign sometime this summer. If you want to get updates on the development of i-Brix, you can follow them on Kickstarter, Facebook, Twitter, or their website i-Brix.com.
And if you have not pre-ordered your i-Brix kit yet, but you are interested, you can still do so at the i-Brix.com Online Shop. Once the orders of Kickstarter backers and other pre-orders are fulfilled, i-Brix will continue producing additional units, but it may take some time to work out regular manufacturing and distribution procedures.
What do you think? Are you looking forward to i-Brix? Did you get your kit yet? How are you planning to use it? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below!
And you might also like to check out the following related posts:
No wires or battery. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how that actually works! :O I wonder if they can or would ever make any 1 x 1 round ones simply for aesthetic reasons.
It basically works like a wireless phone charger. There is a plate that you hide under baseplates, and then whatever you put over it up to a certain distance will get powered. If I remember correctly it was up to one feet above the charging plate. The charging plate is plugged into a regular outlet. That’s why they had to meet safety regulation standards, to make sure the emitted power is safe.
Awesome stuff!
I know they originally chose the 1×1 square bricks for their interior space to house the receiver and light. Then after they completed the campaign they said they managed to make things smaller which helped with the assembly.
So if this sells well in the secondary marketplace I’m sure 1×1 round bricks are going to be looked at as a possibility. Since well, round bricks actually look more like lights. But I do believe the reason why they didn’t start with round was due to a production restriction.
I did read on their Kickstarter page that they are definitely planning to do 1×1 round bricks as so many people requested them. 🙂
I’m really looking forward to these. My understanding is that it works similarly to wireless chargers. Really great to have an update!
Yes, that’s basically how it works.
Are you guys going to review this? I’m very curious about how it works.
Yes, both myself and Will were backers in the Kickstarter campaign, so we should be getting out kits sometime this summer. 🙂
Love to try these out! I remember from the previous video there was some limitation on the range. Is that still the case?
I don’t know what’s the latest as far as distance, but what I remember from previously is that the lights work for up to about a foot from the base. In an earlier prototype, there were some booster plates that could extend the range, but I’m not sure if those are still in the plans.
For reference, the initial version of the I-Brix covered about 8 inches or roughly two floors of a modular building.
While they were working on their FCC certification they did say they added a few inches to the range.
So a foot as the Admin mentioned is the current guess.
Though a work around was to stand the power base upright. And with a mormal baseplate being about ten inches it was a different way to get power across.
Oh, I didn’t think of that! Great idea to stand up the power base! 😀
Finally! I’ve been waiting a long time for this!
I recently watched a documentary about Tesla and would you believe he was playing around with this concept around 1900?
For him, he was using much higher amounts of voltage, but he managed to light up the earliest versions of florescent bulbs with very similar technology.
Heck, that might be a good MOC for the I-Brix.
That’s really interesting! 😀
My impression is that Tesla seems to get more respect from the geek crowd than Edison, these days…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1O2jcfOylU