Another design flaw in the LPF RC Receiver

After the news about a first design flaw on the LEGO Power Functions (LPF) RC Receiver at Eurobricks [1], which prevents it to be used with a classic 9V battery box [see end of this post], just another design flaw seems to have been found.

Don't know whether it is official or not, but the info below was posted at Lugnet [2].

TLG has just released the following information:

"We have been testing the LPF RC Receiver today and discovered an error in the RC Receiver firmware or chip masking. A register is not addressable. It affects all the set, clear and toggle commands for single pins....and only these commands.
We will do an update of the chip mask at some point (not too far into the future). At that point it will be corrected."


While this is not catastrophe, it is a significant drawback that prevents the short term usage of 'single pin mode' applications. It could delay the release of other PF elements applications from OEMs who may had features like this under consideration (now that the LPF protocol is open source), for development of new products.
The same applies for LEGO itself. But as written above, the solution is just at their hands for when they want to put a fixed design in production.

At least LEGO, should learn that as the technology used in products and complexity increases, the effort put on testing them must also increase accordingly.

Personally I'm convinced this 'single pin' operation mode, could be of great use to control devices other than motors, like LEDs and simple actuators. Hope to see them in the future PF Trains line... ;)