TechnicBrickPower

Hi there, thanks glad you find it useful. Yes I plan to add those gears at some point. Will reply here when ready. Could be a few weeks away though..

Hi everyone, I have made a 7 segment LED panel that can count upwards or downwards using a track driven program via tow ball pins. The LED display can be programmed to show digits or one of 17 different letters to make a sequential display to animate small text messages. The panel is driven either by hand using a crank or via a Powered Up motor. You can select which one to use via a manual switch. I have made a track to display hexadecimal counting from 0 to F.

The Lego Technic set 42140 App-Controlled Transformation Vehicle introduces two new gears - a flat version of the 12 tooth bevel gear and a flat version of the 20 tooth bevel gear. These gears are designed to have less friction. In this video I measure the difference in gearing efficiency between two gearboxes - one made from a stack of 3 of the original 12 and 20 tooth gears to create a 27 to 125 gearing ratio, and a similar version made from the new flat 12 and 20 tooth gears. The gear box losses are measured using a powered up motor and a powered up App to determined the efficiency of each gear box by lifting different weights. The results are presented and compared for each gearbox.

Hi Everyone Merry Christmas! This is my Table Tennis robot demonstration. The table tennis robot can launch balls at up to 10 m/s using two buggy motors driving a pair of 46mm wheels. The ball baskets holds up to 60 balls that can be fired at the player at an adjustable rate of between 1 ball per second to 1 ball every 3 seconds. The firing angle is adjustable between 15 and 45 degrees using the buwizz 3.0 pro and application on an android tablet. The robot can produce topspin or backspin depending on the relative speed of the ball launch wheels. The robot is demonstrated on a table tennis table in backhand mode.

Here I present an online program I have written for generating loops out of Lego elbow pieces. Elbow pieces (part #25214) are used in many Lego Technic models as a decorative part to create tube like structures. With this program you can search for loops within different sized spaces and set the number of elbow pieces to be used. It supports both loops and dual axle mounted solutions. You can download your solution as an .ldr file. Can you find a record number of elbows to fit into a space? To try the program go to (desktop browsers only): https://technicbrickpower.com/tools/technic_elbow_art

Hi Everyone, Here I describe a method for measuring the efficiency of a gearbox using the Lego Technic Powered Up hub (Control+) and a motor to lift a weight. Gearbox efficiency is defined as the ratio of the output power to the input power and here I show how to measure each of these values to allow you to calculate the overall efficiency. Gearbox losses are due to friction within gears and axles rubbing on the liftarms. By measuring these losses gearbox designs can be tested and improved. Efficiency values are calculated and shown for several gearing combinations and for an automatic gearbox design.

Hi Miha - yes of course no problem to use the animations ;) Credit would be appreciated to get a bit more traffic LOL.

Oh hi yes it is. Should I have just added that to the original post?

Hi All, I have updated my gearing ratio tool to support underconstrained differentials, i.e. differentials with 1 or more degrees of freedom - and it will show all of the underconstrained parts in orange/yellow. If you connect more than two motors it will show the gearing ratios of the other parts in the system as weighted sums of the motor speeds. The tool can be accessed here (desktop browsers). https://technicbrickpower.com/tools/gearing_ratio_calculator

Hi @Philo, Sorry I didn't see your replay until today...Thanks for those two points - 35185 works ok for exports from Studio, so how do I know what the orientation should be for part 35185 for the .ldr that you have used? Does your file import correctly into Studio? Rotary catch is on my future list...lol

This video presents a revised version of an earlier Lego Technic Powered Up 3 speed automatic gearbox that I created. The previous gearbox used a differential for torque measurement and used a powered up large motor to convert the differential rotation into a torque measurement. However as many viewers have pointed out, it is possible to simply use the main motor speed measurement to infer the torque on that motor simply through the inverse linear relationship between the motor speed and it's load or torque. This saves the entire torque measurement portion of the gearbox resulting in a more compact and robust design. I also discuss the optimal gear switching points based on the gearing ratio R between the higher and lower gear. Thanks to philo (https://www.philohome.com/) for the torque vs speed graphs for the powered up motors.

Hi @nerdzforprez & @1963maniac. That's a great idea - I will add it to my long to do list. Will be useful especially for gear switching analysis. I used the threejs library for the 3d rendering - amazing library btw. Hi David, Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated. On point 4. Can you give me a part example? Universal joints are quite tricky as they move in a way I didn't know about! Point 5. I can make it drive one other part from an axle that is ok, e.g. the 3L, 4L liftarms etc. It's when you get into multi part constructions that it becomes tricky because the tool would need to know so many more parts and know how they connect and then it would need to deal with collisions with other static parts or other moving parts. Hi @GerritvdG - thanks yes chains and tracks are on my list - they are quite different to gears of course with quite a different motion - but will be interesting to try and code that!

Hi Everyone, I have been spending some time building a gearing ratio calculation tool. This tool allows you to upload your Lego Technic .ldr (Lego Draw) file and it will simulate the gearing system and visualize it as well as showing the gearing ratios relative to the input component. The tool only shows and supports Lego Technic parts related to gearing systems such as axles, gears, differentials, driving rings and worm gears etc. All other parts are now shown. Here's a video about it. Hope you might find it useful for your next project.

Hi Andman, Thanks for your great suggestion and code blocks - it's something I totally didn't think about or realize was a possibility - I have come to Powered Up from a Power Functions upbringing! LOL

Hi Zerobricks. Thanks mate that is a great suggestion - I had tunnel vision with my solution - I think that will work very well and will solve a few issues that I had tuning the torque measurement system. Look forward to trying that idea. Cheers!

The lego Powered Up motors and functions have been used to create a 3 speed automatic gearbox. With the Powered Up functions you can accurately control motor speed and motor position, as well as being able to measure the angular position of a motor. These new possibilities have been used to create a three speed automatic gearbox. One motor is used to measure the torque at the output of the gearbox by detecting the rotation of an output differential; another motor is used to accurately set the position of an orange rotary catch controlling the switching between three forward gears, and finally one large powered up motor is used to drive the gearbox. The gearbox implements 3 forward speeds at gearing ratios of 1 to 1, 1 to 0.6 and 1 to 0.2 as well as one manual reverse gear. The Powered Up app has been used to program the gearbox controller on an iphone. Thanks to (racingbrick.com) for providing a great guide to all of the available programming blocks. Hope you enjoy this video. https://youtu.be/CRkvFffDef8

Hi there everyone - here's a video I did recently. This Lego Technic project was to design a demonstration unit for the Fantom Wallet - a slimline wallet for holding credit cards. The mechanism opens and closes the wallet uses a 4 state cycle based on an earlier design of a 4 state multi-function gearbox (https://youtu.be/AdWiViLtmdk) that switches between two outputs using the reverse directions of the motor for state changes. That gearbox drives one output at a time in either the forward or reverse direction which was exactly needed for the Fantom Wallet opener. One output drives the opening mechanism and the other output drives the closing mechanism. In the opener the states are driven by the orange rotary catch component and changed by one length 2 liftarm driving another and using a 90 degree stepper.

Hi Everyone. Here I present my second new and improved version of a tank that is driven by a single power functions motor. In this version the gearing mechanism has been optimized and far fewer gears are used to create the four different track direction combinations, namely both forward, both reverse, one forward & one reverse (turn left), and the opposite to turn right. Also the motor has been upgraded to an XL power functions motor instead of the large power functions motor. This gives an extra 0.5 watts of peak power. The tank can be controlled remotely using a single remote channel and driven forwards, backwards, and steered left and right. These functions are implemented by exploiting the direction of rotation of the motor to either drive the tank or select one the four track functions. This is done by a swinging liftarm with a gear that connects the motor output to one of two separate axles - one for driving the tank and one for selecting the track functions. The track functions are built using 2 orange rotary catches to switch a gearbox design that allows both tracks to be selected to drive forwards or backwards or to drive in either of the two opposite directions for steering. The track function selector uses a 90 degree stepper and a knobbed wheel to drive the rotary catches. Enjoy.

Hi Everyone, Here's a tutorial video I did on calculating the gear angle for the correct meshing of the lego gears within a lego design program such as bricklink studio. Three gear meshing examples are worked through - the first one being a straightforward rotation of the second gear in order to mesh with the first gear which is set to zero degrees. In the second example the first gear as an arbitrary angle of rotation and the correct angle calculation of the second gear is demonstrated by using the angle combined with the gearing ratio between the two gears. Each of the first two examples assumed the relative position of the second gear is at a multiple of 90 degrees. In the third example the position of the 2nd gear is at an angle relative to the first and again the correct meshing angle is calculated. All of the examples are working through on the bricklink studio designer program. Hope you find this useful.

Hello Everyone. Here I present a RC tank driven by a single motor. The tank can be controlled remotely using a single remote channel and driven forwards, backwards, and steered left and right. These functions are implemented by using a single large PF motor and exploiting the direction of rotation of the motor to either drive the tank or select one the four track functions. This is done by a swinging liftarm with a gear that connects the motor output to one of two separate axles - one for driving the tank and one for selecting the track functions. The track functions are built using 2 orange rotary catches to switch a gearbox design that allows both tracks to be selected to drive forwards or backwards or to drive in either of the two opposite directions for steering.

This is great - I don't think it's a joke!

Hi @Captainowie, thanks for your reply. Hey yeah wow what you built is awesome - am still trying to figure out how it works...Is it really Pi:2? I didn't think that would be possible but you've done it. Thanks for sharing. What I am going to do next year for Pi Day!!? Also where I live it's mathz.

Hi @m2fel - yes a few other people have commented that one of the official lego sets implemented two functions on 1 motor. Yes torque is no problem - the swinging arm gets pulled towards the gear with higher torque so no never skips. You can stall the motor by holding the output.

Hi there, this multi function gearbox implements two separate functions using just a single motor. It implements the two functions by exploiting the direction of rotation of the motor and implementing one function for the forward direction and a function selector in the reverse direction. The reverse selector can be used to select between between driving one of the two outputs in either the forward or reverse direction. This means you can build a remote controlled car or device that has two functions that can be remotely controlled with just 1 motor and just 1 channel of your remote transmitter and receiver combination.

This Pi Day model demonstrates how to approximate a gearing ratio of Pi by representing Pi as a binary number and using differentials arranged in a chain formation to create the binary representation. Each differential implements 1 binary digit. If the binary digit is zero the differential can be replaced by a gearing ratio of a half to reduce the number of differentials required. This model has 23 binary digits and approximates Pi to 7 significant figures, uses 202 gears and is driven by a median PF motor.