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Showing results for tags 'Power functions'.
Found 11 results
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Hi, I am building a tracked all terrain vehicle, wondering if anyone knows about suspension for tracked vehicles. I also need to know how to upload pictures. -
After my fork rake and the tractor I present you the AROCS SCV:pRC - Specialized Construction Vehicle: partially Remote Controlled Today I would like to present my modification of the Lego 42043 MB AROCS to you. Yes, the setup is unusual for a typical construction truck. I decided to choose this setup because I like the crane setup from the old 8868 truck. The room between the specialized setup, which is inspired by the 8868 crane cabin, got filled with a side tipping bed. I moved the original tipping bed to the trailer. But first, let me tell you what functions it has inside and which of them can be controlled by RC. 1) RC package, supplied by one AA battery box: Driving (XL-Motor, RC) Steering (Servo, RC) Supporting stand (L-Motor, 2 small linear actuators RC) Tipping (L-Motor, 1 big linear actuator for each tipping bed, RC, switching between the two tipping beds possible through gearbox) The RC functions are limited to functions needed while driving the truck or getting ready for working with the clamshell. Because of the heavy weight of this model and the strong XL-Motor I had to replace the cv-joint with a cardan joint. 2) Clamshell package, supplied by one AA battery box: Compressor (shares the M-Motor with the rotation) Rotation (shares the M-Motor with the compressor) The rotation of the clamshell setup can be changed or stopped through the red lever, which you can see on the right side, slightly under the cabin. If you switch on the battery box the M-Motor will run permanently and so will the compressor do. Only the rotation can be turned off through the gearbox. All functions of the clamshell setup are integrated, so there is no cable or tube running through the turntable to the truck. There is no limited turning radius. More pictures are available at my brickshelf album. Please use the thumbnails below, because the brickshelf album is not yet public.
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Hey Ya'all, I am new here, so I sincerely hope that there is not already a thread for this. I see there is a thread for 8110 improvements, but this post only partially applied to it so I am beignning a new one. I built a mechanism for electrically controlling the air valve for Lego Pneumatics. Take a look and comment! Glad to be part of the community! http://mocpages.com/moc.php/393479 -
After toying with the idea of customising the 8879 speed controller for a while, I'd like to hear what others have been thinking too. After reading here; http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=51632&hl=+power%20+functions%20+proportional%20+control#entry1325243 I finally understand why the speed control remote behaves the way it does. In the past I have put together some code on an arduino to independently control each channel of a receiver. If I can find the vid I'll post it. I'm thinking it would be possible to reconfigure (replace) the internals of the controller and keep the external appearance exactly the same. The main functions I want to achieve: - Not do it if someone else already has. I've seen complete 3rd party but not a LEGO retro fit. - Send absolute speed control rather than relative. Jog wheels on the remote will have a mechanical upper and lower limit. - Implement a coast then brake for the stop button. i.e when you press the stop button it floats the output, and when you release it the break command is sent. In practice a short press will apply the break, but a long press will allow the motor to Coast down as much as you want. - Stop sending each time you switch channels. Automatically start sending again after the dial has been returned to 0. - power down when both stop buttons are pressed for 3 seconds. - have a train compatibility mode selectable via switch inside (or maybe button sequence). In train mode, the commands do not time out. If you dial in a negative speed the commanded speed will slowly reduce, similarly for positive speed. The higher the dial setting the faster it will ramp up or down. This way you won't need a continuously rotatable dial. Changing channels stops the output until the dial is put back to 0. Any other suggestions? Anybody know if it's already been done in this kind of way? Cheers. -
I would like to know what everyone thinks about power functions and 9 volt systems. What is better PF or 9V. Or are they the same. Thx
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Hello everybody, here are my latest creations, two (almost similar) Swedish T44 Diesel locomotives. Base measures 8wide x L32studs, and body contains: -A medium PF motor in the rear compartment, that powers a decoupling system in rear boggie. -IR receiver in drivers cab. -Std PF battery box in the front compartment. -A std PF train motor takes care of propulsion. One channel on PF controller is used for decoupling, and the other channel is used for running the PF train motor. Coulor scheme is the former standard of SJ (Swedish state railways) as: Orange / White stripe / DkBlue top. T44 is (still) the most common freight diesel locomotive in Sweden and was originally built in 123 units. I made two units with same mechanics but slightly different detailing. I made several different designs for remote decoupling, but this one is more or less borrowed from Baard, which in turn was inspired by my previous attempts. The mini LA (linear actuator) moves the magnet in and out, thus separating the loco magnet from wagon magnet for a remote controlled shunting. Any comments are welcome as usual.
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An order from Lego came in today, and I equipped my 42006 with 8293 and put two L-motors controlling the treads. Remote Control will come later. My question is: If you turn a PF motor manually, will that damage it? -
I apologize if this has foung the forum before, I searched for "minds-i" and although a billion posts came up none that I could find had anything to do with what I am about to post. ANyways, I found this site and was astounded with the similarity of this company's product with TLG. How are they getting away with this? Has anyone on the forum any experience with these products? Good? Bad? Are they an alternative to Technic and PF? http://mindsirobotics.com/
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I have a few older 12v motors which I'm thinking of running via a custom PF cable. In principle this is not a problem - assuming PWM at 9v then it means the 12v motor will never reach it's maximum RPM. However I'm wondering what would be the effect of supplying the IR receiver with a higher voltage (say 11v lipo). 1. Does the IR receiver still limit the maximum PWM output to 9v? 2. Is the IR receiver likely to blow or have a shorter lifetime at these slightly higher voltages? Note all my IR receivers are the v1 type - I know that v2 would allow more power to be drawn from the batteries - and hence might handle 12v motors better. But since I don't expect to power two 12v motors from one battery pack I'm not too worried Thanks for any hints or tips
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Performing this modification will allow you to draw more current from your battery box. I tested the maximum current before the modification at 0.3A and the maximum current after at 6A. I have often found the over current protection built into the power functions battery boxes to be set a bit too low, for example, it is very limiting when using RC buggy motors. I opened up a battery box to see how easy the over-current protection would be to bypass, and it turned out to be very easy. My method is shown below: (Warning: performing the following modification will void the warranty of your battery box. Do not draw high currents for long periods of time because it may lead to overheating.) (I will not be responsible if you try it and break something) 1) Open up the battery box to gain access to the circuit board Remove the screws, then use a screwdriver to begin to pry out the battery holder, once it is about 5mm out, push in the plug on the top, and then fully remove the battery holder. 2) Prepare the electronics tools for bypassing the over current protection You will need: A soldering iron, solder, wire cutters, wire strippers and tweezers. A helping hands tool is optional but it helps. 3)Bypass the over-current protection This step is much simpler than it sounds, all you need to do is solder a wire over the polyfuse on the circuit board. First you need to locate the polyfuse, as shown in the image below The polyfuse rapidly increases in resistance when a high current passes through it. This is how the over-current protection works: when a high current passes through the polyfuse, the increase in resistance causes the current to drop back down again. To bypass the polyfuse, all you need to do is solder a wire across it. First you need to tin the wire so it can be soldered more easily. With some solder on the tip of your iron, heat up the wire from the back. Apply solder to the wire from the front and you will see the stands of wire absorb some of the solder. Now tin the other end of the wire and move onto the next step. Now all you need to do is solder the wire over the polyfuse. Use tweezers to hold the tinned end of the wire on one side of the polyfuse, then heat it up with the soldering iron to reflow the solder joint. Repeat this with the other end of the wire to achieve a result like in the picture below: 4) Reassemble the battery box and you are done! Notes: Do not embark on this project if you do not trust your soldering skills, soldering irons get very hot and could easily burn you. If the switch does not move after the battery box is reassembled, open it up again, remove the piece of wire, and replace it with a thinner one so that is does not jam against the switch. -
I am getting close to the end of this long term build and it's time to share some pictures and a bit of the story. Even before I had finished putting together 10231, I decided I wanted a Crawler to go with it. Being a Technic fan it had to at least drive around and lift the launch platform and shuttle. Those two basic goals spawned a project that has lasted a little over 2 years so far. Some ideas have stuck around since their inception, others were a bit optimistic (like building a peristaltic pump and hoping I could find a way to control the pneumatics hydraulically). February this year marked the 50th anniversary of when the two crawlers went into service, so recently there has been extra motivation to finish. The base equipment; - 16x M-motors (drive) - 4x L-motors (pneumatic jacking and leveling) - 4x IR Receivers (V1 as the V2s do not like driving multiple m-motors on a single channel) - 4x NXT servo motors (steering) - 4x RCX rotation sensors (measuring jacking level between truck and chassis) - 2x NXT bricks (one master and one slave. The master communicates with the Android Tablet and coordinates itself with the slave. Programmed in LeJOS) - 1x PF IR-Link sensor (link between master NXT and all PF motors) - 2x PF Battery boxes (with thermal overload removed) - 1x Android Tablet Future add-ons - Accelerometer (automatically detect the crawler is on a gradient and adjust the leveling to suit) Bricksafe folder is here: http://www.bricksafe.com/pages/OzShan/Crawler Firstly, a couple of my favorite reference pictures; The build itself started with the trucks, thinking that the pneumatics and LAs would dictate the scale. First proof of concept - build a coupling to give height, pitch, roll and yaw to the truck. The pneumatics need to be on their own gimbals too. The reinforced 2x2 rounds slide and rotate in the 4x4 macaroni's. It is on the limit of what will hold together without glue, but it does hold. The two 1x2 technic bricks at the base of the 2x2 column are helped a little by a string (not pictured) which runs up through the 2x2 rounds with the axle. Initial prototype of the drivetrain. I would have liked a higher ratio but there was just no room at this scale. When the gearbox was married with the truck chassis I had to juggle positions, so you will see in later pics the crown gears are facing in not out Best laid plans.... Marry studded and studless they said. It will be easy they said... Showing what will eventually be the steering between chassis and truck. The guide tube and pneumatic cylinders are all on gimbals with the pneumatics coupled together. The average height is preserved during any tilting. With prototypes sorted, it's time to bricklink some parts and quieten down the colour scheme! (thank you 42030 for providing 5L thin liftarms with axle hole in LBG color) You can see the relationship between "guide tube" and cylinders here. The pneumatic system was overhauled too many times to remember but this is what it arrived at. It is all controlled by the direction of the motor. Running forwards drives the pump. When running backwards, the lobes operate the pneumatic valves in series, letting small amounts of air escape each rotation. This lowers the chassis in a slow and controlled manner. The motor can be turned on or off and run in either direction at any time due to the valve timing. Early attempts with PF Servo and NXT servo just couldn't park the valve reliably and after a few operations I would hear a slow leak. I have been trying to keep up with the LDD but it's hard to stay motivated when I know I'm just going to have to suck it up and move over to LDraw if I want to include all the motors, pneumatics and LAs Works so far; (I'll make the files available if anybody would like them). I found LDD essential in the early days to plan ahead and simply find parts, but later on the build overtook it. Original 'box' pump. 1x PF XL motor, 4x 6L pumps running at 90 deg to each other. Very smooth but bulky. Flatter attempt in the same vein. The truck itself. The final design for the height control modules. I hope you enjoy the build so far. More pictures to come of chassis, steering, leveling and interior details. I'll leave it to others to decide what 'theme' it belongs to .
