Powered Up - A tear down...

[Lok24]

how true!

*sigh*

[zephyr1934]

18 hours ago, MajorAlvega said:

Sorry, I'm locked home with wife and kids... if I build a train track in the leaving room my wife kills me :D

You just need the kids to suggest the idea and then you reluctantly offer to comply

[MajorAlvega]

22 minutes ago, zephyr1934 said:

You just need the kids to suggest the idea and then you reluctantly offer to comply

My wife knows me much much better than that ;)

[SD100]

Is anyone still able to get a controller to connect with multiple hubs without the app running? My two hubs are up to date as of yesterday but I'm having nothing but trouble with them. After coding @Elphiel's program shown two pages ago, one of the hubs stopped connecting to that device. So now I'm trying to recode it on my cell phone but I was hoping I could still just pair the controller with the two hubs and skip that step.

And @Elphiel if you're still out there, what is the reason for the variable in the bottom left corner? The program seems to act the same with or without it. Thanks for the screenshot too, cause I have no idea what I'm doing with this thing.

Even with the app working the performance was all over the place. Sometimes the power would step properly and sometimes it just went from 0 to 100 or vice versa. Any ideas?

SD

[Elphiel]

Bottom left is the program start. I wanted the first thing the program does is initiate a variable with the start value of 0. Perhaps something leftover from my IT education.
All other parts of the program only start on a specific trigger and don't set a variable, but modify one based on the previous value. I felt that I should set the variables start value before I start to modify it. Like: { X will be X +1 / If X was 0 the result would be 1 as intendet / but if X was 56 for whatever leftover reason the result would be 57, what i did not intended} So without initiating a variable with a start calue, it would modifiy the variable with whatever value had before (Because it could be pretty much anything) So this could be the reason, why you got results like "Sometimes the power would step properly and sometimes it just went from 0 to 100 or vice versa." Because you start the program. click on button and it adds 10 to say a value of 90 that was left over in the variable. Then the first + click will bring the train up to max speed from nothing. By starting the whole program setting the variable to 0, you avoid weird behavior.

About the normal connection without the App. Its still working but i had the same problem you ahd some days ago with my nephew on a visit. I wanted the two remote controling the three trains I have like before but it took me some atemts to get the second hup connected to the same controller. In the end I managed it with some kind of reset of the hub and controller. I believe it was something about holding the button 5 seconds.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Elphiel

[GianCann]

In the next wave of Technic sets there is present a new Powered Up "Battery Box" (see on the left side of the image)

A first image of this component was presented last year, during the RLFM days (note the difference with the Control+ HUB, on the right side of the image)

Seems to have only two I/O port and I think it's no needed to use with App.

It's a stand-alone battery box?
It's have two motor inside like the Boost HUB?

[Lok24]

3 minutes ago, GianCann said:

In the next wave of Technic sets there is present a new Powered Up "Battery Box"

Very interesting, thanks. Where did you get this information from?

[Gimmick]

28 minutes ago, Lok24 said:

Very interesting, thanks. Where did you get this information from?

The 42113 is powered by the simple battery box.

 

[JopieK]

I'm not sure those are actual renders of actual parts. You can see that with the Duplo base, it is much more rounded in the actual version. Also Spike can be used in a stand-alone mode, but also in a network. We'll see :)

[dr_spock]

It looks like that presentation slide has a date of May 22, 2019 on the lower right hand corner.  Is the information still current?

 

[GianCann]

1 minute ago, dr_spock said:

Is the information still current?

Yes ;)

[Mr Hobbles]

From the more recent leaked pictures, it doesn’t look exactly like it does in those (old) slides, but it’s close. It looks more like a Control+ hub without Bluetooth and only two ports instead of four. But as noted, these are just illustrations - we haven’t seen the physical item yet. :)

The leaked pictures suggest the Technic set 42113 Boeing Osprey will be the first to have this hub/battery box, with a single motor included.

[Tcm0]

I think that somewhere it was said that the control+ battery box will have 2 powered up plugs.

[Lok24]

@dr_spock

Hi, just found that image

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=6640742
Looks interesting, what type of connectors are those white parts?

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Lok24

[GianCann]

Interesting...

An 3D printed custom connector?

[AVCampos]

It's also possible that those are custom wires connected to a PUp-compatible plug bought from China. Yes, those are already for sale.

[GianCann]

Something like this ;)

[f2k]

13 hours ago, GianCann said:

Something like this ;)

[Snip images]

Where did you get that female connector from?

[GianCann]

I initially unsoldered two connectors from a HUB.

After that, I bought a batch of 10 pieces from China

[f2k]

Just now, GianCann said:

I initially unsoldered two connectors from a HUB.

After that, I bought a batch of 10 pieces from China

I was thinking about unsoldering some myself. But I figured that would get pretty expensive in the long run. 

Can I ask where you bought them from? The only place I have seen are selling in batches of 1000 pieces, and that's quite a lot more than I need right now.

[GianCann]

There is other work to do, but this is a good starting point 
(the PCB used in this image is not designed for this purpose... I have used this only for a test)

[henrysunset]

I have a related question for this group...  I am exploring adding all of the Powered-up compatible components to my popular LEGO Brick Labels collection.  In order to make these labels great, I need to better understand the differences between the five Powered Up motors currently available.

 

Current Powered-Up Motors:

• bb0959c01 / 22169 - Motor, L. Control
• bb0960c01 / 22172 - Motor, XL. Control
• 21980 - Motor, Med. Basic
• bb0893c01 / 26913 - Motor, Med. Interactive (Boost)
• 54675 - Motor, L. Interactive (Spike)

 

I believe that these motors differ in the following ways:

• Some motors have only one speed vs. some motors have electronically-controlled variable speed.
• Not clear: Some motors send information about the current angle back to the hub / or they allow the hub to precisely specify which angle to rotate to.
• Not clear: Do some of the motors send information about mechanical resistance back to the hub? (This would be different information than the angular info.)

 

My best guess is that:

• bb0959c01 / 22169 - Motor, L. Control - Electrically control speed, but no control / info about angle?
• bb0960c01 / 22172 - Motor, XL. Control - Electrically control speed, but no control / info about angle?
• 21980 - Motor, Med. - No control of speed and no info about angle (just on/off)
• bb0893c01 / 26913 - Motor, Boost Interactive - Electrically control speed, and control / info about angle?
• 54675 - Motor, Large Angular (Spike) - Electrically control speed, and control / info about angle?

 

If that is the case, I would be inclined to describe the simplest motor as "Basic", then "Control", then "Interactive".  Is that a good characterization?

 

Sincerely,

—Tom

 

P.S. a preview of the motor labels are attached to this message.

[GianCann]

Just now, henrysunset said:

Some motors have only one speed vs. some motors have electronically-controlled variable speed.

No. All motors have variable speed. Someone has an optical sensor to get/set relative/absolute position (so, you can control "by turn" or "by angle")

All info about LEGO Motors:

https://www.philohome.com/motors/motorcomp.htm

[kbalage]

There are 3 types of motors:

• Simple motors - only power control, no interactive functions - "21980 - Motor, Med. "
• Tacho motors - speed / power control and relative position reporting, that means it can tell you where it is compared to the relative zero which is by default the position where it was turned on - bb0893c01 / "26913 - Motor, Boost Interactive" and the internal motors of the Move hub (Boost)
• Smart motors - speed / power control and absolute position reporting, the motor has a mechanical zero position that can be used e.g. for return to center steering simulation - "bb0959c01 / 22169 - Motor, L. Control", "bb0960c01 / 22172 - Motor, XL. Control", "54675 - Motor, Large Angular (Spike)" and also the 54696 Spike Prime medium motor. The Spike Prime motors have markings with the zero position, the Technic L & XL motors don't have the zero marked.

 

[Mr Hobbles]

21 minutes ago, henrysunset said:

Current Powered-Up Motors:

• bb0959c01 / 22169 - Motor, L. Control
• bb0960c01 / 22172 - Motor, XL. Control
• 21980 - Motor, Med. Basic
•  bb0893c01 / 26913 - Motor, Med. Interactive (Boost)
•  54675 - Motor, L. Interactive (Spike)

  

I believe that these motors differ in the following ways:

• Some motors have only one speed vs. some motors have electronically-controlled variable speed.
•  Not clear: Some motors send information about the current angle back to the hub / or they allow the hub to precisely specify which angle to rotate to.
• Not clear: Do some of the motors send information about mechanical resistance back to the hub? (This would be different information than the angular info.)

You missed the Spike medium motor and train motor. :)

The naming of the motors are the confusing - "Control" doesn't mean anything with relation to the functionality, its referring to the brand name Control+. The consumer names and numbering for the motors are (as seen on Shop@Home and the SPIKE Prime website):

Group 1 (Simple)

* Simple Medium Linear Motor (45303)
* Train Motor (88011)

Group 2 (Simple / Interactive / Tacho)

* Medium Linear Motor (88008)

Group 3a (Simple / Interactive / Tacho / Absolute)

* Technic Large Motor (88013)
* Technic XLarge Motor (88014)

Group 3b (Simple / Interactive / Tacho / Absolute)

* Technic Medium Angular Motor (45603)
* Technic Large Angular Motor (45602)

I've split them into these three groups deliberately.

The 1st group, with the simple medium linear motor and train motor, are what can be considered "simple" motors - most relateable to the Power Functions equivalents. They (like all the rest) offer variable speed control from zero to max.

Groups 2 and 3 are what Lego class as "interactive" motors. They offer the same variable speed control as the simple motors, but allow the motors to feed back to the controlling device how far they've rotated, allowing finer control over how far they rotate.  They also allow you to specify that you only want to to rotate a certain number of degrees then stop. Finally, they also offer "speed" based control as well as simple power. The simple motors in group 1 will decrease in speed as the power level goes down, ie due to battery discharge. The group 2 and 3 motors allow you to specify speed, so as battery level goes down, the motor will take more power to maintain the speed (as much as possible).

Group 3's primary difference over group zero is that they provide an "absolute zero". This is a location that you can tell the motor to go to, ie ("go back to zero", or "go to 85 degrees"). Group 2 doesn't provide an absolute zero - zero is where the motor is positioned when initialized.

Finally, group 3b is the same as group 3a, but the motor axle is at an angle to the motor, as opposed to straight out the end. It also has the "absolute zero" position marked in black paint on the body, whereas group 3a's isn't marked.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Mr Hobbles