Control+ General Discussion

[Verodin]

Problem is that the PU connectors are patented and TLG has a history of hunting you down if you copy their IP. If anything unofficial shows up it will probably be small scale or they get sued :/

Btw, found this Q&A from 2018: https://lan.lego.com/news/overview/powered-up-afol-community-answers-r146/

It's a bit dated, but after reading it I'm left feeling a bit hopeless. Throughout the Q&A PU for use with Lego Technic seems like an afterthought that has low priority.

[Toastie]

10 hours ago, Gimmick said:

He's from the future!!

Nope, I'm from back to the future.

 

[onzenuub]

43 minutes ago, Verodin said:

Problem is that the PU connectors are patented and TLG has a history of hunting you down if you copy their IP. If anything unofficial shows up it will probably be small scale or they get sued :/

 

So they're gonna sue China?

[AVCampos]

3 hours ago, Verodin said:

This and the slightly bigger motors prevents a lot of the bigger mocs to be build once PF is gone.

The WeDo/Batmobile motor is roughly the same size as PF-M. Unlike the other PUp motors it doesn't have position encoding but neither do the PF motors.

[Verodin]

5 hours ago, onzenuub said:

So they're gonna sue China?

Off course not, but there will be no one selling this in the western world. Meaning I'd have to import from said country. Let's say a single cable costs 2 USD including shipping. Either it gets confiscated by customs or I have to pay handling costs for importing at only 5 times the price of the actual article. Not realistic. And buying bulk is not an option, how many extension cables does one need anyway? Without Sbrick, I've needed only 1 over the years.

4 hours ago, AVCampos said:

The WeDo/Batmobile motor is roughly the same size as PF-M. Unlike the other PUp motors it doesn't have position encoding but neither do the PF motors.

I thought these didn't have any connection holes, but I was wrong. This could work, although the price is only 150% that of the PF M motor and I guessing they are the same inside.

[msk6003]

On 8/8/2020 at 4:42 AM, 2GodBDGlory said:

and we are limited to four outputs per hub, and if you want a smaller hub, you only get two outputs!

Actually, this is most important problem of C+/powered up. other problem(extension wire, rechargeable battery...) can solve if TLG want. BUT those problem is very limited to solve due to based design. I find spike motor is very useful for making monster truck which has motor for each wheel(Like madoca's recently moc) but If you made that, you need terminate steering. cause even technic hub only has 4 port and spike hub is to much expensive. Even if you compromise and use two hubs, the fact that you still need 12 AA batteries(=very heavy) and the fact that you have to create a program to control yourself remains unchanged.(Even if you use brickcontroller2. still need to setup motor for correct control.)

Edited August 11, 2020 by msk6003

[kbalage]

6 hours ago, msk6003 said:

(Even if you use brickcontroller2. still need to setup motor for correct control.)

Unless you use PF IR control which I highly doubt for an advanced MOC (like Madoca's monster truck that you mentioned), every alternative control solution will need a setup process. Btw for an "average" situation where you have 4 drive motors, 1 servo + 1 extra motor/light you can use a Technic hub and a AAA hub, you'll get 6 ports with less weight. I know that the Powered Up solutions cannot replace all the configurations that you can currently solve with 3rd party PF-compatible hardware (BuWizz, SBrick), but you still have the possibility to choose which system fits you the best. 

[hawkwind]

If the port is patented, does that mean that no Buwizz or similar can exist for PU?

[dr_spock]

3 hours ago, hawkwind said:

If the port is patented, does that mean that no Buwizz or similar can exist for PU?

Depends if LEGO licenses the PU port to other parties to use in their products.

 

[Verodin]

Speaking of Madoca MOCs. A future project would be building his 8x8 Tatra profa. Been thinking if this would be possible using PU components. The hubs is probably not a problem, but the PF large motor construction like below is probably not possible with PU. Any thoughts on how to pull this off in a reasonable way?

  

Edited August 13, 2020 by Verodin
image size

[Gimmick]

I think I'm missing something, why would that be not possible with PU?

[msk6003]

51 minutes ago, Verodin said:

Speaking of Madoca MOCs. A future project would be building his 8x8 Tatra profa. Been thinking if this would be possible using PU components. The hubs is probably not a problem, but the PF large motor construction like below is probably not possible with PU. Any thoughts on how to pull this off in a reasonable way?

  

That is impossable by hub's port limit. Even spike hyb has only 6 port. not motor shape.

[AVCampos]

If you use "dumb" PUp motors instead of L, you could rig up a simple cable splitter to stick them all on the same hub port. But you'd have to change the gearing, as I think those are faster and less powerful than PUp L.

[Verodin]

 

33 minutes ago, Gimmick said:

I think I'm missing something, why would that be not possible with PU?

With PF the motors will turn on and off at the same time, because they are stacked. With PU it will always be sequential and might cause excessive stress on each individual motor. 

25 minutes ago, msk6003 said:

That is impossable by hub's port limit. Even spike hyb has only 6 port. not motor shape.

Was thinking 4 motors instead of 6 and see what the performance will be.

Edited August 13, 2020 by Verodin
Typos and assuming a bit too much...

[Gimmick]

21 minutes ago, Verodin said:

With PF the motors will turn on and off at the same time, because they are stacked. With PU it will always be sequential and might cause excessive stress on each individual motor.

Naaaahh.... Split it up twice and use the blocks for two motors.

Even without split it would be fast enough. The PF motors have never the exactly same speed anyway btw.

[dr_spock]

You could make a PU to PF adapter.  You'd fake the PF motors as dumb PU motors using the PU ID pins 5 & 6. 

 

[Verodin]

Considering the 'newness' of PU, I'd prefer not to cut any cables just yet. But I understand it might be the only option at this point in time. Plus I'm not in a hurry, maybe some official 'splitter' becomes available. Haven't even gotten all the parts for the MOC itself, let alone alter motors and gearing. Earliest coming winter when it's cold and dark outside   Can always cut otherwise.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Edited August 13, 2020 by Verodin
not awake and typing stupid things...

[AVCampos]

You can make your own PUp cables without ruining components, some big Chinese online stores already sell PUp-compatible plugs and sockets.

[kbalage]

Or you can simply use 2 Technic hubs, you'll get 8 ports then. 6 PU L motors for drive, replace the 2 PF M for steering with a PU L motor, and you'll still have one port for the 2 speed gearbox.

[AVCampos]

That also has the advantage of splitting the battery drain between two power sources instead of just one.

[Verodin]

31 minutes ago, kbalage said:

Or you can simply use 2 Technic hubs, you'll get 8 ports then. 6 PU L motors for drive, replace the 2 PF M for steering with a PU L motor, and you'll still have one port for the 2 speed gearbox.

That was my original thought since I sources some additional hubs for cheap on bricklink. Running out of sbricks and the 2 hubs on BL costs less that a single sbrick. What worries me is splitting the 6 L motors over 2 hubs. Then it completely depends of software to sync the drive motors. So I'm hoping 4 motors will be enough to drive the truck (with changed gearing). And was thinking gearbox plus some lights on the 2nd hub. We'll see how it goes, so far it's only a growing idea inside my head.

 

27 minutes ago, AVCampos said:

That also has the advantage of splitting the battery drain between two power sources instead of just one.

Yep! But at the cost of added weight ;)

[kbalage]

7 minutes ago, Verodin said:

Then it completely depends of software to sync the drive motors.

With 2 SBricks you would also rely on software to "sync the motors". I don't really see why would it be a major problem if they don't start at the exact same moment. PF motors rarely have the exact same speed to there's always some stress between hard coupled motors anyway and they survive without issues. 

8 minutes ago, Verodin said:

Yep! But at the cost of added weight ;)

Because it is a lightweight model anyway and every gram counts ;) 

[JaBaCaDaBra]

2 hours ago, AVCampos said:

sell PUp-compatible plugs and sockets.

But no crimptool

[Verodin]

1 hour ago, kbalage said:

With 2 SBricks you would also rely on software to "sync the motors". I don't really see why would it be a major problem if they don't start at the exact same moment.

I have to disagree there (or we misunderstand eachother). Because with an sbrick you can stack, and thus all 3 motors per side will get power at the same time when changing 1 channel. 1 side per hub would (+1 spare channel per hub) works, but you'd still have to activate 3 channels at once. It is definitely doable, but I prefer to keep things as simple as possible.

1 hour ago, kbalage said:

Because it is a lightweight model anyway and every gram counts ;) 

But... but... but... ah bah, I concede 

[kbalage]

3 minutes ago, Verodin said:

I have to disagree there (or we misunderstand eachother). Because with an sbrick you can stack, and thus all 3 motors per side will get power at the same time when changing 1 channel. 1 side per hub would (+1 spare channel per hub) works, but you'd still have to activate 3 channels at once. It is definitely doable, but I prefer to keep things as simple as possible.

You can stack 3 motors, but I thought you will use the available ports on the SBrick. I always try to balance the outputs and don't stack all motors on a single port if there are free ports available. Activating multiple ports for PU is not magic btw, you can use parallel code sequences being executed the exact same time.