Lego 10277 - Crocodile Locomotive

[Toastie]

56 minutes ago, JaBaCaDaBra said:

nada, only the Technic L works.

That is because the App is built that way, right?

I mean, the - oh man forgot the name - the 2IO Hub, the one supposed to go into the croc, detects the motor attached, i.e., it returns the "ID", right? Well it does, as far as I can tell from my software, which is crappy, but on the almost hardware-level tells me what is going on.

When that is the case ... hmmm ... I find the TLG croc app - CrAppY. That is not right. It may flag a warning that the hardware set-up may have issues, but not working - phew. That would be a new level of ... some call protection, others restriction. Or even worse.

Well I don't do the "App(s)"  - so just my 2 cents.

Best
Thorsten

 

 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Toastie

[samsz_3]

Had a look through the instructions online. The contrast seems fine when its on a back-lit computer display with good colours, although I don't know how it'll look in person. Early reviews said it was quite hard to see which is a shame for anyone with visual difficulties, colour blindness, dyslexia etc. I get LEGO is trying to make this seem very premium and appealing to non AFOL adults, but a little bit of thought about accessibility would have gone a long way. Also the haunted house instructions are on normal grey so I'm not sure what gives here...

[Toastie]

6 minutes ago, ps1flyer said:

f you need the file for your modifications or whatsoever:

Thanks a million, @ps1flyer!!! Really appreciate that.

Best wishes,
Thorsten

[Mr Hobbles]

45 minutes ago, Toastie said:

I mean, the - oh man forgot the name - the 2IO Hub, the one supposed to go into the croc, detects the motor attached, i.e., it returns the "ID", right? Well it does, as far as I can tell from my software, which is crappy, but on the almost hardware-level tells me what is going on.

 

That seems to me to be exactly what's going on. I can only assume it does it this way so it can autodetect the port the motor is attached to, rather than them fixing the port. They look for _any_ port that has that motor attached to it.

[Duq]

The more I find out about Powered UP the less I like it...

[dr_spock]

3 hours ago, JaBaCaDaBra said:

In the mean time I played around with the updated app.

Yes, speedcontrol now, perfect.
But this works ONLY with the technic L motor

I tried all other motors
Spike large and small
Technic XL
WeDo

nada, only the Technic L works.
And with that I mean that other motors do nothing at all.

It is the same with the Haunted House.  It only works with the PU motors specified in the set.  Would it be possible to fake the ID of the Technic L motor? 

[M_slug357]

Can we still spoof motor id’s by including some resistors? Or has the system evolved......?

[Polarlicht]

What happens to the gwp sets when the main set is on backorder.? Do they get shipped indipendentfrom the main set???

[Mr Hobbles]

33 minutes ago, M_slug357 said:

Can we still spoof motor id’s by including some resistors? Or has the system evolved......?

Only the train motor and basic motor (dumb devices) use resistors for identification. The rest are “smart” devices that use a UART serial protocol to exchange information.

16 minutes ago, Coolusername said:

What happens to the gwp sets when the main set is on backorder.? Do they get shipped indipendentfrom the main set???

They typically have for me, I’ve received packages with GWP’s alone. Here in the US at least.

[Lok24]

3 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

Only the train motor and basic motor (dumb devices) use resistors for identification. The rest are “smart” devices that use a UART serial protocol to exchange information.

 

Yes, I tried that immediatly after download, really sad, it would have been a nice app for train motors as well.

[Toastie]

2 minutes ago, Lok24 said:

Yes, I tried that immediatly after download, really sad, it would have been a nice app for train motors as well.

I read somewhere in this thread (was that from @Mr Hobbles?) that all goes very smooth with the new app. Surely a more powerful (in terms of torque at e.g. low speed settings) motor as the new L version helps in that regard, but is there more? Does the BLE traffic indicate some sort of feedback control of the actual RPM of the motor? And then the app regulates rather than sets the speed?

Well on the other hand ... the Haunted House surely does not need such control, right?

If it were for the feedback control: Good. If not: Bad.

Best
Thorsten

[zephyr1934]

8 hours ago, ps1flyer said:

I've finished building the Crocodile in stud.io e.g. for rendering and MOD purposes, based on the now published instructions.

If you need the file for your modifications or whatsoever:    https://www.dropbox.com/s/mbvaqj8t9mz4hnj/10277.io?dl=0

 

Thank you thank you. For my own  build I've gone through and incorporated much of Dirk1313's MODs, while adding some of my own small improvements that I mentioned in the MOD thread.

[Toastie]

9 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

They look for _any_ port that has that motor attached to it.

The app looks for the corresponding "attached IO event" message that the hub fires either upon turning it on or upon - well - attaching the motor, right? And that message contains the I/O device type be it sensor or actor? This is how I find out what the config on the hub is. Or has that method changed? Sorry for asking, but has been a long time since looking into the code or any BLE protocol updates ...

Best
Thorsten

Wow, that - was - quick:

Lieber Paketempfänger,

Ihre Sendung 05308078153702 von LEGO Shop stellen wir voraussichtlich

heute zwischen 09:00 und 10:00 Uhr zu

It better be before 10 -  at 10 I have a lecture (Chemical Kinetics - just if someone is interested - we do parallel and consecutive elementary reactions today ...). If not, I'll cancel that lecture and wait at the front door ... no I won't. Well who knows ...

Have all a nice day!
Thorsten

Update: It arrived 9:40 local time. Ordered July 1st 0:04 am, arrived July 2nd 9:39 am = 33h 35m. I am impressed. 

Edited July 2, 2020 by Toastie

[Mr Hobbles]

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

The app looks for the corresponding "attached IO event" message that the hub fires either upon turning it on or upon - well - attaching the motor, right? And that message contains the I/O device type be it sensor or actor? This is how I find out what the config on the hub is. Or has that method changed? Sorry for asking, but has been a long time since looking into the code or any BLE protocol updates ...

Yep, that’s all correct. :) I imagine it looking for attach messages with a device ID matching that of the Technic L motor. So it doesn’t care what port it’s on.

Edited July 2, 2020 by Mr Hobbles

[Tcm0]

I'm wondering a bit why you are complaining about the official layout. You can always use the city control layout in the "free programming mode" to control trains.

[Mr Hobbles]

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

I read somewhere in this thread (was that from @Mr Hobbles?) that all goes very smooth with the new app. Surely a more powerful (in terms of torque at e.g. low speed settings) motor as the new L version helps in that regard, but is there more? Does the BLE traffic indicate some sort of feedback control of the actual RPM of the motor? And then the app regulates rather than sets the speed?

Yeah, actually that’s possible without any BLE feedback. The Technic/SPIKE/Boost motors are capable of their own speed regulation, watching rotations and increasing/decreasing its own power usage appropriately.

I don’t think that’s what’s happening here however. Really low speeds cause the motor to buzz rather than move, suggesting non regulation of power to maintaining speed. So its likely just the good old fashioned power mode rather than speed.

Really it’s not doing anything different than the train motor here. The train motor is also capable of 100 speed increments, but LEGO chooses not to use them, instead increasing in increments of 10. Here though they’ve seemingly opted for increments of 1.

2 minutes ago, Tcm0 said:

I'm wondering a bit why you are complaining about the official layout. You can always use the city control layout in the "free programming mode" to control trains.

It’s true, this one is just a bit nicer. :) Personally I’ll still be using the handheld physical remote with the app.

[Tcm0]

3 minutes ago, Mr Hobbles said:

It’s true, this one is just a bit nicer. :) Personally I’ll still be using the handheld physical remote with the app.

I prefer the physical remote, too  :D

Anyways. I think that there will come a profile designer in the future. So that might solve the issues of looking not so nice.

[ps1flyer]

Wow, that was fast. Ordered yesterday at midnight and now the parcel is here, was just delivered to my house. 

But I guess I have to be fair and wait for the kids to arrive back from school (and get my work finished) before starting the assembly.

[JaBaCaDaBra]

7 hours ago, dr_spock said:

It is the same with the Haunted House.  It only works with the PU motors specified in the set.  Would it be possible to fake the ID of the Technic L motor? 

Okay, next try. (I had nothing better to do at the time)
Connect an L motor to port A : Works.
Change to port B : Works
Connect a second motor to port A : Motor B runs.
Disconnect Motor B : Now motor A runs.

[BillytheKid]

9 hours ago, Duq said:

The more I find out about Powered UP the less I like it...

Have you tried it already?

I bought only the locomotive of set 60198 just to found out more about the PUP-system. I'm positive surprised about the PUP-system. Quiet & easy to control. Only the batt .

Edited July 2, 2020 by BillytheKid

[Polarlicht]

Congrats to people who got it already.

Disgusting thing is that sets already popped up on ebay for way more than a 100 bucks. People order it just to sell it for profit, and we who really want it didn't get a chance.

They call it "limited edition" or unwanted present... what a bunch of liars

Don't buy those ebay sets!

Edited July 2, 2020 by Coolusername

[Duq]

Like people in America who bought every bottle of hand sanitiser in their county and then sold them on Amazon for a profit.

It's called a free market. Sometimes that means competition will get you things cheaper, sometimes you're ripped off.

 

@BillytheKid Yes, I have the cargo train and two Technic cars. The apps are too specific for a single model, for driving cars I much prefer joysticks because sliding my fingers on a screen gives no feedback, the fact that you can't stack the connectors and have multiple motors on a single output is limiting...

[JaBaCaDaBra]

33 minutes ago, BillytheKid said:

Only the batt

Indeed the only real bad side.
But for the Technic hub there might come a Lithium battery.

 

15 minutes ago, Duq said:

prefer joysticks

Therefore we have Brickcontroller 2

[Lok24]

1 hour ago, Duq said:

 The apps are too specific for a single model,

There is no app for a specific model. 

There are different operating interfaces for specific sets . They are just offers, feel free to use other facicilties of the apps or use any other soft- or hardware to control your models. It's your choice.

Edited July 2, 2020 by Lok24

[Polarlicht]

Shipping date goes back and forth now. It was 20 august this morning, now back to 15 september. They have no idea what to do