[PUp App] Bug, Limitation or Other?

[Hod Carrier]

4 hours ago, kbalage said:

That's complete BS. Unfortunately LEGO Customer Service has very limited knowledge about Powered Up hardware and software, which is no surprise since they are not properly documented (not even for internal use). There are still several bugs in the PU app, some of them exists since the introduction of the system. You either live with them and try to find a workaround, or you can switch to a platform like Pybricks that has way more agile developers. 

Totally agree. I'm starting to think that, for some applications at least, Powered Up is a wash-out.

My suspicion is that it is the 2 I/O Hub that's at the root of the issue rather than the motor or the app. Can anyone confirm whether it's possible to successfully use the Tacho motor functions using the 4 I/O Hub?

[Ngoc Nguyen]

Reject C+, return to PF 

[Lok24]

15 minutes ago, Hod Carrier said:

Totally agree. I'm starting to think that, for some applications at least, Powered Up is a wash-out.

My suspicion is that it is the 2 I/O Hub that's at the root of the issue rather than the motor or the app. Can anyone confirm whether it's possible to successfully use the Tacho motor functions using the 4 I/O Hub?

This was written here last year(?): Its only the city hub, with the technic hub it does work.

[Hod Carrier]

17 minutes ago, Lok24 said:

This was written here last year(?): Its only the city hub, with the technic hub it does work.

Yup, but I just wanted an update given that my initial contact with TLG was 12 months ago.

[Toastie]

30 minutes ago, Hod Carrier said:

Yup, but I just wanted an update given that my initial contact with TLG was 12 months ago.

And I do appreciate that very much! I believe we should know how TLG is handling their very own software applications: Worse than apprentices. And how their always praised customer support is informed, when it comes to non-100%-plastic pieces. It tells a lot about their status of electronic hardware and software development.

BTW: The City hub is not the source of the erroneous behavior: With an ESP32 and Cornelius' Legoino installed, controlling speed, i.e. using the tacho of all PUp motors, everything runs flawlessly. You can set the #degress of rotation, you can use speed settings as often and fast as you want: Works. I have retrofitted a 10-wide BR89 with a PUp L-motor and the City hub, and it is beautiful to watch her going through curves and straights without notably changing speed. The same holds true for this turntable., operated by a City hub and PUp L-motor.

It is the PoweredUp app, not the City hub's firmware.

Best,
Thorsten

[Lok24]

5 minutes ago, Toastie said:

It is the PoweredUp app, not the City hub's firmware. 

Or the communication between them  

I don't think that this will be fixed, thats why I stopped using Powered Up long time ago: doesn't work properly.

 

 

[Hod Carrier]

10 minutes ago, Toastie said:

BTW: The City hub is not the source of the erroneous behavior: With an ESP32 and Cornelius' Legoino installed, controlling speed, i.e. using the tacho of all PUp motors, everything runs flawlessly. You can set the #degress of rotation, you can use speed settings as often and fast as you want: Works. I have retrofitted a 10-wide BR89 with a PUp L-motor and the City hub, and it is beautiful to watch her going through curves and straights without notably changing speed. The same holds true for this turntable., operated by a City hub and PUp L-motor.

It is the PoweredUp app, not the City hub's firmware.

Forgive my ignorance, but are you describing the "stock" set-up or a modification? This is not an area of strength for me.

[Toastie]

2 minutes ago, Lok24 said:

Or the communication between them

True.

Well, I am using PUp all over the place - with ESP32s/C++(ArduinoIDE)/Legoino. So far I didn't have any issue. The good thing is, that Cornelius is still actively working on Legoino on Github - each time some weirdos  bring up issues (rarely the case!), he fixes it - usually during his vacation time or on holidays ... also his library is written in superb C++ code.

Best,
Thorsten 

3 minutes ago, Hod Carrier said:

"stock" set-up or a modification?

For exactly what?

[Lok24]

The motors and the City hub work fine with software other than the Powered Up App.

[Hod Carrier]

3 minutes ago, Toastie said:

For exactly what?

For the Hub.

1 minute ago, Lok24 said:

The motors and the City hub work fine with software other than the Powered Up App.

OK. Well given that it works OK with the Technic Hub can we assume that the app is fine and that the issue lies somewhere in the City Hub's firmware? This is presumably something that TLG could address via a software release if they wanted to.

Alternatively, I would be content for TLG to simply admit that some functionality is not supported by certain items and make that information freely available. The lack of documentation is ridiculous and if it wasn't for @kbalage's website I would never have even dared to venture into the world of PUp coding.

[Toastie]

14 minutes ago, Hod Carrier said:

For the Hub.

The City hub is as is: Current LEGO firmware installed.

As @Lok24 said: It may be the PUp app or the communication between app and hub. However, I doubt that the cause is the (original) hub's firmware, as the (original) firmware works flawlessly with Legoino. Legoino is calling up all the stuff that was documented years ago in the LWP3.0 protocol files on GitHub.

With Pybricks I believe more is going on regarding hub firmware changes, others will know much better (I have not used Pybricks, as Legoino with the original hub firmware does all I want).

So yes, all PUp components are untouched

And sure: TLG could very well address these issues- to be honest, I believe they have to, as they offer a product that does not work correctly.

Best,
Thorsten

Edited June 3, 2022 by Toastie

[Lok24]

26 minutes ago, Hod Carrier said:

This is presumably something that TLG could address via a software release if they wanted to. 

 

Yes, but they don't.

I sen't a video to TLG (as they requested) an 29.1.2020 (!) showing how the motor turns, no control any more, and then the hub turns off.

Two and a half years, no answer at all

Edited June 3, 2022 by Lok24

[Toastie]

@Hod Carrier:

I have just published a video on YouTube showing two City hubs with attached PUp L-motors (one in the turntable, one in the BR89). Both motors are operated using the speed commands of Legoino.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iUaD10OPnk (Link only, as there is evil content in this video)

Example code for the turntable, when using the PUp remote (manual control):

TTH.setAccelerationProfile(portA, 10000);
TTH.setDecelerationProfile(portA, 10000);
TTH.setTachoMotorSpeed(portA, updatedTTHSpeed, maxTTHPower);

TTH = turntable hub; 10000 = time to reach target speed, as per LWP3.0 protocol; updatedTTHSpeed = 0 ...100% speed; maxTTHPower = 0 ... 100% power to be used by the hub to maintain target speed setting. I am using 40% power max. as the L motor easily rips the turntable drive apart when blocked, but 100% power max. on the BR89.

You can put these commands into a loop with a 100 micro second delay (to complete each BLE transmission) - no problems found, just tested.

Best,
Thorsten

Edited June 3, 2022 by Toastie

[Gimmick]

I'm curious: Does this also happen with other speed related blocks, like angle-with-speed?

[Lok24]

On 6/3/2022 at 3:05 PM, Toastie said:

Well, I am using PUp all over the place - with ESP32s/C++(ArduinoIDE)/Legoino. So far I didn't have any issue. The good thing is, that Cornelius is still actively working on Legoino on Github - each time some weirdos  bring up issues (rarely the case!), he fixes it - usually during his vacation time or on holidays ... also his library is written in superb C++ code.

 

There are problems with some "GURU exceptions" I never got fixed, program is unstable (obviously with newer versions) and issues (#38) aren't advanced, so I quit after selling some "Plag and play" ESP32s ready to play with my programs installed, sadly.
But as I have no idea about C++  I couldn't go on developing my programs and features (like File-RW, Web Server, easy connect and so on)

 

[Toastie]

10 hours ago, Lok24 said:

GURU exceptions

Oh yes - when I ran into this one - I mean, this is really cool to read on the serial monitor of the ArduinoIDE:

Guru Meditation Error: Core  0 panic'ed (Some error here). Exception was unhandled.
Core 0 register dump:
PC      : 0x4008cfc9  PS      : 0x00060c33  A0      : 0x8008bf8e  A1      : 0x3ffdad40
A2      : 0x24a8b351  A3      : 0x00000000  A4      : 0x000005a1  A5      : 0x3f4124c8
A6      : 0x3ffc1480  A7      : 0x00060023  A8      : 0x0000abab  A9      : 0xb33fffff
A10     : 0x0000cdcd  A11     : 0x00060c20  A12     : 0x00060c20  A13     : 0x00000001
A14     : 0x0000cdcd  A15     : 0x00000000  SAR     : 0x00000000  EXCCAUSE: 0x00000009
EXCVADDR: 0x24a8b351  LBEG    : 0x4000c2e0  LEND    : 0x4000c2f6  LCOUNT  : 0x00000000

Backtrace: 0x4008cfc9:0x3ffdad40 0x4008bf8b:0x3ffdad60 0x400d2470:0x3ffdada0

Rebooting...

and then it does that over and over again ... and NONE of the hex codes meant anything to me ...

(BTW: "Guru" is cool, I like the "Core 0 panic'ed" bit much more - someone has to program it that way to produce such output on the serial monitor - and that someone sure has some type of humor, I really do share )

There is a) a solution "now" in the Legoino library (the "yourHub.isScanning()" method) and there is b) maybe a workaround I used on my MuPLI code, which is scanning for 8 devices - and that is a simple time schedule: The ESP core panics when the "yourHub.init("address here")" method is called too often. A five-second interval will take care of that - however, that was just my noob solution. The init period is about the time I scheduled (I believe it is 10s max; this is part of the NimBLE library Legoino is referencing), but even 2 seconds did do. So you can arbitrarily scan for multiple BLE hubs.

Now, what you raised as issue has not been taken care of - I am sorry to see that. However, Legoino is at least on my applications rock-solid. I believe you want to accomplish much more than what I am doing.

BTW: I am a BASIC apprentice. Started out with FORTRAN on a PDP10. Mastered (yeah, dude, what ever; you tried, but ...) Sinclair BASIC on a Sinclair Spectrum . Learned QBASIC. Then VB6.0. And always admired C (I do have the Kernighan and Ritchie book, 1988), but never got it. For me, C++ within the ArduinoIDE world is just - trial and error. Maybe a little more, but not much. 

So I sincerely believe that you can program C++ code even better than I can, given your experience in so many other programming languages, particularly PyBricks!

Best,
Thorsten 

 

[Lok24]

9 hours ago, Toastie said:

So I sincerely believe that you can program C++ code even better than I can, given your experience in so many other programming languages, particularly PyBricks!

I suppose 95% of the programs I ever wrote and sold(!) are VB or VBA.
As you see the exception is caused by the "scanning" and "init", thats why the issue #38 should have been finished to avoid this.
I cannot code C++, I have no working IDE,  and I'm really tired of all the errors.

But: end "off topic" here..