Jim

BuWizz - High Performance LEGO Power Functions Controller and Battery

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I'm not 100% sure what I'll do with it, or 100% confident I'll like their Android app, but Sariel's video shows fairly impressive performance so I'm getting one.

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I'd be interested to know the battery specs. The Kickstarter seems to say they are using NiMH cells which should have high current output, but how many cells is it and what capacity?

I'd also like to know what voltage is applied in "fast" mode. Sure you can make a motor run faster with a higher voltage, but it will also draw a lot more power and I don't know if there is a current limiter. Can you fry a motor?

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Hi,

My name is Roni & I am BuWizz team leader. I'll be glad to answer your questions.

First of all, thanks to all the project backers and everybody considering backing. It's been a great campaign start and we do need your support to bring BuWizz from prototype to final product. And also thank you to all AFOLs, who unselfishly helped to bring the project this far.

Since you have a lot of questions, I will try to answer them here. We will also add a FAQ section to Kickstarter.

1. Battery: BuWizz has 4x8 bricks or 64 x 32 mm footprint. 18650 battery is 65 mm long...

We are using a quality Li-Poly batteries, the largest possible that fit inside. Capacity is ~7,5 Wh.

2. Battery WILL BE replaceable. We will offer a (reasonably priced) replacement service. Brave & skilled users might be able to do this themselves.

BuWizz should never become a paperweight due to dead battery - except if you like the unique artistic qualities & want to have a non-ordinary looking paperweight :-)

4. Voltage: lets say slow-normal-fast is 4-7-10 or 4-7,5-10,5 or maybe even higher. All this is possible. We are testing the limits and will decide based on thermal issues - higher voltages trip the thermal protection (of which there are several) faster & reduce the fun factor.

5. Damage to the motors: we have been testing & "abusing" the same motors for over a year - we literally drove several miles with the same 9398 (think Kickstarter video kind of usage). No damage occurred so far. The motors are well protected with a thermistor - they survive even being blocked at full power applied with no consequences (other than the thermistor inside the motor getting hot). The only visible damage so far is the "grey dust" around axles - result of friction.

That said, we can not guarantee that no motor will ever fail. Just that it never happened to us.

You can check Philo's excellent PF motor data on his website. He tested the motors up to 12 Volts. He has done extensive testing and we also used his data, so a big thanks to Philo is in order.

6. Bluetooth smart of BLE is what BuWizz is using.

7. Multiple BuWizz bricks working in parallel: yes, all combinations are possible - one phone controlling several BuWizz bricks, several phones controlling one (or several) BuWizz bricks. There is no "hard" limit with BLE technology. The limiting factor is bandwidth (1 Mbps theoretically), which in theory would support 100 BuWizz bricks working in parallel. We have tested with up to 10, so this number we can guarantee. This is still 40 motors! If anyone is planning to use such a huge amount of motors & lights, please let us know.

8. Response delay: no control system is without it. That said, check Sariel's video, where he rocks the car back & forth - there is very littl delay. We will also post aditional videos to our Youtube channel

9. USB connectivity: good question :-) If BuWizz had USB communication, what would you do with it?

10. Voltage: battery voltage is not equal to output voltage, there is a switchmode power supply inside BuWizz ;-)

11. Current: this one is hard to quote, since it is time & heat dependent - larger current can be tolerated for short bursts, long time current is lower. When thermal protection kicks in, current is decreased. Up to 3 A per channel is a fair number, but this can not be sustained forever. We have thermal images showing exactly how thermal protection kicks in.

Hope this answers most of the questions.

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I am really interested in this and would like to back this project. But before that, I do have a few questions:

1. Would it be possible to build a version that user can detach the top part and connect to the battery using a lego PF cable? That would make the product much more flexible.

2. Can we build custom profiles like sBrick?

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Though having SBrick and Li-Po, I am very excited about this project. Going to support it the next day.

I have some questions too. Will it be possible to use third-party's joysticks?:) Now it is possible with SBrick and it is really awesome, especially with fast trucks.

Also, it would be very nice (but I am not hoping for that) to make it compatible with SBrick. Many have SBricks and it would be nice to connect SBrick to the BuWizz having altogether 8 channels. And controlling it with one app, of course. Dreams:)

Edited by Limga

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Thanks for the answers!

Since you have a lot of questions, I will try to answer them here. We will also add a FAQ section to Kickstarter.

We are using a quality Li-Poly batteries, the largest possible that fit inside. Capacity is ~7,5 Wh.

7.5Wh is a huge capacity. That is more than my 1:8 Traxxas E-Revo. You should be able to run a LEGO motor almost forever on that charge. Assuming standard max discharge is 1 Amp, this will run for 7 hours! Are you using 2 cells, nominal 7.2V? Does your charger balance the cells?

2. Battery WILL BE replaceable. We will offer a (reasonably priced) replacement service. Brave & skilled users might be able to do this themselves.

BuWizz should never become a paperweight due to dead battery - except if you like the unique artistic qualities & want to have a non-ordinary looking paperweight :-)

If this involves soldering, a big warning to anyone attempting it. If you bridge the terminals while soldering you will start a fire and possibly an explosion. That battery should be good for 1000 charges though, so with that high capacity it should last almost forever.

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Roni, thank you for answering the questions. I think you have adressed a lot of the questions we have, and I was very satisfied with the quality and level of detail as well as the prompt response time.

Your KS description claims 2x more power in the Fast mode. Is this compared to a Lego battery box? How can you make this claim without knowing the final battery specs? Or do you know the maximum voltage and amperage output already?

I'm not questioning the product (I supported the project this morning), I'm just curious if you are not overstating its capabilities.

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I would be happier with a new remote control unit. I mean something in my hand that has actual tactile sensation. Or touch screen really becomes the norm and someday the only input device? Then I'm doomed because I have clumsy fingers.

I totally agree. I feel much more in control with actual levers to move, instead of touch screen sliders.

I also wish we could get a control unit with variable speed, but not like the train remote. Perhaps a modular system, that can be mated with both SBrick and BuWizz, as well as Lego PF IR receiver?

Saying all this, to me BuWizz sounds like a great idea.

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I totally agree. I feel much more in control with actual levers to move, instead of touch screen sliders.

I also wish we could get a control unit with variable speed, but not like the train remote. Perhaps a modular system, that can be mated with both SBrick and BuWizz, as well as Lego PF IR receiver?

Saying all this, to me BuWizz sounds like a great idea.

I think there's enough agreement on demand for a hardware controller, that I feel this question should be answer too:

What are the plans for BuWizz to offer an API that other developers case use to build things like this.

Also, please do everything you can to reduce latency, specially for Servo motors. Lagging steering totally ruins the fun of driving a fast vehicle!

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Here are the questions I have:

1) How goes the development if the Android app? Hopefully there can be something learnt here from the troubles Vengit had with the SBrick - which is working flawlessly for me now, but it took over a year to get there :sceptic:

2) As other have asked, are there any plans for hardware controller integration? Again, even when my SBrick was fixed it didn't see much use until I could pair my controller to it (thanks again imurvai), so having this out of the box would be great

3) Does everyone backing at higher tiers get the $5 tier "secret" reward? I do love me some secrets :wink:

Also, it does seem rather curious that the early bird offer for 2 x BuWizz ends up costing more per unit then the early bird for one ... anyone who looks at the PPU for both tiers would probably only back one as I have done. However I don't think you can change it now and I assume you had your reasons for picking the prices you have used.

Regardless,

I have backed it for one BuWizz. Hopefully it will be fully funded in due course.

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One more question now that we know it's a LiPo battery (which is good news!): What kind of protection are you building, regarding overcharging the battery?

Edited by Beard

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I remember discussing with my friend numerous times how great would it be to have more powerful rechargeable battery for our LEGO models.

It’s been 7 years now from the release of LEGO 8878 rechargeable battery and technology has surely improved so we were convinced it could be done…

Long story short, you can imagine my excitement when I saw this yesterday! :classic:

It has great potential for compact and efficient creations and that’s way, after seeing Sariel’s video last night, I decided to back it on kickstarter (as I did for SBrick). :thumbup:

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When it's powerfull LiPo then it is the right way. It looks good. Just do now sell it via Great Britain like SBrick...

Max

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To me it sounds like the battery pack itself could be a product in its own right. Are there any plans for the ability to bypass the controller, so that BuWizz could work as a powerful battery, possibly with manual switch like auto-slow-normal-fast?

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backed, waiting for this to test!

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Not sure if this was asked but

would the turbo mode make this battery more ideal for running RC buggy motors?

or will it have a compromising temp/voltage limiter that will make it just as good as any Lego/Sbrick solution?

It does seem pretty cool, however.

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This project seems to be gaining some traction. Isn't it about time to be FrontPaged?

Andy D

Edited by Andy D

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I would like to see some holes on the short side, as well as the long side, to ease studless mounting.

I would also like to see it with 6-8 Channels, or the option of adding a hub with 4 extra channels for low power applications like LED, micromotor, etc.

I still backed for 2 of them, but these suggestions would make them much more flexible, as they seem hard to mount and limited by their size.

-ED-

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Hi, again some answers are due :

1. Detachable battery: we thought about that. But this would mean developing/producing two products (electronics box + battery box) with each needing at least 2 pices of moulded plastic for the housing + interconnect system between the two.

Plus at least twice as many tools for plastic molding would need to be produced. All this would increase cost and complexity of the project.

2. The App will have customizable Model settings. Each model corresponds to one of your models/MOCs .You can set - background, type of controls, colors, number of control screens, etc.

3. We are looking into using tactile controls (= joysticks, game controllers) with BuWizz. We'll keep you updated.

4. Battery replacement will NOT require any soldering. For most people it will probably be best to leave the replacement to us.

5. We know the limits, just do not know what exact settings we will use for final version. It will be 2x power, perhaps even more. The problem is final product needs to be reliable, so some safety margin has to be left.

6. We are considering opening the protocol over BLE, so anybody can integrate BuWizz with their environment.

7. Latency is already very low :-)

8. we will have an update regarding Android App soon.

9. The 1x Early bird was original meant as Super Early, hence it costs less per brick than 2x "Normal" Early. Did not really turn out as intended ;-)

10. Everybody should probably get the "secret" reward, good point.

11. Protection circuit will be inside battery - a dedicated circuit to protect against over-voltage, under-voltage, high charge current, high discharge current, over temperature, etc.

12. Standalone battery - current prototype can indeed work as a standalone battery. Making the power button swicth modes is just a matter of software. The problem is, we considered removing the power button - the BLE part can be always on and BuWizz can then be turned on automatically, when you start the App. This way you do not need to fiddle with pressing the power button, if BuWizz is buried deep inside your model.

13. We will do some testing with RC motors and come back with actual data.

14. extra pinholes: the problem is logic board is already densely stuffed with components and extra pinholes would eat valuable logic board space even more. that said, we will se if we can squeeze more pinholes onto BuWizz.

15. Extra channel modules, etc. We are considering many advanced options.

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with point 12: always on, I am less of a fan of that. The gap between a couple of microamps to keep the switch sensing circuit alive, and a few milliamps to keep the BLE module listening is often significant.

I have some SeeSense lights that do this, and they run flat in a week or so if I don't use them or charge them. Admittedly the battery is much smaller, but it's worth keeping in mind that people will not be using every BuWizz they own, every day or every week. Quite likely a lot of them will end up in the back of a box somewhere for months at a time, to be pulled out when a model is finished. It would be annoying to have to charge them before being able to connect at all. I'd rather have six months life and a button than one month and not have to go to the enormous effort of pushing the button. A "24 hours then it goes to sleep" mode might make the "deep inside my MOC" people happy, or make it yet another user setting :)

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Thanks for the thorough and in-depth reply to all of our questions... What I notice is that you guys really are looking into all options...that makes at least me confident about this product! :thumbup:

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