BuWizz - High Performance LEGO Power Functions Controller and Battery

[dustblue]

4 minutes ago, pankov said:

It's already supported - you can link different buttons/joysticks to the same slider and you can even have to buttons/triggers (L2/R2) controlling the different directions of the slider - R2 for positive (acceleration) and L2 for negative (break/reverse).

That's good, however I cant test it now due to problems I encountered. Further more, they should also make it possible that one channel can be controlled by different sliders, because controller joystick controls only the sliders, if one channel can only be controlled by one slider like right now, then there are still some functions that it won't have which BC2 now has. 

 

For example I have a 8 buggy motor moc, in buwizz I can only control it to go forward or backward because one channel can only be controlled by one slider, but in BC2 I can let 8 motors do whatever I want, like only front wheel drive, or only left wheel drive.

 

[dustblue]

Hi guys can you change your algorithm of current limits to lower the votage temparily instead of kill the battery? it's really annoying to constantly plugin a mobile battery to revive it. sometime you have to screw it open and unplug the battery cell of buwizz to revive it(when red light flashing in circle without working at all) @Zerobricks

sorry for the spelling 

[Zerobricks]

37 minutes ago, dustblue said:

Hi guys can you change your algorithm of current limits to lower the votage temparily instead of kill the battery? it's really annoying to constantly plugin a mobile battery to revive it. sometime you have to screw it open and unplug the battery cell of buwizz to revive it(when red light flashing in circle without working at all) @Zerobricks

sorry for the spelling 

Make sure you use the lastest app and firmware which already have implemented current limits, which you can also adjust individually.

[dustblue]

15 hours ago, Zerobricks said:

Make sure you use the lastest app and firmware which already have implemented current limits, which you can also adjust individually.

yes of course, everything is up to date, 3.22 & 1.10

Another way to handle over current is really not that hard, you could even shut down that channel temperarily, just do not shut down whole battery. make user more comfortable and you would sell much more.

[aFrInaTi0n]

@dustblue has a valid point... if only the affected driver channel / IC could be shut down instead of the whole board falling over and losing all its connectivity..

As stated already that would heavily increase the user experience.

For my superbike mocs the buwizz usb port isn't easily reachable, so for some mocs the current behavior of the buwizz shutting down completely (or even worse going into its protection mode which needs to be resetted by giving usb power for the pcb bcm to recognize the batt power has recovered from its undervoltage...) is a not so nice situation.

Edited October 12, 2023 by aFrInaTi0n

[Zerobricks]

The thing is, it's the battery protection which shuts down, it's not a command sent by the electronics board. Also undervoltage can casuse the protection to shut down too. I recommend lowering the current use for now.

[dustblue]

1 hour ago, Zerobricks said:

The thing is, it's the battery protection which shuts down, it's not a command sent by the electronics board. Also undervoltage can casuse the protection to shut down too. I recommend lowering the current use for now.

Maybe use IC board to send signal BEFORE the battery protection kicks in?

Like drop the voltage if a channel is over current, or shut that channel down temperarily, so the battery won't die? 

On 10/4/2023 at 1:28 AM, dustblue said:

That's good, however I cant test it now due to problems I encountered. Further more, they should also make it possible that one channel can be controlled by different sliders, because controller joystick controls only the sliders, if one channel can only be controlled by one slider like right now, then there are still some functions that it won't have which BC2 now has. 

 

For example I have a 8 buggy motor moc, in buwizz I can only control it to go forward or backward because one channel can only be controlled by one slider, but in BC2 I can let 8 motors do whatever I want, like only front wheel drive, or only left wheel drive.

 

Tried beta app again and it finally worked, however I found another problem: I have 2 PU L motors to control steering and used 2 scroll bar to control each, but it's very hard to use one joystick on ps5 controller to control both scroll bars, sometimes I can, sometimes I cant. When I can, after closing the app and open again, the joystick woud be only controlling one scroll bar. I don't know why and how to set it correctly to control 2 scroll bars, could you help? @Zerobricks also I cant set crab mode and normal steering in the same time, I can only choose one, because it seems the only way to do it is changing polarity on battery screen, which you cant do when operating your moc.

[Zerobricks]

34 minutes ago, dustblue said:

Tried beta app again and it finally worked, however I found another problem: I have 2 PU L motors to control steering and used 2 scroll bar to control each, but it's very hard to use one joystick on ps5 controller to control both scroll bars, sometimes I can, sometimes I cant. When I can, after closing the app and open again, the joystick woud be only controlling one scroll bar. I don't know why and how to set it correctly to control 2 scroll bars, could you help? @Zerobricks also I cant set crab mode and normal steering in the same time, I can only choose one, because it seems the only way to do it is changing polarity on battery screen, which you cant do when operating your moc.

I don't understand what is a scroll bar in this context? I'd recommend just use L2/R2 for throttle and both joypads for steering, one for each steering slider?

[Ryokeen]

Somewhere earlier in the thread, someone posted a pic of the used battery a HPL502852-5C-3S1P 800mAh. Just had a quick look at it and i would assume, that running 2 buggys or simply drawing that much current is just to much for the bat. It as a fast discharge rating of 5C. From what i know that would mean with 800mAh it can max deliver 4amps in total. Save a bit for the board it's easy to get above that.
But yes it would be better to either lower the current before a shutdown happens or only shut down the port drawing to much.

[dustblue]

3 hours ago, Zerobricks said:

I don't understand what is a scroll bar in this context? I'd recommend just use L2/R2 for throttle and both joypads for steering, one for each steering slider?

Sorry, a slider.

Thanks for your tips, it is a way to cope, however since this app is still in beta, wouldn't it be better to improve upon users' suggestions? You can try brick controller 2, it has flaws like easier to over current(and this might not be their problem according to discussions in BC2 thread), steering angle limited when using PU motors, but other than those it functions really well. Simply copy their function to buwizz app would be good enough for me, of course better is still prefered, if you can. 

And let's don't forget BC2 is free, I know buwizz app is free too but it is priced in buwizz battery(you cant use any other battery with this app), so it really isn't free, we kind of deserve a better function:)

[dustblue]

On 11/24/2021 at 5:08 AM, Danil said:

I was interested in the following aspect regarding the Buwizz 3.0 battery - the manufacturer's website states that the battery capacity is 2300mA / h and that the battery is replaceable. on the Sariel video, when parsing, it is clearly visible that the HPL 502852-5C-381P element is used at 11.1V 800mA / h 8.88Wh-where is the truth? and second, if the battery is replaceable, what batteries and with what characteristics can be used in this device? It would also be interesting to know whether the battery charge controller is built into the bank or is it soldered on the motherboard? Thank you in advance for your feedback!

I also found this:

https://p.globalsources.com/IMAGES/PDT/SPEC/679/K1180913679.pdf

In this doc it stated a 0.5C discharge rate(normal use), even 5c is really small,  in RC 60C even 100C battery is very normal, why would buwizz team use such an inferior battery?? 5C 800mAh 3.7 LiPo battery is like 1 USD each in bulk, this is unbelievable....

 

Edit: on specs it says minimal current protection is 7A, max 13A, so buwizz doesn't have to set the max for port A&B to be 3.5A, it can be doubled, say 6A would be much better.

Edited October 12, 2023 by dustblue
add

[aFrInaTi0n]

6 hours ago, Zerobricks said:

The thing is, it's the battery protection which shuts down, it's not a command sent by the electronics board. Also undervoltage can casuse the protection to shut down too. I recommend lowering the current use for now.

Maybe put it on the wishlist for better driver ICs for a Buwizz 4 

[pankov]

On 10/3/2023 at 8:27 PM, Zerobricks said:

I don't think that's possible, since the PF powered motors have no feedback - how will you know if the vegicle is really stopped?

Thanks - that makes sense ... but what about Control+/PoweredUp L/XL mottors?

I was just playing with the 42099 in a modified crawler mode (changed gearing) and it would have been great if we had a "drag" brake - as in - immediate stop and hold stationary even when on very inclined surfaces.

 

Also while playing with the the app I stumbled on a couple of bugs and also had an idea/feature request:

1. Exporting a profile in controller mode looses the non controller screen layout when imported afterwards - it's just a blank screen

2. Renaming a profile doesn't change the name in the main list until the app is restarted

3. It'll be great if there is an option to change the background color for the layouts. Black/Dark gray will save a lot of battery on modern phones especially with OLED screens.

(if this is not the right spot to share them I'll be glad if someone points it then to me)

 

 

[pankov]

1 hour ago, pankov said:

3. It'll be great if there is an option to change the background color for the layouts. Black/Dark gray will save a lot of battery on modern phones especially with OLED screens.

 

 

I just found out that there's already such an option and together with the controls opacity configuration it's almost perfect

😊

[Zerobricks]

6 hours ago, pankov said:

I just found out that there's already such an option and together with the controls opacity configuration it's almost perfect

😊

Glad you found it.

I think it's also worth to mention that PS4 controller actually partially also works on the current beta app, might be worth a try for those who have it.

[sonpham510]

When controlling the car with  sony ps5 gamepad  with buwizz 2.0 on the buwizz app, I cannot adjust the low, normal, speed, ludicrous modes. Is there any way to fix it?

[dustblue]

Found another problem, when using 2 PU L motors for center steering, the second one would be malfunctioning. At first I though it was a motor problem, than I thought maybe battery problem, but after more tests motor and battery are all fine, it's a software problem, only 1 center steering PU L would funtion normally, others would not.@zerobricks

 

[Zerobricks]

On 10/18/2023 at 4:17 AM, sonpham510 said:

When controlling the car with  sony ps5 gamepad  with buwizz 2.0 on the buwizz app, I cannot adjust the low, normal, speed, ludicrous modes. Is there any way to fix it?

Buttons, speed controls and gearbox selectors will be supported on next release, we currently focused on basic driving (analog joysticks).

18 hours ago, dustblue said:

Found another problem, when using 2 PU L motors for center steering, the second one would be malfunctioning. At first I though it was a motor problem, than I thought maybe battery problem, but after more tests motor and battery are all fine, it's a software problem, only 1 center steering PU L would funtion normally, others would not.@zerobricks

 

I just tested it and it works okay on my end. May I recommend remaking the profile?

[dustblue]

2 hours ago, Zerobricks said:

Buttons, speed controls and gearbox selectors will be supported on next release, we currently focused on basic driving (analog joysticks).

I just tested it and it works okay on my end. May I recommend remaking the profile?

Thanks for reply. I tested on another moc with similar setups and it did worked, but still not working on previous moc, and neither does it work with new profiles( in which I only used turning without power for moving) this is really weird

[Zerobricks]

28 minutes ago, dustblue said:

Thanks for reply. I tested on another moc with similar setups and it did worked, but still not working on previous moc, and neither does it work with new profiles( in which I only used turning without power for moving) this is really weird

Maybe you have a bad contact somewhere, all 6 contacts of the port have to have connection for intelligent motor control.

[dustblue]

2 minutes ago, Zerobricks said:

Maybe you have a bad contact somewhere, all 6 contacts of the port have to have connection for intelligent motor control.

definately not that, I separately tested all of them and all worked well, the problem begins when I put two PU L motors tegother in one setup, then the first one works, second can only turn in one way not the other, and cant return to center.

[Zerobricks]

1 hour ago, dustblue said:

definately not that, I separately tested all of them and all worked well, the problem begins when I put two PU L motors tegother in one setup, then the first one works, second can only turn in one way not the other, and cant return to center.

Could be just a simple mechanical issue, I don't see how else it would work in one model and not in the other. Anyway, if you keep having issues, pleae send an E-mail on support, so we can solve it there.

[dustblue]

4 hours ago, Zerobricks said:

Could be just a simple mechanical issue, I don't see how else it would work in one model and not in the other. Anyway, if you keep having issues, pleae send an E-mail on support, so we can solve it there.

NO it's definitely NOT a mechanical issue, as I said separately everything works fine, problems only occur when 2 PU L are putting in the same profile. Software problems can be tricky, I believe this is one of those. I give up on this for now, hope in the final version of the app,  the problem would be gone. Thanks a lot for your help!

[DKTechnik]

Did someone open Mould King 6.0 power module to see battery?

On 10/12/2023 at 6:23 PM, dustblue said:

I also found this:

https://p.globalsources.com/IMAGES/PDT/SPEC/679/K1180913679.pdf

In this doc it stated a 0.5C discharge rate(normal use), even 5c is really small,  in RC 60C even 100C battery is very normal, why would buwizz team use such an inferior battery?? 5C 800mAh 3.7 LiPo battery is like 1 USD each in bulk, this is unbelievable....

 

Edit: on specs it says minimal current protection is 7A, max 13A, so buwizz doesn't have to set the max for port A&B to be 3.5A, it can be doubled, say 6A would be much better.

Did someone open Mould King 6.0 power module to see battery?

[Jim]

2 hours ago, DKTechnik said:

Did someone open Mould King 6.0 power module to see battery?

Hi. Welcome to EB!

Be careful not to start an off-topic discussion. Especially one about Mould King