Powered Up - A tear down...

[Lok24]

Yes , and accelerate slowly (starting the power with a predefined value, which will be automatically adjusted accorndig to battery power  )

and also pause a predefined time at each end . 

Edited July 1, 2018 by Lok24

[JopieK]

Well the possibilities are endless of course. For the 60198 I have decided to remove the base of the battery box, that way I have a little more clearance between the sensor and points/switches. 

I am working on Swift playgrounds and found that it is quite hard to debug those playgrounds without some bluetooth low energy UART that mimics the HUB and/or Remote. That is why I implemented a simple UART based in Adafruit code for nRF52 (in my eyes the these nRF5x based solutions by Nordic are the only at least somewhat friendly Bluetooth Low energy implementations). So in case you own some nRF52 based product from Adafruit or compatible (I use my own custom nRF52 board with the same firmware):

https://github.com/jakorten/UpControl/tree/master/PU_Debugger_nRF52

[Lok24]

What about the train motor?

I see no electronical components at all (except fuse and C ).

- Does that mean that there is a simple DC Motor connected to M1/M2 ?

- Does that mean with an appropriate adapter-cable (connecting ID1/2 properly to tell teh Hub "Motor") we could use any old PF-Motor?

Which leads to the next question: the max current supported by the H-Bridge in the Hub, which is unknown till now, right?

 

[Tcm0]

17 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

One of them also has an "attached" id 0x38, which is interesting as the buttons are 0x37, so it might be some other functionality of the remote?

Just a wild guess: maybe the remote can read the battery voltage?

[technic70s]

1 hour ago, Tcm0 said:

Just a wild guess: maybe the remote can read the battery voltage?

Not sure but it does have a low battery light function, but this looks like its for each device.

Low battery by Stephen, on Flickr

[JopieK]

2 hours ago, Lok24 said:

What about the train motor?

I see no electronical components at all (except fuse and C ).

- Does that mean that there is a simple DC Motor connected to M1/M2 ?

- Does that mean with an appropriate adapter-cable (connecting ID1/2 properly to tell teh Hub "Motor") we could use any old PF-Motor?

Which leads to the next question: the max current supported by the H-Bridge in the Hub, which is unknown till now, right?

 

Yups it is a simple DC motor. And yes a convertor would be very easy to implement for LEGO.

[JopieK]

And the tear down continues!

What's that... HUB No. 5? Where are my Torx bits ;)

I like this one actually better than the one from the Powered Up train. You can generate sounds on the train! Like blowing the whistle. Alas the sounds are the same for the two options (Cargo train 10875 and Steam engine 10874). There is also another Duplo train coming in fall and I have strong reasons to indicate it will use the same base (but I can't elaborate more on it to not cause a friend under NDA any troubles).

They used a light pipe from the RGB LED to the front of the base.

The bluetooth profile is pretty much the same like the HUB 4 (Powered Up for City). Much simpler profile than that of the WeDo 2.0 at least.

[Mr Hobbles]

Hah, well done, I was curious about that. :) I agree - the tech in there is much more impressive/useful as it has the built in color sensor, LED, and speaker. Would be nice if the normal Powered Up hub had some of that too.

Perhaps "Hub No.1", "Hub No.2", or "Hub No.3" might have? ;)

I also notice on the LEGO replacement parts service that the remote is labelled "Handset No.2". I'm guessing there's another one due for release at some point? Perhaps with more joystick like controls like the Technic PF remote.

 Also note, I've finally opened up my library, see here if you're curious - https://github.com/nathankunicki/node-lpf2. It's a Node.js library written in TypeScript.

Edited July 5, 2018 by Mr Hobbles

[Lok24]

1 minute ago, Mr Hobbles said:

Hah, well done, I was curious about that. :) I agree - the tech in there is much more impressive/useful as it has the built in color sensor, LED, and speaker. Would be nice if the normal Powered Up hub had some of that too.

 

Hi,

i'm not a friend of these monolithic blocks.

From point of architecture i would prefer using a PU Port as a bus, connecting  more than one Sensor, a small 2x4 speaker, a LED brick 2x4 with 8 Outputs and so on.

[Mr Hobbles]

49 minutes ago, Lok24 said:

Hi,

i'm not a friend of these monolithic blocks.

 From point of architecture i would prefer using a PU Port as a bus, connecting  more than one Sensor, a small 2x4 speaker, a LED brick 2x4 with 8 Outputs and so on.

Yes, and that's definitely a desired option, but at this point it's added complexity. For example despite the compatibility of Boost/WeDo stuff with Powered Up, there's no way for the average joe to take advantage of it without having fairly advanced programming knowledge, at least until Lego or the community release more apps.

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned having a tram that can go back and forth between two points, essentially using the color sensor to reverse direction. Simple functionality, and highly desired, I've seen many people want to do this. The Duplo train is capable of this (out of the box!), but LPF2 is not.

I wonder if LEGO could have put a color sensor into the bottom of the train motor with no added wires.

I also really hope that Lego releases a easy coding app like Boost, but compatible with Powered Up, so trains can be easily programmed.

[JopieK]

On 7/5/2018 at 12:32 PM, Mr Hobbles said:

I also really hope that Lego releases a easy coding app like Boost, but compatible with Powered Up, so trains can be easily programmed.

Working on that with some parties :)

[zephyr1934]

That is an exciting prospect to be able to program trains using color bricks.

In your experiments, is there hope to

1) control the WeDo motor as if it were a train motor (set power level once and it will maintain that until a new command comes in)

2) control both ports on the hub with one input

3) use one input to make motor A go forward and motor B go in reverse at exactly the same speed (so we can have two motors under one engine, without a pole reverser... that does not exist)

 

If yes to all of the above, that means non-train motor designs have hope and the prospect of not only having two motor locos, but also multiple unit locomotives working together would be great.

[AE bricks]

On ‎6‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 7:17 PM, JopieK said:

Yups it works very well @Mr Hobbles LEGO did a great job there, we couldn't get it working that well when using our own hardware (with high school / college students). Fortunately it will even fit under the locomotive of 60198 so without a lot of change people can integrate it into their own sets, luckily the sensor is not a big brick but has an L-shape.

Did I get it right, you just add a collor sensor and it moves up and down between the 2 collored tiles (no matter what collor they are) without having to use the app ? 

Does any one know if the collor sensor is very energy consuming? I like the idea a lot but I just hope it doesn't drain the batteries to much.

[Mr Hobbles]

On 7/15/2018 at 11:23 PM, zephyr1934 said:

That is an exciting prospect to be able to program trains using color bricks.

In your experiments, is there hope to

1) control the WeDo motor as if it were a train motor (set power level once and it will maintain that until a new command comes in)

2) control both ports on the hub with one input

3) use one input to make motor A go forward and motor B go in reverse at exactly the same speed (so we can have two motors under one engine, without a pole reverser... that does not exist)

 

If yes to all of the above, that means non-train motor designs have hope and the prospect of not only having two motor locos, but also multiple unit locomotives working together would be great.

If you take the official remote control and app out of the equation, then what you are left with is the ability to communicate directly with the hub from a Bluetooth enabled laptop/device by writing code. I've released a library to help other programmers write code that talks to the Hub (https://github.com/nathankunicki/node-lpf2). By writing code:

1) Yes, you can make a WeDo motor run continuously. (This is not possible using the official remote, it only runs for as long as the button is pressed).

2) Yes, you can drive both ports at the same time.

3) Yes...kinda. In my experiments I've noticed that the train motor runs slightly slower in reverse at the same power level. Not sure why. In my code I adjust for this by adjusting the power level up slightly when running in reverse. But yes you can have one port run in reverse at the same time as the other port running forward if you want.

Also note that we have the remote figured out too, and can connect this to a laptop. So by using a laptop in between the remote and the hub we can interpret the button presses as we want and make the hub do whatever we want, in essence overriding the default remote behaviour. I personally have my train remote controlling a Lego Boost Vernie robot at the moment. :) In fact its one of my code examples: https://github.com/nathankunicki/node-lpf2/blob/master/examples/vernie_remote.js

 

1 hour ago, AE bricks said:

Did I get it right, you just add a collor sensor and it moves up and down between the 2 collored tiles (no matter what collor they are) without having to use the app ? 

Does any one know if the collor sensor is very energy consuming? I like the idea a lot but I just hope it doesn't drain the batteries to much.

No, it does not just work by itself. It needs to be connected to a Bluetooth device that is running the logic. In my example video the hub is connected to my laptop, running some Node.js code, written with the library mentioned above.

It works by:

a) Hub is connected to laptop.

b) Hub sends color sensor data back to laptop continuously.

c) Code on laptop detects when color sensor data matches the desired colors.

d) Laptop then sends new motor commands to the hub to reverse the direction.

I have no idea how power consuming it is.

I think @JopieK is working on an iOS (And Android? :)) app that can take the place of laptop and custom code and maybe make it a bit more normal-user friendly...

Edited July 17, 2018 by Mr Hobbles

[Toastie]

Wow, this is incredible work. Fantastic!!! Congratulations on all your achievements.

33 minutes ago, Mr Hobbles said:

I think @JopieK is working on an iOS (And Android? :)) app that can take the place of laptop and custom code and maybe make it a bit more normal-user friendly... 

Well, why would you want to replace the laptop at all? I am much more into having some sort of control center for my layout (which is e.g. a laptop equipped with a very large secondary display showing all the things I need to control, trains, switch points, lights, bridges, … rather than a cell phone.

Just my point of view of course.

Thanks for sharing!

All the best
Thorsten  

[Mr Hobbles]

16 hours ago, Toastie said:

Wow, this is incredible work. Fantastic!!! Congratulations on all your achievements.

Well, why would you want to replace the laptop at all? I am much more into having some sort of control center for my layout (which is e.g. a laptop equipped with a very large secondary display showing all the things I need to control, trains, switch points, lights, bridges, … rather than a cell phone.

Just my point of view of course.

Thanks for sharing!

All the best
Thorsten  

Oh I absolutely agree, this is my plan too! However it's perhaps overkill for someone who just wants to make a tram go ping-pong between two points.

Ps. Thanks for the kind words, hopefully some people will find the library useful.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Mr Hobbles

[AE bricks]

19 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

It works by:

a) Hub is connected to laptop.

b) Hub sends color sensor data back to laptop continuously.

c) Code on laptop detects when color sensor data matches the desired colors.

d) Laptop then sends new motor commands to the hub to reverse the direction.

Would you happen to know how sensitive the color sensor is? Does it detect the difference between light/dark bluish grey and the old grey types for example? 

[Mr Hobbles]

3 hours ago, AE bricks said:

Would you happen to know how sensitive the color sensor is? Does it detect the difference between light/dark bluish grey and the old grey types for example? 

It's actually hardcoded in the sensors firmware to only detect 10 colors - "None", Pink, Purple, Blue, Light Blue, Cyan, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, and White. I don't know if these correspond to Lego brick colors exactly. These are the same colors as appear in the Boost app for programming.

The sensor has other modes that can be activated (distance only, distance and color, light intensity), but I don't know if anyone has found one for raw color values.

 

 

[zephyr1934]

Thanks Mr Hobbles! Very exciting stuff that you and JopieK are up to

[Klaus-Dieter]

Having read different articles and posts and having watched several videos: Am I correct that with the new PF stuff, you can only drive two trains with one remote control (one per A- and one per B-channel) at the same time? And per two trains more, you need one more remote control?

[Mr Hobbles]

Just now, Klaus-Dieter said:

Having read different articles and posts and having watched several videos: Am I correct that with the new PF stuff, you can only drive two trains with one remote control (one per A- and one per B-channel) at the same time? And per two trains more, you need one more remote control?

No, you've confused channels with outputs. :) Buttons on the left are for output A, buttons on the right for B.

There are five channels (colors), which you can cycle between by pressing the green button in the middle.

So you can have 10 trains per remote.

[Klaus-Dieter]

Ah, thank you very much for clarifying, @Mr Hobbles!

So PF 2 has three pros in contrast to PF 1:

- 10 (instead of 8) channels

- no direct eye contact needed for sending out signals

- less space for the PF stuff (because of the missing ultrared sensor) in trains needed

[Brickster12]

I think it wasn't really mentioned yet... the current Lego Powered Up app provides already two control profiles for the Bat mobile, one with fw-stop-bw for left/right and one with contiuous fw-bw sliders. The set uses the WeDo motors....

Hence the different control behaviour in this case does not depend on the (motor)hardware used in the model but just the software.

I can imagine (and hope) that TLG gives us in future a kind of customizable controls in the app where one can just select between differet controller concepts for the hardware.

The existing app already demonstrates what IS possible. Unfortunately all the functions are currently burried in pre-defined control profiles...

Edited July 25, 2018 by Brickster12

[Toastie]

9 hours ago, Brickster12 said:

The existing app already demonstrates what IS possible. Unfortunately all the functions are currently burried in pre-defined control profiles...

I completely, fully agree!

And I do hope that TLG is >not< loosing interest (after PU sales may go down by 0.1%) in telling us what this system is really capable of. In the whole line of Mindstorms, let it be VLL, let it be Spybotics, or the way the NXT brick communicates … we never got a >real< handle. People needed to find out, use "leaks", retro-engineering, a complete waste of resources. It was different with the SDKs for the Scout and for the RCX, though, but as far as I am concerned, for the average people, that was an exception.

I have the impression, the further we move toward complex and most powerful hard- and software, the lower is either the willingness or the time (totally different issues, totally different reasons) put into properly documenting things. In the - oh my - good ol'days - any gadget, regardless what is was, but particularly in the sciences, came with a "operators manual". That always sounded - tough. And I also know - I did it myself - called for "real scientists don't need a manual". Just turn it on. Well: No.

Getting a little older may change the way we look at things. I do have "manuals" in my office. From that time. With these "explosion" type drawings. And with hundreds of pages of "how to hack the system".

We do not have to do it that way, but maybe a little less one-page true color "The most powerful system, Earth has seen before" and maybe a little more on b/w "How to get the most out of it".

Just my 2 cents.

All the best
Thorsten

  

[kiwinewt]

12 hours ago, Brickster12 said:

I think it wasn't really mentioned yet... the current Lego Powered Up app provides already two control profiles for the Bat mobile, one with fw-stop-bw for left/right and one with contiuous fw-bw sliders. The set uses the WeDo motors...

I thought that set was pretty good with the motors, being the first to start showcasing what the new bluetooth boxes can do. None of the sets yet have really unleashed the power of it, alas, but at least it's cheaper to get a batmobile to user the motors for trains than either the new train sets or the boost robot...