JopieK

Powered Up - A tear down...

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This is a technical discussion. I've for my own got a hub via bricklink for an affordable price. (Ok, more than one in the case, I would destroy one ...) 49,- $ or € are out of any discussion, 20,- would be reasonable.

Btw: I've found 6F22 battery blocks fit perfectly into the hub. On Ebay are many Li-Ion-batteries in this form available. Just modify a clip dedicated for 9V blocks. By opportunity I will post some images how to do that. There is no need any more for expensive and environment polluting AAA cells.

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1 hour ago, Giottist said:

Btw: I've found 6F22 battery blocks fit perfectly into the hub.

I really think that LEGO will do a different "insert" and lid one day for the 9V blocks. It not, someone else probably will.

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10 hours ago, Giottist said:

Btw: I've found 6F22 battery blocks fit perfectly into the hub. On Ebay are many Li-Ion-batteries in this form available.

 

9 hours ago, treczoks said:

really think that LEGO will do a different "insert" and lid one day for the 9V blocks

What would the benefits be? AAA should have more mAh after all.

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Just now, Bartosz said:

 

What would the benefits be? AAA should have more mAh after all.

Unfortunately not. I've checked it. Both types have real capacities of about 450 to 500 mAh. Do not believe what's printed on it, thats pure marketing.

The real davantage of Li-Ion technology is the reliable recharge process. Rechargeble AAA cells are based on NiMH and they are really difficult to charge. I've checked more than a dozend chargers but they all destroyed the cells after 5 to 10 recharges. I've never destroyed any LiIon battery. They become weaker of course but only after several hundred cycles. Avoid NiMH.if you like to use rechargable batteries.

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3 hours ago, Bartosz said:

What would the benefits be? AAA should have more mAh after all.

One reason: Smaller case. Another one would be the reason Giottist already mentioned.

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A fan at 1000steine noticed that LEGO has made most of the separate parts available not (not in stock yet).

88006 Boost Move Hub 80€
88009 Hub 50€ (!!!)
88010 Remote 23€
88008 M Servo motor 17€
88011 Train motor 14€
(The small WeDo / Batman motor and the Boost Sensors are not listed yet).

Well at least they sell separate parts and the motor prices are OK, but 50€ for the hub... Of course the Boost hub has two internal motors etc. but 80€ is half the price of the entire set... Fortunately I got a few PU Hubs from Bricklink at a much better price.

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On 12/6/2018 at 1:16 AM, Mr Hobbles said:

My own WeDo 2.0 hubs that have updated (quite a few times) in the past from my Windows 10 app.

That's odd - I have had a hub basically from day 1 and I have never seen a FW update. What does that look like?

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4 hours ago, JopieK said:

A fan at 1000steine noticed that LEGO has made most of the separate parts available not (not in stock yet).

88006 Boost Move Hub 80€
88009 Hub 50€ (!!!)
88010 Remote 23€
88008 M Servo motor 17€
88011 Train motor 14€
(The small WeDo / Batman motor and the Boost Sensors are not listed yet).

Well at least they sell separate parts and the motor prices are OK, but 50€ for the hub... Of course the Boost hub has two internal motors etc. but 80€ is half the price of the entire set... Fortunately I got a few PU Hubs from Bricklink at a much better price.

Those are the "missing pieces" prices though, right? Some elements can be WAY more expensive this route than if you buy the "set" consisting of the single element. I've tried to check what they are charging for the current PF elements on missing pieces, but they are listed as out-of-stock even for the brand new 10268 that has PF. I bet the parts packs will be cheaper than those prices, but not as cheap as the current PF counterparts. As a proxy for the individual part cost, looking at the two new PUp train sets, they both have more parts and more minifigs than the PF sets they replaced. So a small amount of the increase is possibly due to the normal bricks, perhaps some just to increasing prices overall, and the rest due to the (more expensive?) electronics. Looking at brickset, the passenger train increased by $10, while the freight train increased by $30. I would expect that the hub standalone would be less than or maybe equal to the cost of a PF battery box + a PF IR receiver, which is $28. Hopefully the cost of a hub + rechargeable battery will not be much more than a PF LiPo + IR receiver (net of $65), or $37 for the rechargeable battery assuming that it drops in to the hub... but all is speculation now, who knows where Lego will put the actual prices (on rare occasions they are even lower than one would think, e.g., PF XL motor being cheaper than an L) and I am only suspecting that a rechargeable battery will be coming.

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50,- € or $ for the hub is incredible to much. It seems LEGO tries to squeeze us out as much as they can. To look for reduced sets on the free market und rip them becomes a neat idea, i.e. the clumsy batmobil which delivers two PU M motors and a hub among perhaps useful wheels, tires, plates, wedges and slopes. We can throw the batman figure into the bay.

In some cases LEGO learns the lesson, ok, in tiny steps: The really poor set 75201 was officially reduced by 20% after LEGO noticed the sale rates tended to zero. A bad example, I know. The PU hub is essential, a bad StarWars set not. I think the only way to tell LEGO the price policy is not ok is to look for third party offers like bricklink or rip reduced sets.

I do not wait for any official rechargable solution, therfore my experiments with 6F22 blocks ... Later more with pictures, promised :wink:

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8 hours ago, treczoks said:

One reason: Smaller case.

Right, I thought it's about putting it in the PU hub case (therefore not gaining on the size at all).

1 hour ago, Giottist said:

I do not wait for any official rechargable solution, therfore my experiments with 6F22 blocks ... Later more with pictures, promised

Please do! (preferably in separate thread). I'm very interested in space savings - bringing some old locos to the modern controls/tracks was always what I wanted to do (though somehow I still haven't motorized the 4564 even now when I have all parts needed, except the time, aww :( )

Edited by Bartosz

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With a bit of help from Ashi, i did some testing with a full locomotive setup with two hubs, two train motors (one reversed), two led pairs and a remote on a full layout. It works, but the usable range is rather low. The remote starts giving end of range blinks only after about 10 meters and looses connectivity at around 15. All this with two hubs on the same channel and straight line of sight between the hubs and the remote. Having an active bluetooth connection from someone's phone to a few nearby sbricks could get the reliable connection distances down to about 5 meters, with the disconnection distance not really affected. Having only a single hub connected increased the maximal distance to about 4/3 of the dual case. This is regardless of having them on the same color and together or on different colors and a few dozen cm-s apart.

I probably did something wrong as both the 12 eneloop and the 12 white ikea rechargable AAA batteries got drained after around two hours to 6V (1V per cell), this is when the hubs turn off. The same type of AA ikea batteries last around 6 hours in the same class of locomotive with a PF battery box, a single PF receiver and two PF train motors and set to run at a medium speed while continously looping around (i speed matched the two trains). 2 hours seems very little from 12 AAA batteries with a single 8 wide locomotive and two relatively light 56 stud long ic coaches. On the other hand, power and top speed is roughly the same as for the PF train motors, we measured ~156 scale km/h top for these 1:42 trains with the standard sized train wheels on straight and level plastic track. This seems to be good enough for most trains.

Bugs: Connection loss sometimes resulted in the secondary hub (that is connecting up second) not syncing back up when i moved closer and one time it lost plug and play support and detected both the leds and the train motor as on-off-on (medium) motors. I could only reset it by removing the battery for a second.

The test train is the one with the headlights on:

DSC03408s.JPG.ead2282ebc4b73b53e5f3e8757f11664.JPG

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Hi all,

is it possible with the LEGO Train App to operate more than one train at a time?

Or is 1 train = 1 tablet

(the handheld can operate up to five trains, switched by the green button as indicated by the color of the LED)

 

 

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Noticed a little while ago there will definitely be a Powered Up app update coming next year with more varied functionality, since the coming soon listing for the Move Hub mentions using the Powered Up app to control it, which isn't possible with the current in-app options. Perhaps that might also allow other more custom options like controlling more than one hub at a time.

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So, the MoveHub isn't something I can stick under a train, now that I I have one. How would one make a smart steam locomotive? I was hoping to use the BOOST hub to make a programmable steam locomotive that could either be ran with the new handset, or programmed...

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Just now, Modeltrainman said:

So, the MoveHub isn't something I can stick under a train, now that I I have one. How would one make a smart steam locomotive? I was hoping to use the BOOST hub to make a programmable steam locomotive that could either be ran with the new handset, or programmed...

Well, just move the smart part elsewhere. I'm currently working on a project where I use the new PoweredUp! train parts, and I intend to put the brain in a RaspberryPi. The remote talks to the RPi, which in turn talks to the SmartHubs on the train. Problem solved.

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11 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Noticed a little while ago there will definitely be a Powered Up app update coming next year with more varied functionality, since the coming soon listing for the Move Hub mentions using the Powered Up app to control it, which isn't possible with the current in-app options. Perhaps that might also allow other more custom options like controlling more than one hub at a time.

As I undertstood there are only apps for specific models (and therefore specific Hubs):

- train app (Cargo train and passenger train) using PuP Hub

- BatApp (Batmobile) using PuP Hub

- RollercoasterApp (10261) using Boost Move Hub

- NinjagoApp ( 70652 ) using Boost Move Hub

- Arctic Explorer( 60194 ) using Boost Move Hub

- BoostApp (Boost-Set, all 5 models)  using Boost Move Hub

So what is your idea of a "PoweredUp" app to Contol Boost?

Or do you mean that there could be a "universal app"?

 

 

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When Technic inevitably transitions to PUp, there will be inevitably a "universal" PUp app. At least I expect so... if not, there will always be fan-made apps like BrickController 2.

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There are only 2 apps. One for the Boost hub and one for the PUP hub (although I don't like that name since Boost also uses the Powered Up protocol).

The idea is that at one point you should be able to control both hubs from a single app

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Just now, Jetro said:

The idea is that at one point you should be able to control both hubs from a single app

I would like that very much, to have, for example, simple (Control Centre-like) automation on the AAA hub. Given that the whole programming infrastructure is already made for Boost and its hub is no "smarter" than the AAA one, this shouldn't be difficult from a technical point of view.

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8 minutes ago, Jetro said:

There are only 2 apps. One for the Boost hub and one for the PUP hub (although I don't like that name since Boost also uses the Powered Up protocol).

The idea is that at one point you should be able to control both hubs from a single app 

Ah, I see! Thanks!

Yes, then it would be very useful to bring them together.

So with every new Boost Model the app must be expanded.

 

Edited by Lok24

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1 hour ago, AVCampos said:

have, for example, simple (Control Centre-like) automation on the AAA hub.

Coincidentally (or not?), a new update to the PUp app has just become available, which appears (I can't fully confirm at work) to allow us to program the Batmobile in a Boost-like IDE!

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1 hour ago, AVCampos said:

Coincidentally (or not?), a new update to the PUp app has just become available, which appears (I can't fully confirm at work) to allow us to program the Batmobile in a Boost-like IDE!

Sounds interesting, but then only for the two motors, I assume?

Edit: Yes, confirmed, only movements, no sensors (or not found yet :blush:l)

Edited by Lok24

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Yes, and the controls are combined for "tank driving" instead of individual motor control. The resultant functionality, with no sensors or encoded motors, ends up, as I wrote, similar to the Control Centre.

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7 hours ago, AVCampos said:

Coincidentally (or not?), a new update to the PUp app has just become available, which appears (I can't fully confirm at work) to allow us to program the Batmobile in a Boost-like IDE!

WARNING: Do not install this version 2.0.0 if you run Android 5.0.2 or lower. The "updated" app crashes immediately you paired the hub (this works in most cases) and choose a mode. In this state the app is useless. We have to wait for a functional one which has been tested before publishing.

Addendum: Ok, Android 5.0.2 is several years old. It is explainable the LEGO developers don't care of such old stuff. Nobody will develop software for Windows XP anymore. After a little look up LEGO gives us informations about the minimal requirements, and they tell clearly "Please use at least Android 5.1"  Uh oh - just missed ;-) Time to get a new mobile phone ...

Edited by Giottist
Addendum added

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