CADA battery with 4 motor outputs and remote control

[Bublehead]

@Didumos69, the “two boxes, one controller” scenario you are describing more than likely will be similar to having two IR receivers on the same channel. It will control both, but not ensure they are synchronized. So the two motors may work together, but they may become out of sync eventually.

[technic_addict]

13 hours ago, SNIPE said:

hi,

Can a CADA remote control 4 motors if each motor is hooked up to a dedicated buwiz output (i.e not multiplexed)

Can one CADA remote be "paired" to one buwiz and another remote be paired to another?

Also are the CADA remotes sold individually? (i.e without the reciever+battery unit)

CADA is 2.4 GHZ and Buwizz is Bluetooth so I don't see any way CADA would work with Buwizz.

[SNIPE]

7 hours ago, technic_addict said:

CADA is 2.4 GHZ and Buwizz is Bluetooth so I don't see any way CADA would work with Buwizz.

ah dang. I wanted the ludicrous speed mode that a buwiz has to offer but also remote that can control more than 2 motors. oh well.

[MattL600]

10 hours ago, SNIPE said:

ah dang. I wanted the ludicrous speed mode that a buwiz has to offer but also remote that can control more than 2 motors. oh well.

Rewire the power supply to a hobby grade 3s which is 12.6v which is higher than the buwizz's 11.1v ludicrous mode. Be careful though, I haven't done this and it may burn out your esc (probably not though)

[kbalage]

15 hours ago, SNIPE said:

ah dang. I wanted the ludicrous speed mode that a buwiz has to offer but also remote that can control more than 2 motors. oh well.

With BuWizz you can control more than 2 motors, you can control more BuWizz units the same time as well. If you use @imurvai's great app you can do it with a wired/Bluetooth android controller.

[TomOOO]

I have used this control to power the technic bulldozer, and it powered the 2 XL motor s fine, and you could drive the 2 small motors at the same time. So no problem with large loads

Without the intermediate ir controller I think you get more power to the motors, the dozer seams to fly along

 

[kodlovag]

I just received my controller, but I already have problems with it. At first moment when I tried to test it, the blue output did not work, and it had a burned smell. Other outputs works fine, but I'm not happy at all.

I asked the shop to replace the battery box, but no response yet. (This is my very first AliExpress order, well, not a good experience...) Is any of you have problem with the battery box? Do I have any chance for a replacement?

We have electric experts at our company, and we could try to repair, but we failed to open the battery box. It is easy to remove the 4 screws, but still not possible to open it. No gap between the dark and light gray pieces, seems glued. Does any of you managed to open the battery box? If yes, how?

[gate]

@kodlovag I have met all of the problems you mentioned above, with other chinese fakes though.

I had the feeling they are making electric components with bare hands and no additional mechanisms/devices. The gluing as well, had it on every part that works with electricity.

The only solution I could find to open - drill with a very thin disk (plastic or similar), making a few accurate cuts along the glued parts.

The insides are usually soldered very trashily as well. Sad to hear cada also has these problems

[fosamax]

Here's my feeling so far. I decided to go with a complete set from Cada and bought it from gearbest.

My buying experience with Gearbest was a mix between good and not as good as expected.

Firstly, I got my set (Cada C51041) for a little less than 40 euros and the price dropped by 6 dollars the day after. I wouldn't have been upset but the set was clearly not in stock and it took between 10-15 days before shipping. That being said, consumer service was great and offered to refund my GB wallet with 6 dollars and add extra points also. When I finally received my item I was quite happy. Tracking is good, no custom fees and you get the full item with original box and packaging.

Then, I tried to charge the battery box and it didn't work. I tried successfully to open it without any problem (no gluing so I just had to force a little to get the box opened). Soldering is not perfect but acceptable. I asked again the customer service and they tried to help. Meanwhile I understand that the included cable is mandatory to charge and that a standard telephone cable don't work. After charging the battery box work and all ports are available and tested at 8,4v.

I then checked the other parts to see if everything was good and found a broken shock absorber.

I notified the customer service that battery box was finally ok and the broken part but didn't expected they could solve that (in fact I didn't care) and they finally offered to refund the full amount or to set another set for free. So I'm currently waiting for a second set with battery box.

I'm overall happy with my purchase even if battery life seems pretty poor. It may be due to the fact that I choose to build the set with a gear ratio for speed and not for torque. It doesn't have great speed notheless but for sure there's quite no torque. I will build the second one with torque setting to compare. This set is currently at 32,59 € from gearbest (from phone app) and I think it's the best offer to get the battery box. Design of the crawler is not a copy from a Lego set and there's some slight change in the mold from most parts. Rims and tyres are really decent. L motor and servo are good even if return to center is not always perfect. There's some custom parts that don't exist in Lego. Red panels looks pretty poor in my opinion but at least they are not stealing Lego or moc design. There's an upcoming C51043 buggy which looks cool and will add PF lights. If you want to see more details from the opened battery box, you could search for Cada C51041. 

[kodlovag]

2 hours ago, fosamax said:

This set is currently at 32,59 € from gearbest (from phone app) and I think it's the best offer to get the battery box.

Nice find. I asked the seller to replace my battery box without sending back the bad one. If it is not accepted, then I will ask for full refund, and buy this C51041 instead.

2 hours ago, fosamax said:

If you want to see more details from the opened battery box, you could search for Cada C51041. 

I tried to search for the opened battery box, but failed. Could you please help me with a link?

Edited November 8, 2018 by kodlovag

[fosamax]

18 hours ago, kodlovag said:

Nice find. I asked the seller to replace my battery box without sending back the bad one. If it is not accepted, then I will ask for full refund, and buy this C51041 instead.

I tried to search for the opened battery box, but failed. Could you please help me with a link?

Ok I had a hard time to find it again but here you are :

https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5648419280?pn=1

It looks like it was hard for the owner to dismantle the battery box whereas it was quite easy for me. Don't know why....

[Ivan_M]

Thank you for the experience and for the link, we have finaly some more information. 500mA doesn't sound bad, nor superb, it is something I have expected. Of course provided that the batteries are not fake and capable of that capacity.

[kodlovag]

16 hours ago, fosamax said:

Ok I had a hard time to find it again but here you are :

https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5648419280?pn=1

It looks like it was hard for the owner to dismantle the battery box whereas it was quite easy for me. Don't know why....

Thank you for the link. I would never find it myself.

It seems, that the battery box was glued, just in my case. Now I will not try to open it, because damage is guaranteed. I have to send back the product, because AliExpress accepted my complaint, and I don't want to return a physically damaged product. It is also mentioned in the teardown post, that there was a previous version of the controller, with better quality PCB and so on...

I made some further testing, and the result is interesting. In case of the bad output it is still possible to drive an LED, but only on reduced brightness. A servo seems working too. But there is no way to drive an XL motor. I guess in my case one of the mosfets could be burned and half dead, and only allows reduced current and/or voltage.

Overally I'm disappointed with the product. Not because of the quality problems: other buyers from this forum have no problems, I'm just unlucky. But based on the look of the controller with the big levers I expected speed regulation for the blue and the red output, but they are just simple buttons, and only allow full throttle. I'm new in Technic electronics. I tried this controller+battery box combo, because the battery box looks better, than original Lego (rechargable, 4 outputs and cheap), while the simple controller fits better for me, than the mobile phone controlled PUP or BuWizz. I'm disappointed with the reduced capabilities of the controller, but the 2nd best solution, the BuWizz, is much more expensive. Based on the existing experience, PUP will be a step back in connectivity, while the controlling upgrades will not reach the quality of the BrickController app... Still have to wait for PUP.

Now I'm hesitating what to do with the refund. Buy Cada C51041 to grab the product again (hopefully a good one this time) with some extras, or invest into BuWizz and an Android game controller? (PUP seems not an option at this moment.)

[fosamax]

Casa C51041 is on sale today (China black Friday or something like that)... Less than 30 euros.

[Berthil]

4 hours ago, fosamax said:

Casa C51041 is on sale today (China black Friday or something like that)... Less than 30 euros.

Thanks, I ordered 2 for my Wall-E GBC. I'm tired of having to say to the children they have to point to Wall-E with the remote all the time :) 
They have also (what seems random) discount coupons on top of the sale, I got an extra 3 to 4 Euro discount on separate orders.

[gregorski904]

I managed to get range of about 35 meters 

[kuba1410]

For anyone interested - this battery can also drive 2 buggy motors with no obvious downgrade in performance, so it seems like a cheap alternative to buwizz/2 sbricks with 2 battery boxes etc. However, today (after approximately 2-3 weeks of me owning the set) the battery stopped responding partially (forward works, but not backwards) or fully on two of the four outputs - seems like a remote issue rather than the battery.

Edited December 16, 2018 by kuba1410

[AVCampos]

I found a slightly cheaper remote controller set, here. Too bad that it still costs more than 22€, which is problematic for Portuguese customs. Unfortunately I can't find any C51041 anymore at the prices you bought: while it's more expensive, at least it comes with motors.

On 9/29/2018 at 7:20 AM, Saberwing40k said:

For some reason, Buwizz capacity is rated in watt hours, and not milliamp hours, so I can't say for certain. They also helpfully do not list the nominal voltage of the battery.

Actually, measuring battery capacity in Wh is more useful than in Ah, since it takes in account the battery's voltage: a 3.7 V 500 mAh battery isn't the same as 22.2 V 500 mAh.

To convert Wh in Ah, just divide the watts by volts and you get amperes.

[fosamax]

If you're on the budget side, you may look at C51028w in blue flavour, which come with only one L motor.

Alternativly, C51043W, is a newly released buggy and it comes with a complete PF set for making your own RC moc (battery, remote, one L motor, one servo and one PF light)

[Ivan_M]

I have bought "crawler" https://www.gearbest.com/block-toys/pp_009464151272.html?wid=1433363

when it was for 30€. It arrived in ~2 weeks, labeled with price 20€ so I didn't had to pay any customs or tax. The servo and L motors behave exactly like TLG, servo can make steps when hooked on IR receiver and controlled by train controller. So far very good. However the battery was unable to charge straight out of the box, I was only able to check that it works thanks to small left over power from factory, then it was useless. Well, such things happen, even to TLG so I do not make any hasty assumptions. What striked me as more interesting are some parts, there are some of them nowhere to seen at TLG:

3,4,5,7 & 9 long beams with alternating holes, OMG, such parts are my dreams come true! There are also some nice recolours like black shocks, black dog bone, etc. I was quite surprised how well is everything fitting, clutch power is stronger, sometimes too much. The design of the crawler is however subpar and I have build it only to test the parts.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Ivan_M

[AVCampos]

48 minutes ago, Ivan_M said:

However the battery was unable to charge straight out of the box, I was only able to check that it works thanks to small left over power from factory, then it was useless.

I think someone wrote in this thread earlier that the receiver only charges with the supplied cable, regular Micro USB cables don't work.

[fosamax]

Yes I can confirm that using the supplied cable is mandatory which is quite strange. I also like those black parts with alterning holes. The quality of the red panels is not that good althought as they look lighter and as if they were a bit translucent.

At least, CaDa doesn't seem to try to make bootlegs from existing lego set or steal moc as lepin or other chinese knock-offs.

The design of the crawler is not really good. I built the speed version and it's not really fast and as nearly no torque. unfortunatly, you need to dismantle the entire model to build the max torque version.

That being said, I didn't have high expectations and I had a good customer experience so I can't complain.

I discovered today that CaDa seems to have made lately a partnership with Yoshihito Isogawa featuring his books : The Lego PF Idea books (vol 1 and 2) including books and the needed parts (minus XL motors and big linear actuators) in a cool package.

I find this is a good idea . IMHO, Lego could do the same with Sariel's book.

[Ivan_M]

5 hours ago, AVCampos said:

I think someone wrote in this thread earlier that the receiver only charges with the supplied cable, regular Micro USB cables don't work.

Hmm, might be the case, I don't really remember, maybe I have used different cable first, damaging it

[fongalv]

For anyone also wondering about this CADA remote, I ordered one on a whim since it was really cheap from the Chinese sites. I haven't really had the chance to compare it directly to my buwizz but I ordered this because of it being 2.4ghz, and mainly wanted a transmitter was a manual remote for my kids to play around with. Unfortunately my biggest gripe with the remote is that the 2 main controls only have a slight click up and down in movement latitude, about 1mm up and another 1mm down which means it does not allow the remote mod to fix a steering wheel to it to allow for various degrees of control.

[AVCampos]

I've been snooping around their instructions download page (I still don't know it they're called "CaDa" or "Double Eagle"), and, amongst ridiculous LEGO rip-offs (pullback racers with shooting missiles? Really?), they actually have some nice-looking models, like the RC rocket launcher truck or the small-scale Chiron. I feel tempted to download the instructions and adapt them to use only LEGO parts.