Ivan_M

CADA battery with 4 motor outputs and remote control

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23 minutes ago, AVCampos said:

Under direct sunlight, there's really nothing much IR can do. Does the Chinese system really use IR, or is it radio?

I really don't know. It does seem to need line-of-sight, though, which I don't think would affect radio.

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Can you take a screwdriver to the transmitter or receiver? I think everyone here would like to take a peek inside. :excited:

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9 hours ago, AVCampos said:

Under direct sunlight, there's really nothing much IR can do. Does the Chinese system really use IR, or is it radio?

As far as I know all ripoff receiver is 2.4Ghz. Not IR.

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3 hours ago, AVCampos said:

Can you take a screwdriver to the transmitter or receiver? I think everyone here would like to take a peek inside. :excited:

Done:

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2 hours ago, msk6003 said:

As far as I know all ripoff receiver is 2.4Ghz. Not IR.

I now think you may be right! I see I have an antenna in there, which I don't recall seeing on Lego IR ones, and the remote seems to have to pair with a receiver before using it, unlike Lego ones.

Would 2.4 GHz be seen as an advantage across the board, or are there disadvantages as well?

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Cool, thanks! Indeed there doesn't seem to be any photodiode, required to receive IR, at the top of the board.

18 minutes ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

Would 2.4 GHz be seen as an advantage across the board, or are there disadvantages as well?

It doesn't require line-of-sight and is immune to sunlight, but isn't as cheap, can be subjected to other kinds of interference (2.4 GHz is also used by Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, drones, cordless phones, microwaves, etc.), and in theory the manufacturer needs certification for compliance.

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19 minutes ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

Done:

 

Would 2.4 GHz be seen as an advantage across the board, or are there disadvantages as well?

Only disadvantage in the usability compaired to IR is the neccessary pairing. General problem of '2.4 GHz' is that basically every manufacturer does his own thing and you cannot mix different components.

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27 minutes ago, AVCampos said:

Cool, thanks! Indeed there doesn't seem to be any photodiode, required to receive IR, at the top of the board.

It doesn't require line-of-sight and is immune to sunlight, but isn't as cheap, can be subjected to other kinds of interference (2.4 GHz is also used by Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, drones, cordless phones, microwaves, etc.), and in theory the manufacturer needs certification for compliance.

Interesting! I find it odd that a dirt-cheap knock off would use a more expensive technology, but it certainly seems that it did! If it doesn't require a line of sight, could I just bury the receiver inside a MOC like an SBrick?

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I'd bet it's cheaper due to easily available off-the-shelf components, something that didn't happen as much in 2007 when PF appeared, and the lack of certification fees.

19 minutes ago, Ullum Zurt said:

If it is indeed 2.4 Ghz, couldn't you in theory use a pistol grip remote instead of current IR remote?

No, because there are a lot of different protocols that use 2.4 GHz. It's the same reason why you usually can't use an IR TV remote of one brand to control a TV of another brand.

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6 hours ago, Gimmick said:

Only disadvantage in the usability compaired to IR is the neccessary pairing.

It would need "pairing" when using corresponding high-level protocols, such as BT or BLE. But it could also be that the 2.4GHz is just the carrier frequency to do very simple (and hardly used by others) encoding/decoding sort of what TLG did with PF or earlier with RC. There isn't much "interference" for PF and RC from other IR devices because of that - other than just "traffic" = IR dirt.

So simple on/off keying could work fine - by simply replacing the IR transmitter/receiver, which do exactly the same in the PF components.

There could be much more of course; when you turn on your components, are they just doing their work, or do you need to perform some sort of pairing, @2GodBDGlory? You are mentioning 16 available channels - that sounds pretty much like TLGs PF protocol with the extension bit enabled - and then just swapping IR with similarly dirt cheap 2.4GHz components.

But who knows.

All the best,
Thorsten 

 

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18 minutes ago, Toastie said:

It would need "pairing" when using corresponding high-level protocols, such as BT or BLE. But it could also be that the 2.4GHz is just the carrier frequency to do very simple (and hardly used by others) encoding/decoding sort of what TLG did with PF or earlier with RC. There isn't much "interference" for PF and RC from other IR devices because of that - other than just "traffic" = IR dirt.

So simple on/off keying could work fine - by simply replacing the IR transmitter/receiver, which do exactly the same in the PF components.

There could be much more of course; when you turn on your components, are they just doing their work, or do you need to perform some sort of pairing, @2GodBDGlory? You are mentioning 16 available channels - that sounds pretty much like TLGs PF protocol with the extension bit enabled - and then just swapping IR with similarly dirt cheap 2.4GHz components.

But who knows.

All the best,
Thorsten 

 

By sixteen channels I just meant that I could double the number of channels I could use from eight to sixteen, by using four Lego receivers and four Chinese ones.

As for the pairing, when the receiver is powered on it flashes its light slowly, and then after it receives a command from the remote, the light stays on steadily. This strikes me as being a pairing procedure.

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2 minutes ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

This strikes me as being a pairing procedure.

(Ahh, I see, channel-wise)

Yeap, pretty much so, pairing wise. Can you "detect" any of the devices with any kind of BT or BLE equipped tool, such as a tablet or computer (e.g. Win10 -> search for other devices)?

Guess not - but BLE has become dirt cheap as well.

Best
Thorsten

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On 8/15/2021 at 8:53 AM, brunojj1 said:

Regarding the weird behaviour on BuWizz - I can only tell you my experience on the 2.0 device that it works fine, as well the other motors.

This is the part that interests me the most (with the discontinuation of PF elements). If the proportional control works with Buwizz (and by extension, BrickController), then their pro series servos are really attractive. On the BrickElectronic pdf there wasn't any torque data for Cada or Wange so it's a little tough to directly compare the motors. The Bluebrixx XL motor looks to be a bit more powerful than the LEGO version, but they said they can't ship across the pond :shrug_confused:

 

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1 hour ago, Toastie said:

(Ahh, I see, channel-wise)

Yeap, pretty much so, pairing wise. Can you "detect" any of the devices with any kind of BT or BLE equipped tool, such as a tablet or computer (e.g. Win10 -> search for other devices)?

Guess not - but BLE has become dirt cheap as well.

Best
Thorsten

No, nothing seems to detect it.

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No, it's a different interference. Unlike analogue 27 MHz, you can't hijack control of another hub, but instead useful range will decrease.

I have a Wi-Fi-controlled drone (2.4 GHz), which flew very well at an event of my LUG during set-up. But, with the crowded event, full of people and their phones with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth activated, I quickly gave up on having the drone fly more than about 2 metres away.

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@Gimmick, as @AVCampos said:

2 hours ago, AVCampos said:

Unlike analogue 27 MHz, you can't hijack control of another hub, but instead useful range will decrease.

When controller and hub "pair", they negotiate their own "private" protocol. So when other 2.4 GHz devices begin to talk as well, they begin to raise the "floor noise", which the two don't understand and thus handle as such: noise. As long as the two talk loud enough, they understand each other; the louder the noise, the closer they need to be.

It is as if you were with a friend in a large room. Let's assume, both of you talk a very special idiom of a language popular on Betelgeuse (i.e., hardly heard on Earth :pir-laugh:). When you two are alone, you will clearly understand each other over a long distance. Now the room floods with people from many Earth countries. And they begin to talk as well. First a few, then more and more. The noise increases. Although your language is (almost) certainly unique, you will need to get much closer to each other to understand what your friend says ...

Well, I believe it is like that.

Best
Thorsten

 

 

Edited by Toastie

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8 hours ago, Toastie said:

@Gimmick, as @AVCampos said:

When controller and hub "pair", they negotiate their own "private" protocol. So when other 2.4 GHz devices begin to talk as well, they begin to raise the "floor noise", which the two don't understand and thus handle as such: noise. As long as the two talk loud enough, they understand each other; the louder the noise, the closer they need to be.

 

Sry for the misunderstanding, I meant in the case you mentioned, so when there is no pairing.

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8 hours ago, Gimmick said:

Sry for the misunderstanding

Oops got that wrong. Now, in that case - it depends :pir-laugh:.

Difference is now: The protocol is fixed (and still asynchronous): All the receivers are waiting for some sort of "start" signal and use that to try synchronizing with the next signals coming it. Signal means there is a 2.4 GHz or 38kHz, or whatever you want to use, carrier signal present. When the timing is off, the receivers can't sync, they simply start over - to listen for another start signal again. In other words: Both the start signal as well the timing of signals (length of pause between the time of carrier present) are critical for this mode of operation - which is called on-off keying (OOK), I believe; I'm a chemist and just work here:pir-wink:

Now, you can have different protocols active at one time in one room: TLG did that with their IR line of devices. Manas, RCX, RC, PF are all relying on a 38kHz modulated IR light OOK protocol. Nevertheless, you can control an RC device (e.g., a train 7897) AND a PF device (e.g., another train 3677) in one room, and they will only react to their corresponding (unpaired) controller, because length of start signals, as well as the length of the pauses in between signals are different for each product line. However, when you repeatedly operate the RC controller, it will most certainly flood the room with IR light carrying the RC protocol. It will be very tough for the PF IR light to come through, as the PF IR receiver sees also all that RC IR light and gets confused. It doesn't do anything when you press the PF controller once. And vice versa: Bang the PF remote and the RC receiver is virtually "blocked".

There are of course other means of signal modulation/encoding, see e.g. here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On–off_keying

The paired 2.4 GHz devices use much, much smaller "packages" of deeply coded information (you can put >much< more information into a package using a 2.4 GHz carrier than you can with e.g. 38kHz. One cycle at 2.4 GHz is 0.5 ns long, compared to 30 us for 38kHz - which is a factor of 60000. But even when unpaired, they still may operate more reliably in parallel to other 2.4 GHz (unpaired) devices in the same room, due to the temporally much shorter packages sent around (= far less overlap).

Hope that makes any sense.

Best
Thorsten

 

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I've just found out there's a version with a 6-output receiver and a transmitter with 4 proportional channels (and 2 bang-bang). Anyone tried this?

Mould-King-Power-Functions-Parts-MOC-hig

May I post a link to the Chinese store where I found this, @Jim?

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1 hour ago, AVCampos said:

I've just found out there's a version with a 6-output receiver and a transmitter with 4 proportional channels (and 2 bang-bang). Anyone tried this?

Mould-King-Power-Functions-Parts-MOC-hig

May I post a link to the Chinese store where I found this, @Jim?

This combo is used in the mould king 17006 and seems to work good.

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1 hour ago, AVCampos said:

...

Mould-King-Power-Functions-Parts-MOC-hig

...

Hello,

In this (german) Video at Timestamp 17:55 there is told, that there are 2 additional Power-Function Connector Pins used.

Jo

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