Wabbajack Posted May 7, 2019 (edited) So I have a little problem and would like an opinion of someone more knowledgeable in this area. First I have to stress, that I know that all I did was my responsibility and only I am to blame for any damages. I have tried to make an PoweredUp to PF adapter using a SATA data cable. I tried to run some train motors, but it did not work. Maybe I used wrong wires from the SATA cable. I finished my tests and turned off the hub normally. A few days later, I tried to switch on the hub, but the led is not blinking and it does not show up in bluetooth. The batteries are charged and fine with a voltage of 7.6V . Is it possible it got bricked with some short? Is here a way to unbrick it? I saw a lot of good work from the community here, so maybe someone can answer my questions. I just want to find out if it is a lost cause. It would be a pity, because I managed to buy it on BL before the price hike. PS: I put this in the train forum as there are a lot PU threads Edited May 7, 2019 by Wabbajack Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Giottist Posted May 7, 2019 Hmm, hard to analyze without any detail information. Can you show us here images of your soldered cables ? In general please regard the following: 1) Before you make any adpater by your own, please be sure you know the pinout of the two plugs (PU on one side, PF on the other) and understand the meaning of each connector pin. 2) Using SATA cable does not seem meaningful for me. Why did you not connected the matching wires together? You need more legth? 3) I can guess only what could happen without any image of your adapter. 4) Did you test your PU hub afterwards without any plugged device or one or two plugged original PU devices wth fresh batteries? If it shows still nothing, uh oh that's a bad sign. In this case your PU hub is electric garbage. Please look at Bricklink for new ones ... 5) An adapter is possible, but you need a bunch of electronic and soldering skills. You have to connect the two output wires from the PU hub (Pin 1 and Pin 2) to the motor pins of PF( Pin 2 and Pin 3), but that's not sufficient. Since the PU hub needs an information what is connected, you have to generate a signal on Pin 5 and 6 of the PU hub. Theese identification pins are missing at the PF pinout. And you have to respect the voltage levels of PF (something between 9 and 7 V on Pin 1 and 4) and of PU (3.3 V (? to verified) on Pin 3 and 4) Hmm, complicated isn't it? Best, Giottist Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wabbajack Posted May 7, 2019 Yes I knew the layout. For train motor, use pins 5 and 6 and connect 1+4 and 2+3 together. I must have accidentally switched wires from the SATA cable. Thanks for the help anyway. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Toastie Posted May 7, 2019 Hmmm. The weird thing is that during testing the hub worked fine and after turning it off it did not turn on anymore >after a few days< (correct?). All I/O cables unplugged, right? When true, take out the battery pack. Wait a little. Plug back in. Does it turn on? I don't see any reason that the shortening of regardless what I/O pins should cause this behavior. I fried the outputs of one of my hubs by applying accidentally 15V DC, "unlimited" amperage to the I/O port when this one was trying to do low PWM to the motor (this happens, when you do power pickup via 9V motors ad forget to clip the metal rails going from the track to the motor). But: That fries the H-bridge output drivers but not the brains of the hub. That is the weird part. On another thought: There are these (to me) miracle "resettable" SMD fuses built into the hub, as TLG did with the rechargeable LiPo battery. On that one it takes days to reset when tripped by wrong usage. I don't know about the hubs fuses - they look the same. But you said you were doing your experiments and then days went by before you wanted to continue, right? Weird. Hopefully, your hub will wake up again! Best, Thorsten Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wabbajack Posted May 9, 2019 Well it was two or three day. That is what was strange to me, that there was no safety for wrong wiring. I will leave it for a week or so with the batteries out and see then. I know an adapter would be difficult for lego, as now wires also tranfer info about what module is connected and can even receive data. Thankfully the train motor can only have wires just connected back without additional resistors or extra work. I may just get a new hub anyway, saw a sweet deal on the app-controlled batmobile. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Toastie Posted May 9, 2019 1 hour ago, Wabbajack said: Well it was two or three day. That is what was strange to me, that there was no safety for wrong wiring. I will leave it for a week or so with the batteries out and see then. I know an adapter would be difficult for lego, as now wires also tranfer info about what module is connected and can even receive data. Thankfully the train motor can only have wires just connected back without additional resistors or extra work. I may just get a new hub anyway, saw a sweet deal on the app-controlled batmobile. Maybe a good idea to get a new one. As bevor I strongly suggest to check out Bricklink - the 2I/O hubs (as in the Batmobile) sell for rather little money around €15 each. And there are ample of them. Search either for battery box (you need to scroll quite a bit down) or search for item bb892c01. Good luck! Best regards, Thorsten Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dr_spock Posted May 10, 2019 11 hours ago, Wabbajack said: Well it was two or three day. That is what was strange to me, that there was no safety for wrong wiring. I will leave it for a week or so with the batteries out and see then. I know an adapter would be difficult for lego, as now wires also tranfer info about what module is connected and can even receive data. Thankfully the train motor can only have wires just connected back without additional resistors or extra work. I may just get a new hub anyway, saw a sweet deal on the app-controlled batmobile. The LEGO use case is users would connect only the LEGO made devices. The LEGO cables would be wired not to put 9V on the 3.3V I/O ports of the STM microcontroller. The connector is also keyed so that you can't connect them any other way. The risk of wrong wiring is neglible with quality control at the factory. Adding protection circuitry like optoisolators would increase costs and probably not benefit the typical users of the product. I made my PU to PF adapter using different color coded wires from a CAT5 cable so I can see what's connect to what clearly. I think I checked thrice before plugging in once. It was scary. https://youtu.be/SKsLZMqTepo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tcm0 Posted May 10, 2019 5 hours ago, dr_spock said: The LEGO use case is users would connect only the LEGO made devices. The LEGO cables would be wired not to put 9V on the 3.3V I/O ports of the STM microcontroller. The connector is also keyed so that you can't connect them any other way. The risk of wrong wiring is neglible with quality control at the factory. Adding protection circuitry like optoisolators would increase costs and probably not benefit the typical users of the product. I made my PU to PF adapter using different color coded wires from a CAT5 cable so I can see what's connect to what clearly. I think I checked thrice before plugging in once. It was scary. https://youtu.be/SKsLZMqTepo That doesn't hold true with the breakout option of the ultra sonic sensor of SPIKE Prime. That has a breakout option on purpose. In addition to that LEGO has to calculate with very stupid things like users that hold the cable into a basket of water (which shorts the cables) etc. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
