Lego IR Reveiver (v1) upgrade

[harpoon]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone attempted to "upgrade" the V1 receiver to have higher drive capability ?

I am looking to "mod" the v1 Printed Circuit Board by replacing the weaker H-bridge chip with the one in the V2 receiver (TI chip). Probably flip the TI chip on its back and manually solder wires to the right places.

Thoughts anyone ?

[M_longer]

21 minutes ago, harpoon said:

Thoughts anyone ?

Go for it?

[JopieK]

If you happen to have both part numbers you can have a look at the datasheet :) Often H-bridges have similar pinouts.

[MxWinters]

Nope, the V1 IR receivers are able to drive 2 XL motor on one channel and a servo or M motor on the other channel at the same time so I've never needed to mod them. I wouldn't mod them anyways, they wouldn't be LEGO if I modded them.
Regardless, there are plenty of H-Bridge chips on the market and they ain't expensive, find one the is able to provide enough current and give it a go. If you do, try it on a old receiver first and see if it if works, if so order more IC's and mod the rest of them.

Edited November 3, 2019 by MxWinters

[harpoon]

OK thanks ... I have the 9398 crawler (minus the V2 Rx), but have the V1 receiver and it is unable to drive the L motors and servo.

Will keep you guys posted ! 

[Mechbuilds]

Go for it. I'd be interested to see the results. 
Perhaps even modify the technic battery pack to include a rechargable battery with higher voltage instead of 6 AA batteries. 

[sirslayer]

There is another way to do this if you want to keep it simple..  First of all, you can purchase a 2.4ghz wifi China controller and receiver for a cheap price and you can use Nizn batteries rated at 1.6 volts each !!

[harpoon]

I have a 2.4GHz setup already ... using 11.1V LiPo batteries to drive the L-motors with an external ESC and a typical RC servo. That works quite well. Here, i’m trying to stick to the classic Lego build.

I opened up the IR rx ... and it is not easy to take the board out to do the component swap ... so on to ...

Plan B ... will use the IR receiver’s h-bridge to drive an external h-bridge. Just need to cut a PF extension cable in 2. Seems easy enough ...

[dr_spock]

I think you could also desolder the PF cable from the board to connect something else in between if you already opened up your IR receiver.

[

[Toastie]

Why go with LEGO based electronic stuff anymore?

I mean going that far, I'd skip the whole cumbersome LEGO electronics. Make it smart, so that it recognizes (among others) PF/PuP signals, but go nuts.

But then: Are we leaving ground? I believe so. It touches some - if not essential - rules. Or even "moral".

Do you feel like that? To be honest: I don't.

(And to be honest again: I feel like one of the worst individual in the world, because I ordered the Black Pearl - for €39 ... guess from where ... but then: You - and I break into LEGO products as if it were - fun. At the same time, I feel like being shafted when ordering a model many of the LEGO gurus out there making nice videos depict the original Pearl rated at $300+ as: Way too expensive)

Man.

I know, it is a luxury issue in real life. But within EB it is core of the matter.

All the best
Thorsten 

[iLego]

3 hours ago, harpoon said:

Plan B ... will use the IR receiver’s h-bridge to drive an external h-bridge. Just need to cut a PF extension cable in 2. Seems easy enough

I tried that once, but stopped at the breadboard prototype. Used the Lego IR receiver's output PWM to trigger external H bridge. Used a transistor based circuit to switch 9V voltage level to 4.5V for both direction and PWM of external bridge. My external bridge supported upto 20V/6A, so I had some fun driving an L motor at higher voltages. But I chickened out at 15V. All Lego motors are too expensive for sacrificing to science 

[harpoon]

19 hours ago, iLego said:

I tried that once, but stopped at the breadboard prototype. Used the Lego IR receiver's output PWM to trigger external H bridge. Used a transistor based circuit to switch 9V voltage level to 4.5V for both direction and PWM of external bridge. My external bridge supported upto 20V/6A, so I had some fun driving an L motor at higher voltages. But I chickened out at 15V. All Lego motors are too expensive for sacrificing to science 

Thanks for the idea. I was just going to use a resistive divider to drop the 9V signal down ... but I think I have some level shifters lying around that may do the job.

21 hours ago, Toastie said:

Why go with LEGO based electronic stuff anymore?

I mean going that far, I'd skip the whole cumbersome LEGO electronics. Make it smart, so that it recognizes (among others) PF/PuP signals, but go nuts.

But then: Are we leaving ground? I believe so. It touches some - if not essential - rules. Or even "moral".

Do you feel like that? To be honest: I don't.

(And to be honest again: I feel like one of the worst individual in the world, because I ordered the Black Pearl - for €39 ... guess from where ... but then: You - and I break into LEGO products as if it were - fun. At the same time, I feel like being shafted when ordering a model many of the LEGO gurus out there making nice videos depict the original Pearl rated at $300+ as: Way too expensive)

Man.

I know, it is a luxury issue in real life. But within EB it is core of the matter.

All the best
Thorsten 

Actually, the Lego servo is pretty neat ...