ord Posted April 25, 2020 Posted April 25, 2020 (edited) Version 1: Since the release of the Powered Up Technic Hub, I've wanted to experiment with its internal tilt sensor(s). This is the result; a mechanical seven-segment display that shows the pitch of an 'aircraft' accurate to 10 degrees. It works by having 4 motors each controlling 2 segments of the display (8 moving segments total) via cams. Each motor moves to one of 4 positions, putting its respective segments to OFF-OFF, ON-OFF, OFF-ON or ON-ON. It's not as responsive as I had hoped but was a fun little build Version 2: (See post below for more information) Edited March 26, 2021 by ord Quote
mortenm Posted April 25, 2020 Posted April 25, 2020 Nice! How about some pics of the mechanisms? Quote
sirslayer Posted April 25, 2020 Posted April 25, 2020 and the programming!! Please!! like a quick look at your code blocks for verification!!!! :) Quote
ord Posted April 25, 2020 Author Posted April 25, 2020 (edited) Here are some pics of the mechanisms. It is really quite simple: blue cams are horizontal segments and red cams are vertical segments. The segments fall back due to gravity The code is the complicated part (screenshot here). Basically: The first loop returns the tilt angle as an integer between -9 and 9 (and its modulus for simpler coding later on) The second loop rotates the motors (in parallel) every time this value changes. Motor positions are determined by... The next four loops. They constantly determine which segments should be on or off, depending on the integer(s) returned in the first loop Edited April 25, 2020 by ord Quote
ord Posted February 2, 2021 Author Posted February 2, 2021 (edited) Version 2: I'd like to present version 2 of this MOC. Taking inspiration from aeh5040's seven-segment display, this version features: Control by a single shaft/motor Number incrementing and decrementing Faster response time than version 1 Unfortunately, mostly due to the goal of having only one input, this version doesn't feature a 'minus sign' segment. Edited February 2, 2021 by ord Removed image linking to Flickr Quote
Touc4nx Posted February 2, 2021 Posted February 2, 2021 Wow. That's some pretty impressive mechanical work, Nice Job. It seems pretty reliable. Do you think it could be stacked (horizontally) ? Quote
ord Posted February 3, 2021 Author Posted February 3, 2021 13 hours ago, Touc4nx said: Wow. That's some pretty impressive mechanical work, Nice Job. It seems pretty reliable. Do you think it could be stacked (horizontally) ? Thank you . I don't see why it couldn't be stacked (to make a 0-99 counter, if that's what you mean). That would actually be pretty cool; it would just require a mechanism that steps every 10th rotation and can handle a reasonable amount of torque. Quote
teflon Posted March 25, 2021 Posted March 25, 2021 I have only today stumble upon this magnificent mechanism. Version 1 is cute and uses some nice thinking. But version 2 is just out of this world. I imagine you have 7 bit (0/1) instructions on technic liftars, which are rotating on the threads. I think this is a step forwards from aeh' but even his is quite clever. I am rebuilding aeh' mechanism with driver in the back (have some problems with friction). I would appreciate if you could share some more pictures of version 2. I still don't get it but it's really incredible! Congrats!! Quote
aeh5040 Posted March 26, 2021 Posted March 26, 2021 That's great! An improvement on my version from 10 years ago! Quote
ord Posted March 26, 2021 Author Posted March 26, 2021 11 hours ago, teflon said: I have only today stumble upon this magnificent mechanism. Version 1 is cute and uses some nice thinking. But version 2 is just out of this world. I imagine you have 7 bit (0/1) instructions on technic liftars, which are rotating on the threads. I think this is a step forwards from aeh' but even his is quite clever. I am rebuilding aeh' mechanism with driver in the back (have some problems with friction). I would appreciate if you could share some more pictures of version 2. I still don't get it but it's really incredible! Congrats!! Thank you for the comments. That's right about the 7 bit instructions: I don't have any more pictures but I created a Studio 2.0 file which you can download: LEGO Technic - Mechanical Seven-Segment Tilt Display (v2).io 3 hours ago, aeh5040 said: That's great! An improvement on my version from 10 years ago! Thanks, love your work! Quote
domleg Posted March 26, 2021 Posted March 26, 2021 (edited) Thank you so much for the Studio file, it's super helpful, finally I will have a chance to build this stunning creation. Do you happen to have a Studio file for your amazing Cartesian Parallel Robot by any chance? I'm trying to rebuild it from the photos but I'm struggling a bit so far. I hope it's not too forward. Many thanks. Edited March 26, 2021 by domleg Quote
teflon Posted March 26, 2021 Posted March 26, 2021 (edited) Thank you very much from my side I'll for sure gonna try to rebuilt this amazing thing. @aeh5040: Thank you for your model also! It's quite a fun!! Edited March 26, 2021 by teflon addition Quote
ord Posted March 27, 2021 Author Posted March 27, 2021 On 3/26/2021 at 9:16 PM, domleg said: Do you happen to have a Studio file for your amazing Cartesian Parallel Robot by any chance? I'm trying to rebuild it from the photos but I'm struggling a bit so far. I hope it's not too forward. Many thanks. Sorry but I haven't modelled any of my other MOCs. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the other topic :) Quote
domleg Posted March 27, 2021 Posted March 27, 2021 Thank you, I'll try to do my best without bothering you! Quote
aeh5040 Posted June 9, 2021 Posted June 9, 2021 I always planned to make a multi-digit counter or a clock with mine, but never made much progress. Really the design itself was a bit too clunky. As you say, the key is to make a carry mechnism that is both reliable and can handle the torque. I think this would be very much worth pursuing, and starting with your version ought to give a much greater chance of success! Quote
ord Posted October 28, 2021 Author Posted October 28, 2021 (edited) I upgraded the seven-segment display (version 1) to display fourteen segments. It no longer shows the angle of the hub/s but can display 0-9, A-Z, a-z, and some symbols. Enjoy! Edited October 28, 2021 by ord Quote
m00se Posted October 28, 2021 Posted October 28, 2021 Only needed to watch it 10 times before I understood how you managed to control 14 segments with 7 motors. It's really great, but I love the "elegance" of the Version 2, so I'm really looking forward to a Version 2 based 14 segment ;-) Quote
2GodBDGlory Posted October 28, 2021 Posted October 28, 2021 Very impressive! Those "Technic baseplate" parts look like they simplified the build a lot. It would be amazing to see a whole line of these spelling out words, but I guess that's beyond everyone's electronics budget... Quote
ord Posted October 28, 2021 Author Posted October 28, 2021 1 hour ago, m00se said: It's really great, but I love the "elegance" of the Version 2, so I'm really looking forward to a Version 2 based 14 segment ;-) Oh man, it would be tough to fit all 14 segments on the version 2 type, especially the angled segments. Here you can see that each segment requires ~4 studs of horizontal space (tile-liftarm-liftarm-liftarm-tile) with the current design: 1 hour ago, 2GodBDGlory said: Very impressive! Those "Technic baseplate" parts look like they simplified the build a lot. It would be amazing to see a whole line of these spelling out words, but I guess that's beyond everyone's electronics budget... Thanks! They definitely did - they fitted the 14 'segments' perfectly. True true, surprisingly it also used up a large portion of my 6L axles - 90 to be precise. Quote
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