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Showing results for tags 'Radio control'.
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Boxer's PF Electric System Upgrades
Boxerlego posted a topic in LEGO Technic, Mindstorms, Model Team and Scale Modeling
Hi, I'm going to be posting all my current electrical modifications for the PF system here and present everything like a guide manual and provide schematic, data sheets, and a parts list. I've been doing a lot of research on electronics lately and been making great progress on it all and decide to start posting what is going on here along with my successes and failures at developing this. I've been contemplatingseveral ideas as how to build this and will be going to demonstrate how to do several things such as convert the IR communication link to 433MHz RF and transmit a possible total of 4 channels out of one antenna and much more. This topic is not only about building off the existing Lego PF electric system, It will contain a basic understanding about the electrical components and look at all the different ideas that can be implemented as to how everything all works together from everything between the batteries to the motors to the controls. One of my main goals here is to up the scale at which models can be built and powered effectively by one or two motors. One of my longest going disputes is determining a proper battery pack to power my motors. From the very beginning my original idea was to have a 18v battery pack powering a 18v motor. However, awhile back I showed how to upgrade the XL motor with a motor that functions on voltages ranging from 8v up to 16v, so now I'm deciding between either using 12v or 15v battery pack to power the motor. Choosing a battery can be expensive and understanding the battery's voltage range is very critical for the circuit to work properly. There is a bunch of choices here as to what the battery powering the motors should be. I've been thinking on either using a Li-po battery or Li-ion or just continuing on using AA batteries. The next part of the circuit that is between the motor and the battery is the H bridge motor driver. This is the most critical aspect of the circuit as towards allowing the battery current to the motor and that current is dependent on several factors such as input voltage and temperature. There are several types of transistor out there and it is recommended to have a proper transistor in respect to the device you want to power. By looking at the data sheet it shows that the motor at maximum efficiency current 0.71a and the stall current 5.56a at 12v so here it can be establish that the transistor should be able to handle 10a if two of these motors were to stall simultaneously. The transistor I am using here are know as MOSFETs and the part number on the transistor is IRF540 and the the other one is IRF9540. That is my first H bridge I put together and there is definitely a range of improvements that can be done here. Now in order to power the H bridge to dive the motor is done by the 9v IR receiver motor connection. There are several ways I've gone about powering the 9v PF receiver from a higher voltage source such as 15v. In the picture below I use a voltage divider which is able to drop the voltage down to a usable voltage supply for the 9v receiver and the amount of current is drastically reduced to the 9v receiver, you will not be able to drive a micro motor with it but you will be able to power the H bridge, One of the main advantage here is using the high 9 volt supply out of the 9v receiver because the transistor is primarily a voltage driven device and that means more current for the motor. The main part of the upgrade is converting the IR signal to a RF signal. The remote control part of the modification is very easy and does not require much to do, I am almost done with this part. In the pictures below shows the only modification I made so far for the antenna. The benefits here is have a strong base for the antenna to collapse on. It was tricky process to get the antenna screw in that 3mm hole I made, I had to take out the battery metal connection tab on the controller and pass the screw through the battery holder opening in order to insert the screw in there. Now for the main part in converting the IR signal to a RF signal on the receiver end. While the RF transmitter can handle voltages up to 12v the RF receiver must require a smooth constant voltage around at 3v which can be tricky to do if your using a total supply voltage around 15v, 12v, or even 9v. Instead of using a voltage divider to drop the voltage down to 3v for the RF receiver, I'm going to use a voltage regulator and the reason behind this is the battery voltage will drop when the motors begin to rotate and that will cause a drop in battery supply voltage and the voltage divider will fluctuate in response of this. A voltage regulator will hold a steady supply voltage to the receiver so no matter what the demand voltage is on the battery you wont lose connection with the RF receiver. However, one of the big disadvantages about the voltage regulators is that it converts a lot that energy to heat especially when it is working off a large voltage supply like a 15v battery. So the next option is to isolate the RF receiver voltage supply from the motors voltage supply and there are numerous benefits behind this, the most notable on the list is no modification has to be done to the Lego IR receiver so any version of the IR receive will work with this RF receiver unit. To accomplish this I will work off the infrared communication and connect with the PF IR receiver by a IR emitter that is apart of the RF receiver unit and separate the RF receiver voltage supply that way. Another advantage behind this is more current for the motor. Also the circuit could be replaced with a fiber-optic communication link for the same results. By using the IR link to transmit data signal from the RF receiver to the IR receiver you could theoretically control multiple IR receiver units with just one infrared signal. Now the RF receiver will be able to output 4 data signals and each data signal can be assigned each there own channel. Not only will the RF transmitter and receiver will be able to communicate a potential of 4 data signals out one antenna, it will also have the ability to code the RF signal 256 ways. I will post more when I finish testing everything. -
RC Chassis V4-Success!
z3_2drive posted a topic in LEGO Technic, Mindstorms, Model Team and Scale Modeling
Ok, after figuring out some video problems I am going to post about my final satisfaction out of my Four chassis builds. While V4 may be slower (slower output), It is extremely robust, simple and has the best handling out of the Four . It is powered by four Buggy motors and steering uses the servo motor. Electronics-wise it uses the same hobby-grade motor controller, receiver and transmitter that I have mentioned before and my custom battery. These are the only non lego parts Performance is great, and a couple days ago during some play I managed to barrel-roll it, only knocking the project box containing the electronics a bit loose For now I only have the video to show, but I will upload pictures soon -
[WIP] 18 Volt Drill Master LEGO conversion
Boxerlego posted a topic in LEGO Technic, Mindstorms, Model Team and Scale Modeling
18 Volt Drill Master LEGO conversion [WIP] BY Boxerlego Introduction Hi, This is my latest LEGO custom motor project but its not the only one I'm working on I just bought this 18v drill today for the intention of modifying it for LEGO use. My previous drill motor project I only modify an old 18V drill motor to fit with LEGO but this time around I've a new 18V drill motor with a fresh 18 volt battery pack and I'm going to try to fit with LEGO. The nice thing about this is I got that power drill with an 18v battery pack along with charger for a great deal of $16, the original sale price was $35. My first 18v drill motor project had tons of problems to over come and for a long time at first the motor was not even able to be power with LEGO 9V PF system. This was a major problem for me and ultimately I didn't quite know enough on how to drive a DC motors with electronics. So I moved on to my next motor project which was a stepper motor and was more efficient that it could be driven with the LEGO V1 PF system. This was a good step up but it wasn't quite as powerful as the drill motor can be. It didn't take long for me to figure out how to drive a motor with electronics, there are lots of good YouTube videos out there that got me started but ultimately how to properly drive this 18v drill motor with LEGO was still far from perfect. My first motor driver had several mistakes however LEGO was able to still make it work but still those problems needed to be understood and corrected so I can make improvements and make it work better. I will spare all the details here and I will just say that in 2014 I learned tons about how to properly drive motors and more efficiently. Which brings me to my other motor project the upgraded XL motor I'm working on, which is reaching the final stages and that is building the motor driver. This motor driver here for the XL motor MOD is absolutely the best one I made yet. You wont believe what I was able to with this motor driver or maybe you will . I will just say that this motor driver here I made works from the regular 7-9 volts the LEGO Battery box can supply but however the XL motor mod has a switching DC power supply that can step up the 7-9 volts from the battery box to 12 volts for this XL motor mod to work off of. Overall this topic will mainly be about the 18v drill motor LEGO conversion so to start it off I want to show a video time line of some my previous projects with my first drill motor. Video Time Line Think this is either going to work or not please feel free to comment on the matter. I hope everything works out well -
This is my WIP Topic since I've figured out all my questions about the build. This is my first tank build and I think it's going pretty well! It is based off the Ripsaw, but has some differences: ^I had to use some interesting techniques to connect both the studded and studless construction. ^My table's pretty messy during builds I need to brace the structure in the rear and make a simple lightweight connection from front to back to place the electronics box and battery on. Hope you like it!
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What should my next RC venture be?
z3_2drive posted a topic in LEGO Technic, Mindstorms, Model Team and Scale Modeling
Now that I perfected My latest chassis, I want a new challenge. I know my limits of weight/strength/power now and I want to build something different. Also I am going to make another Bricklink order with some random parts I currently lack, so I want to make a list of things I may need. Here's what I am thinking of at the moment: Drift car-either AWD or RWD using fast output of buggy motors. As for wheels: A car similar to Chassis V1 for outrageous top speed-suspension would be the main issue. A remake of a crawler using either XL motors or NXT motors with Doc_Brown's Reaper axles. Any other ideas would be appreciated. I would hope to build it before the end of this year, as I then plan to build a small, possibly non-pf vehicle using the new snowmobile suspension pieces.