Unlock The Magic: Making Lego Power Ups Compatible With 9v Train Tracks
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- Unlock The Magic: Making Lego Power Ups Compatible With 9v Train Tracks
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Link for the full wave bridge rectifier I am using: amzn.to/3zMUcov
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Cool proof of concept for the DIY crowd.
Thanks
@coasterblocks3420 I did this fews months back but did a version where you didn't have to modify the hub. Bevins way will ultimately be cheaper and cleaner
Woohoo! Love to see you’re willing to charge for your time. I love when people value their time as a premium resource. Keep up the great work. Thanks for the tutorial on converting to power ups.
Thanks, most are not happy to hear that lol 😆 but time is the most valuable asset we have and if you give it away people will take as much as you can give.
This is awesome. This is exactly what I want to do myself with my power functions and powered up trains! I hate batteries. They suck.
Yeah batteries are a nuisance and I hate them as well.
This is an epic idea. I think to improve the reliability of low speed running you may want to have a rechargeable battery in the Circuit so that if there is a momentary loss of power from the track pick ups that the circuitry and the motor are still powered by the rechargeable battery
Pretty cool! I really like the mod walk through. Thank you. Lets see what folks come up with in the future.
Hi there BEVEN, here's an idea to reduce the price somewhat. Maybe you can arrange to have customers send their WORKING battery pack & maybe reduce the value of it 50% to 75% toward the full price, in other words, if you're charging $150 total & the original pack is worth NEW of $70, you would "credit" them, say $50 (since you'de be using their pack) Of course you can include a disclaimer that you're not responsible if they receive it and it shorts out or something, but you can verify that it was working when tested? This makes, both sides "win". This is just an idea, or maybe even IF they send you TWO packs they get 1/2 off & receive only ONE working back (after testing them of course). This would then give you packs to build them to sell (of course you'de reduce it somewhat since the pack is used). Just a few ideas.....
Well for me it is more that Im already swamped so if Im doing it Im changing for it. Because I have little free time. But yes if someone was interested in sending me the parts and me assembling I would not have an issue charging 70 to do it for them.
Nice mod! I don't care for the Bluetooth controller. I liked the old Power Function system.
I agree that or I prefer my 9 volt controller.
I think that's awesome! In reality nothing complicated, but really love to have a proof of concept: moving to full interoperability between systems.
I agree it's not reasonable to make a product on it but, please keep doing the 9V pick up and please ship internationally! I need this :(
Thanks, it was fun doing it just to see if it was possible. I have opened international shipping currently for Canada, UK and Australia and will be opening more areas after a week or two of testing to make sure all my issues are solved.
Thanks!
Your welcome 😀
Bu the way thank you, I didnt know people could donate on videos, thought it was only something that could be done on live streams.
I prefer the old school controller, but great idea👍
Im with you, I find the blue tooth stuff frustrating
I'd buy 10. But I understand not wanting to make them. I've been wanting something like this since power functions. Just put full power on the track and let me control it at the train. I picture something in the shape of the batteries with the rectifier and capacitors to solve for the curves. Then it can slide in and out for switching between batteries or 9v track.
I feel its just to expensive to persue, at least for me anyway as a hobbiest. You have a great idea with installing a cap, as I feel just having that installed would probably keep voltage for small bumps in power. Might play woth that idea at some point. Im just not a big fan of the ir stuff myself. Guess Im showing my age in that thought process lol.
Yeah the cost of these things is very high, when it's just a circuitboard tied to a battery pack. We are paying the Lego Tax again. Wonder if these could get reverse engineered & drawn up and have them made up cheaply on someplace like pcbway ?Dunno if Lego would try to sue us though if we did?
And you could make it so the battery box is detachable you you could have the choice of using it on powered rails or just the plastic ones.
@BevinsBricksWorld mentioned the capacitor thing in my video anwhile back messed with it a little but mynaoldering station is broken and if kinda stalled until i fix it
@donbot5000 like all projects takes time to get to doing them 😀
I can see someone using this for a GBC module.
I might use the power pick-up wheels to a PF Switch to control direction of a GBC Train Module.
Oh yeah that could be a great idea.
If you want to put effort in this to make it then also consider to incorporate a power pack (model railroads use them also). Then dirty tracks are less of a problem.
I also wonder if just adding a cap would solve the issue
@@BevinsBricksWorld if the value of the cap is big enough yes. The power packs used in modeltrains take less space compared to using caps. Power packs can buffer up to seconds while normal caps just buffer for milliseconds.
This is a cleaner version of what i did a video on a while back .as i posted ina comment on a prwvious video of yours. Again i encourage you to reach out to me as ive done a bunch of testing and have a few points and notes for you.
Nice, no offense I generally do not ask others for help because it caused issues in the past with other people and this is just my hobby. I dont have time for the drama people like to create. Not saying that you would, just explaining why I prefer keeping my projects, solely my projects.
@BevinsBricksWorld well just keep making great products and that will carry you a long time. You make great stuff
I would be absolutely interested because no one online is producing an adapter for the power up hub.
The only thing I have found is a company who produces a base with a USB adaptor that replaces the chunky battery base, in case you have something fixed and you wanted it powered from the wall.
That's why I was planning to buy that usb adaptor, and then add the rectifier in a similar fashion as yours. But if I can buy a finished product, I'd probably be happier.
From the latest updates from Fx Tracks, they should be able to release their version of power pickup + PF motor relatively soon (2024 Q4, according to June's updates) - so going into competition with you with the power pickup part.
The bit they have not yet decided to produce is exactly the adapter you are showing: it seems no one is actually interested in making Power UP compatible with 9V tracks, so that would be probably your best shot if you want to sell products.
However, I see that it would be too expensive for you to make it into a product.
I just feel its not a viable option and worth the cost to invest time and money into. Let me explain. With the 9volt system as you know, power is recieved from the 9 volt track. Then the power puckup takes that power and transfers it to the car. Which in this case goes to the ir, and then that distributes the power to all your components. The problem is like I show in the video, if you have the slightest bump in voltage, a wheel lifts up, dirty track, whatever may cause it now you need to stop everything. Reset the ir and reconnect the bluetooth. It makes to me using trains a complete hassel. But I will also say this, I do not like the ir/bluetooth stuff even with the batteries. As for fx, thry have been claiming for years that a lot of these products are coming. But so far no delivery. I dont consider myself competition as Im only a hobbiest trying to help the community. But if they do come out with a version and its better, kuddos to them. Im very interested in seeing what they come up with. As Im sure it will be a quality mass produced item, very interested in seeing what price point all of the options they come out with will be as well. 😀
@@BevinsBricksWorld
I agree that is probably not viable for you to stock these products but eventually produce them on-demand.
Some of the home-made solution add a capacitor in parallel to the diode's bridge output so to avoid the loss of power as it happened to you. You should consider that extra component in your final design if you are going to sell it on-demand.
As for FX Bricks, I know they have been claiming a lot of things, but the latest update is quite interesting and it was after many years of silence on the matter.
I have been getting into LEGO trains after many years of not doing anything. So I still have all 9V stuff.
However, I want to modernize things and the good thing of power up is the possibility to make automation. You can design a complete automatic traffic.
In my case, I am very interested in the color reader, as I have a "point-to-point" layout and I need the train to stop and reverse automatically. I could do it with adding diodes and isolated tracks and some electrical switches, but I like the flexibility of a programmable device such as Power UP.
Finally, all forums suggest to start with Power UP if you have never had Power Functions, because things will start get pricier with time.
So yeah, that is why I have the interest in your solution.
But I agree you shouldn't make a lot of those and only produce on demand.
@jossdeiboss I can make you a cable if you'd like but a modified hub will untimely be the endgame for this
Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that the rectifier is redundant/ not needed. The 9V regulator is powered by an AC wall wort but the circuit for the regulator has a rectifier to convert the voltage to DC, the regulator then uses an array of resistors and a lm317 to output various DC voltages to the rails. So if you pin the Regulator to 9V you’re only outputting 9V DC
It's needed for sure I did a video on this a while back.
You need it because if you put the regulator on the opposite direction, the voltage would be opposite to what the Power Hub is expecting. You could potentially destroy the power hub.
You could use only one diode to block the unwanted polarity and make sure you put the correct voltage.
However, if you have multiple trains, you would need to check everytime if your train is getting the correct voltage and potentially flip the connections at the pickup.
And if you have got a loop with isolated tracks, you cannot make it work because you will need to flip the voltage on the tracks for your train to continue the loop but the diode would block the current.
You definitely need a full bridge rectifier if you want to have a product that always works without giving a hassle.
Your wrong 😆 but still right, the purpose of the rectifier is simply to make sure no matter what direction the speed control is placed in that the input is always correct. If you do not add it, you just need to make sure the polarity is correct. So adding it is just to simplify use for the user. 😉 But also as previously stated if you do not install it, it could result in damaging the ir reciever.
And that what you called Bevinizing with the Paulbrot fussing about a messy table whoops he maybe lurking at this video to see this comment LOL
Lmao, hes always watching
@BevinsBricksWorld yes sir. Hopes everything is doing good
@rclaxton1651 going great, just trying to get better at time managment 😆
Saw your Instagram post about the custom speed regulator with your slim cable. That slim power cable will sell because the official cable has too large a connector which isn't compatible with 8 wide trains.
I don't think that the tape on the tracks is a good use of your time. FX bricks sells Lego compatible powered tracks.
I don't think that you need to do all of that to transfer electricity to the power up hub. You can leave the bottom off and run the power cable with bridge rectifier straight into the terminals. Saves time but the cable won't be too secure.
Not sure I will make my speed control or anything as everyone keeps mentioning how fx bricks will be releasing a version soon. That I am sure will be a better version of anything that I would custom make. As for the taped tracks no I dont intent to make them only point people in the right direction if they are interested in taping them themselves 😀 Ideally the best sollustion would be to have a box that just inserts where the batter box goes in so you can go back and forth between batters and power pickups and it would be fairly easy to do. The issue here is that Lego has a patent on the battery box and thats not something I wanted to get involved with.
If I use the power up stuff I'll just use batteries.
I hate batteries, so I only use it with a direct control on my 9volt track.
Ya batteries= bad for me I also rather have the physical controls over the Bluetooth option.