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Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?

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Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?

#41

Post by quietbritishjim »

vanderZwan wrote: post #6
josephcsible wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing "fake" about self-answered questions, and Stack Exchange even includes UI specifically for posting an answer at the same time as your question.

I suppose the part where the writing structure is "question written as if by someone who does not know the answer themselves, answer written as if it's a different person" , even when explicitly posting to share knowledge, is what throws people off. I assume this is part of the SO guidelines but I can't blame anyone for being confused by that.

There's nothing about the question or answer that suggests that they're different people.

FWIW I've done the same, even more like that than the post here. (Not about Lego though!) I had a problem, was disappointed not to find the answer on StackOverflow so when I came to post the solution I put the question in the way I would have written it before I figured out the solution. Seemed more likely to be found by anyone with a similar problem.

Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?

#43

Post by drewzero1 »

jacquesm wrote: post #29
mc32 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh! I never noticed. It makes some sense when you think about parts-wear.

Lego motors are designed for about 100 hours of service life.

Wow, that's not much... my kid would probably hit that within a month. (I just replaced the motor in a Bachmann Thomas that wore out in about the same amount of time.)

Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?

#45

Post by bombcar »

drewzero1 wrote: post #43
jacquesm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lego motors are designed for about 100 hours of service life.

Wow, that's not much... my kid would probably hit that within a month. (I just replaced the motor in a Bachmann Thomas that wore out in about the same amount of time.)

The motors for the trains are better than that because they're designed for continuous use (somewhat) but yeah, at the end of the day Lego is a toy.

Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?

#47

Post by hyperman1 »

blobbers wrote: post #37
lode wrote: post #26

Automating my Lego trains was my first introduction to programming, back in the late 1980s using GW-Basic. (When I was about 8 years old.) I had several stations on a looped track, and controlled the train position by switching on the power to the motor for a certain time. At first I used a photodiode taped to the CRT monitor (and controlling the motor by lighting up a square in the corner of the screen), later I upg…

And then you wrote DOS as your first program as a whiz kid. We see you BillG. Don’t need to brag.

I did more or less the same thing, as did lots of other people.

Wiring the serial or parallell port to something wasn't hard. Instructions for bit banging them where generally found in the library (paper books). Serial had weird voltages but was near indestructible. Parallel was TTL just like anything else digital, so some 74 ICs got you mostly there.

The era where you basically needed to solder if you wanted a computer was just over, so electronic knowledge was still easy to find.

Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?

#48

Post by bri3d »

cactusplant7374 wrote: post #44

Is there any way to use the Flipper with these trains?

I couldn't find an off the shelf Flipper module, but the Lego Powered Up BLE protocol is fully documented by Lego:

https://lego.github.io/lego-ble-wireless-protocol-docs/

So it shouldn't be too hard to add one.

Keep in mind that as noted in this article, the default Powered Up Hub behavior is as a "passthrough pipe" to the host device, so just using a Flipper might be a bit obnoxious.

Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?

#49

Post by jacquesm »

incanus77 wrote: post #40
jacquesm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And before then the 4.5V 'blue' rails (you could upgrade from that to the 12V system by swapping out the motor and adding the middle rail, but that lost you the ability to make certain tracks because then the two rails would end up being shorted out, which is why Maerklin long ago decided to use a center track for one pole and the outside for the other).

I have train set 182 [1] from 1975, bought at Harrod’s in the UK and brought back to the US for a family friend who passed it on to me. It’s still in the box with styrofoam liner. [1] https://brickset.com/sets/182-1/Train-Set-with-Motor

If it was never used it is worth a fortune.

Re: Can Lego City Powered Up trains be automated?

#50

Post by jacquesm »

drewzero1 wrote: post #43
jacquesm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lego motors are designed for about 100 hours of service life.

Wow, that's not much... my kid would probably hit that within a month. (I just replaced the motor in a Bachmann Thomas that wore out in about the same amount of time.)

That's why they're not fussy about replacing the few that wear out, the average use is frequently after the first purchase and then it drops off sharply so I guess they decided it wasn't worth designing around long usage. In the older trains you could replace the little motor easily, with the newer ones (starting with the infamous 'red' motor a long time ago) that practice ended and you have to replace the entire unit.
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