{"id":1478,"date":"2019-01-08T12:25:48","date_gmt":"2019-01-08T12:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2019-01-10T11:44:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T11:44:53","slug":"lego-powered-up-relay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/2019\/lego-powered-up-relay","title":{"rendered":"LEGO Powered Up Relay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I needed a way to turn a LEGO motor ON and OFF using a Powered Up hub but keeping power supplies independent. This way I can control a large current demanding motor without draining out the Hub batteries (and also without the need to use a custom cable).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I used a Power Functions switch as a relay:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/relay03.png?resize=400%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1484\"\/><figcaption>LEGO Powered Up relay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Also took the chance to try <a href=\"http:\/\/www.melkert.net\/LDCad\">LDCad<\/a> on linux. Not so easy to use as LEGO Digital Designer (I am a zero with CAD) but after a while I got a pretty close <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/open?id=1nPVU2wVMOvihzOK8gBtvuOokjzvWLGbn\">model<\/a>. To create a PDF with the instructions I then used <a href=\"https:\/\/trevorsandy.github.io\/lpub3d\/\">LPub3D<\/a> &#8211; I couldn&#8217;t install the &#8216;.deb&#8217; file because of missing dependencies no longer available for my Ubuntu laptop but found out that the &#8216;.AppImage&#8217; works fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/open?id=1j-blhUa-pOlHvr2yxhOPLQrQTry9rjYp\">instructions on this PDF file<\/a> also have a list of the parts that I needed to get from <a href=\"http:\/\/ldview.sourceforge.net\/\">LDView<\/a> (LPub3D generates a nice image with all the parts but without describing those parts). I also couldn&#8217;t install the &#8216;.deb&#8217; version so I used the &#8216;.exe&#8217; for Windows, it runs fine with Wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The model uses a Powered Up \/ WeDo 2 motor but it can also use a Power Function M motor or a MINDSTORMS medium motor so this relay may use with different technologies (IR, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB) as long as you just need an ON\/OFF control of the motor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Using a Power Functions LiPo battery you can still regulate the output power<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A video of the relay working:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"LEGO Powered Up relay\" width=\"840\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7y7Be_1PFDk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption><br><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And another showing how I use it in my LEGO Imperial Conveyex Transport based on the old LEGO monorail system:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"[WIP] LEGO Imperial Conveyex Transport Monorail - Powered Up (9)\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YwpP8myTUnI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Big thanks to Roland Melkert,  Trevor Sandy, Travis Cobbs who designed these great open source tools (and probably many others who contributed).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I needed a way to turn a LEGO motor ON and OFF using a Powered Up hub but keeping power supplies independent. This way I can control a large current demanding motor without draining out the Hub batteries (and also without the need to use a custom cable). So I used a Power Functions switch &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/2019\/lego-powered-up-relay\" class=\"more-link\">Continuar a ler<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;LEGO Powered Up Relay&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,154],"tags":[332,347,110],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lego","category-lego-en","tag-powered-up","tag-relay","tag-technic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Mhyv-nQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}