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Subject: 
Re: Controling LEGO trains via Decta Control Lab
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Thu, 29 Oct 1998 18:13:42 GMT
Viewed: 
2489 times
  
I was hoping someone would post a solution to the software platform. I would
even kill for just the low level API to the control lab direct and write my
own Visual Basic OCX for it. The LOGO development environment is a bit forgien
to me and is really kind of clumsy.

The minimun granularity that I have been able to achieve is 1/10 sec. The
pulsing idea came from one of the LEGO engineers in Boston. At the time I
didn't remeber this 1/10 sec limitation to further question him :( If any one
at LEGO is reading this I would be discrete wiht your e-mail address. :)

Thanks for all the help and comments. If anyone know even a friend of a friend
that has tech data on the Contrl Lab API that would be great.

SteveB

Matthew Bates writes:
10Hz is nowhere near fast enough to control a train motor using PWM (pulse
width modulation). You need at least 100Hz, and higher would be better.

Any of your suggestions will vary the speed of a motor, but the most common is
varying the duty cycle. Varying the frequency of a fixed width pulse can be
bad as you are likely to pass through some annoying resonant (audible)
frequency of the motor. Varying the voltage of the pulse is ok, but if you can
do that you might as well just send variable DC to the motor like the train
controller does.

I'm not really familiar with the Dacta control lab, but isn't there some
sensible software that'll let you program it in C or something?

Matt



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Controling LEGO trains via Decta Control Lab
 
I don't know if this is the type of program you are looking for, but there is a graphical programming environment called "LEGO Engineer" on the following site: (URL) stumbled across it while looking for any information on the Control Lab itself. It (...) (26 years ago, 9-Nov-98, to lugnet.robotics)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Controling LEGO trains via Decta Control Lab
 
10Hz is nowhere near fast enough to control a train motor using PWM (pulse width modulation). You need at least 100Hz, and higher would be better. Any of your suggestions will vary the speed of a motor, but the most common is varying the duty cycle. (...) (26 years ago, 29-Oct-98, to lugnet.robotics)

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