Subject:
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Re: Why Did Lego Switch to 9V?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Sun, 14 Nov 1999 11:57:56 GMT
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Viewed:
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980 times
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In lugnet.trains, Santosh Bhat writes:
> Ok Peoples,
>
> This is one question that i've never really seen addressed anywhere.
>
> We all know lego swtiched from 12V to 9V in the early 90's..but why?
>
> If using the rails to conduct energy is the reason, they could've stuck
> to using 12V on rails.
K. I'll add what I know about it here.
Lego went towards 9V starting with the light and sound modules. (I think they
were introduced in 1987 or 8). The trains (european) had push, 4.5V battery,
and 12 volt controls available, whereas here we only really had push and 4.5V
trains. The 12V trains suffer from problems with dirt on the track being a big
problem, and of not being compatable with either the 4.5V or the 9V other
components. They also used a different plug system than the 4.5V stuff, so you
couldn't plug 4.5V lights into a 12V system (at least, not without using a
adaptor plug)
So, by 1990 you had 3 different styles of lego power. The 4.5V small plug, the
12V large plug, and the 9V plates/wires.
Realise that 12V is also hard to get from a battery. You need 8 cells to get
12V, so as a battery operated thing, it was kind of out.
9V has the most widely available battery, and can be made up from 6 cells.
It's a fairly handy voltage, as it is enough above 5V to allow 5V electronics
to use it.
4.5V has the distinct disadvantage of not being enough to operate any 5V
electronics (like the L&S modules...)
I think that the choice to switch to 9V was partly so that -all- the old stuff
was not compatable as regards power. It must have been widely discussed in
TLG, because it was a major change to a lot of items (3 types of motor,
lights, wires, battery boxes)
> Was it to bring it in-line with the other Electric components of Lego
> Products (ie. technic motors)? Again..why would they do this? Is there
> some plan in the future to be able to combine certain components
> together all working under the same voltage?
It was all done at the same time, at least for the motors. The L&S stuff
probably served as the model to base it on.
James Powell
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Why Did Lego Switch to 9V?
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| Ok Peoples, This is one question that i've never really seen addressed anywhere. We all know lego swtiched from 12V to 9V in the early 90's..but why? If using the rails to conduct energy is the reason, they could've stuck to using 12V on rails. Was (...) (25 years ago, 13-Nov-99, to lugnet.trains)
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