I'll wait for the views of the other sides of the PCBs. I think they're H-bridge chips, given the number of pins - as comparison, see the pinout for this TI DRV8837 chip: Edited Jby Phoxtane So far I haven't had any luck looking up the two small unknown chips associated with the PU ports - however, they were made in August of last year according to the date code (17 08). It certainly has something to do with the antenna. However, I'm thinking now that it's part of the network for the antenna - I would hazard a guess that it's an inductor of some sort, given the size. There's an identical component with the same designator on the board for the battery box, also in a similar position to the Bluetooth chip. Initially I thought that the large white component that says BOURNS on it was the antenna itself, as it's labeled "ANT1" on the board for the controller. We will need some modifications for Powered Up, but it shares the basic principles and even the basic Bluetooth addresses. a very useful link for the software part of Boost: I already did some Bluetooth scanning using my iPhone, I could connect to the devices but one needs to send / receive commands in a certain way apparently so there is still a lot to do in that direction, hope LEGO will open up their commands to us, would be very beneficial for hobbyists and educators alike (I'm both )). I see a lot of possibilities to test the PU stuff even more. So this is the pinout as seen from the controller: The other little thingy (C2) is a capacitor that tries to prevent spikes coming from the motor while running, harming the rest of the electronics (read the controller). That HL05 golden thing is a self resetting fuse, would protect the system from harm if a short / stall occurred. It gives at least something away about the connectors: Two motor leads, two 'identifaction' leads (people trying to hack Boost suggested handshakes find place over these wires to determine what device is connected to it, but here ID1 on lead 5 is connected to lead 4 VCC (the 9V motor power) and ID2 (lead 6) is connected directly to GND (lead 3). It seems to look very much like the PF motors. That is not a problem at all but I don't want to melt the ABS below it so it requires some special care. Just like with the controller, to see the backside of the board requires desoldering the battery leads. The chip at the top right is a tiny chip by Texas Instruments for power management of the board and system. I assume these have to do with the output ports, but I could not trace them for now. To the left near the PU ports are two tiny chips. In fact this one is a 16 Kbytes Flash, 48 MHz CPU (my first 486 when I was a teen ran at only 25 MHz). ![]() These chips are getting so powerful that their processing power and memory is approaching our first personal computers (but then for a fraction of the size, price and power usage). For the non-electronics people: a microcontroller is a computer on a small chip. I already guessed that since that is the same one they use in Boost. So it uses an STM32F030 micro controller. Not the best picture bu I focussed on making the IC's readable (and that worked quite well I think, you should be able to click on it for the larger / sharper version): you need of course also a bluetooth chip you need a motor controller (one can't directly control a motor from a microcontroller chip since motor draw too much current for such electronics and also often require a higher voltage) The 'grain circles' are the trick they used so that the knobs can be turned and the buttons will still ensure a proper reaction.įor now that's it for the controller. right into the PCB, hope the backside will show the traces for it :). I would have used a SoC, but they created everything of their own and integrated the antenna etc. The Bluetooth chip is de CC2640 by Texas Instruments: datasheet / details. I think they did a great job in designing the PCB, looks neat and tidy (although I am an CS/Informatics teacher I design / solder a lot of PCB's for one of our college research projects). ![]() I might also desolder the battery terminals so I can show the backside of the print as well. ![]() You can see the Bluetooth chip right in de middle. These are the internals of the train remote control. For now I chose the non-destructive path of least resistance:įor this phase I just needed a TORX T6H screwdriver:
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