Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Lego Technic "Control+" reveal, and PF L Motor revelation?

Last year AFOLs were informed by the Lego Community Team that Power Functions would be phased out.  Many discussions took place between the AFOL community and Lego, and you can read more about it in the post from last year HERE.


Control+ (The new bluetooth system for Lego Technic)


Yesterday Lego revealed what would be replacing Power Functions.  It is not called Powered Up like we were told.  Instead it is a new brand of Bluetooth controlled components called CONTROL+

The first set to include CONTROL+ will be a massive Liebherr Bucket Excavator based on this real world machine.


The set is said to have over 4000 parts, 2 Control+ Hubs (which each have 4 outputs) and 7 motors.  As well the model will be able to send telemetry back to the mobile device controlling it.

The new Control+ Hubs are said to use 6xAA sized batteries each, and battery life has yet to be reported on.

This new set will be available August 1st, 2019, and is reported to be priced close to $500USD.

PF L Revelation


Community chat member Brian B brought up a very interesting item that all of the recent Technic sets from 2018+ that did include motors, were motors of the "L Size".

2018
42080 - Forest Harvester
42082 - Rough Terrain Crane

2019
42095 - Remote Controlled Stunt Racer

I'll speculate here and say that by doing this, it allowed them to scale down production of both the M and XL motors, and focus on having L motors produced to be used in the final sets that include Power Functions.  In fact 42095 might be the last set that has any Power Functions motors included!

It is quite possible that M, L and XL motor production has stopped completely, and what is being sold now is remaining inventory.

If you are planning on GBC'ing in the future you should definitely grab a few extra motors sooner, rather then later.

3 comments:

  1. do you think gbc will also work with control+?

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  2. I do think you will be able to create a GBC with the Control+ system. I was successful using BOOST to power a module, the downsides being battery life, and dependency on a mobile device. Using Control+ will also be much more expensive than using a simple power functions motor and battery pack.

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  3. Looks like you could be right, Matt. Many PF components are currently out-of-stock in the UK Lego shop. Only the L and train motors are still available.

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