Just to add a little information as I see this in lot of comments - this is not as simple as "the XL has more torque". Their performance is pretty similar in low power / high RPM and low RPM / high power situations, but apparently the XL motor can take more load before the cutoff so there have to be internal differences. The reason for the cutoff is still not clear for me, the L motor has a slightly higher current peak but it's not that significant so I'm sure there are other factors as well.
@@mrunimog1582 thermal limitations after two seconds? I would prefer saying this might be pure firmware limitants. Would be interesting to see them from inside if there are any differences.
I recently bought the Liebherr for the 3x XL and 4x L motors and I have a strange issue with them because I think they really sound bad. There is nothing wrong with them but they just sound bad compared to the old PF motors. It sounds like there is more plastic rubbing in the motors. What do you think? I've built several Technic Trains (video shortly) that run on 9 stud wide tracks. I changed the PF motors to the new PU L motors (4x) but now the cool train sounds bad. It's an issue I had not expected haha! I think I will add some grease to the axle hole sides but it will probably not matter. By the way, compared to the cheap replica PF motors, the PU motors don't run as fast, so my cool train is running slower and also sounding bad! 🤪 P.S. the PU extension wires from china work!
Thank you for this revalation! It also explains why most heavy official sets (Crawler, Liebherr, Volvo) use XL motor for drive. The only exception to this rule is the rally car. I think having an XL drive motor in the buggy and an L drive motor in the rally car would make more sense.
With the buggy it really does not make much difference, unless you want to really climb something and you use BuWizz as a power source. The rally car would be fine with the L motor.
Pretty nice video! For me it was puzzling the similar performance of L and XL motors. It seems that XL motors unleash their potential not in speed but in high-power demands. I guess one would only see a difference in speed if a light model is geared to go as fastest as possible; in such condition it is possible that we may see a difference between L and XL motors.
I've just ordered a speed computer for this test case almost. RC Boat using two (Either L or XL now) motors combined to spin a prop as fast as possible. Will test total output speeds when it gets here.
As usual RB, good video!'All of your comparisons are thorough, rather than some off-the-cuff opinion. Your videos are getting better and better every time!
Kudos for solving that puzzle! But what about engineering stuff behind it? Seems like XL needs less amps for delivering same torque, compared to L; and we can't really judge L's performance since current protection kicks in. Agree?
I'm not sure about the reasons, the current draw of the motors is not very different at the cutoff (~0.2A difference), so there should be multiple factors.
@@RacingBrick You should measure the amps at free spinning, under load and at stall and compare the 2 motors more accurately. czcams.com/video/gwFE-NkzR-k/video.html
@@R0Sch88 these measurements were already done by Philo and there weren't many useful conclusions drawn from them so far, at least I didn't see them. I wanted to test and show real-life practical differences that builders can actually use.
TL;DR: Get XL motor + BuWizz for heavy builds, use L motor and any power source you want for light to medium weight builds. The most important difference is higher thermal limit for XL motors (high torque output is allowed for longer until the hub cuts the power). Note that XL motor max rpm nor max torque are not meaningfully different from L motors, the XL motor can just output high torque constantly for longer.
It seems to me that the hub itself detects what kind of motor is connected to it and sets current limits accordingly. So XL motor gets more current at heavy loads. The reason for this might be that XL motor is designed to handle more current (e.g. less heating, more heavy duty electronics, etc). Until the limit is reached, motors behave similarly.
I'm not sure if the hub "sets" anything, it's rather a limit coming from physics. As you saw BuWizz has a similar difference and I'm sure there're no such limitations there.
Very informative, thank you for digging further into this. I do wish you had shown the differences longer instead of the subsecond split. When they were performing the same, you had a side by side multi second snippet. When they were actually performing differently, it was one at a time for only a second or less (6:38) but it would have been nice to see them side by side, with the configuration in one corner instead of two corners. Still very helpful after reviewing it by rewinding those split second snippets.
I choose scenarios where the difference is significant - one cannot climb, the other can climb the same ramp. It's not a minor speed difference so I don't think it needs a split screen demonstration.
So I watched your video, my question is since the XL motor produces more Torque than the L motor, why was the XL motor retired then? I also understand in the new Liebherr Crane, they are using the different type L motor that kinda looks like what was used in set 42131, does that particular motor have more torque than the standard L motor? I'm assuming it must because that Liebherr crane is a very heavy set, heaviest set on record (weighing in at 19.3 pounds) so I figure they would have to use strong motors to be able to operate the whole thing and move the whole super structure.
I just did some research and found that the reason they are using the L angular motor in the Liebherr Crane is because the angular motor has more speed and alot more torque than the powered up standard L motor. It makes a lot more sense now why they decided to retire the standard XL motor now because they can get more torque out of the L angular motor instead. Which further explains why they used them in set 42131 because being such a heavy build, slightly heavier than 42100, it needed the increased Torque to be able to move the whole set.
So more or less less is more! Except the more reduces the weight more or less enough so the more has less to carry and therefore everthing inverts! Thanks for the demonstartion, great video as usual :) Because of my very-biased-pro-construction-vehicle-opinion a Buwizz + 42114 combination would have been nice though ;D
Yeah, a motor swap in 42114 is not as simple as one in 42124 so that was not recruited for this video :) I will definitely think about you and 42114 for my next extensive BuWizz test video :)
Can you get each of these vehicles in the L and XL option? I saw a video of the big orange one with 2L motors but when I went to buy one it said it had 2XL.
I'm not sure if it is a power cut, some sort of protection kicks in. Might be thermal protection or anything else, but the L motors are clearly overloaded here while the XL motors keep running.
Strange, here czcams.com/video/7YBMLVrOBdo/video.html is opposite result. It looks like one motor on hub configuration the winner is L, but in the case of 2 motors on the hub XL wins.
Could you repeat the ramp test with weight but with double wheels for more traction and also with the wheels from the 4x4 Offroader (because they are softer)? Plus could you test it with no differentials / with locked diffs (front mid rear) to prevent spinning wheels?? I already suspected that the L and XL Motor are similar in speed but the XL offers more Torque.
It's not as simple as offering more torque. The performance is pretty similar, but the L motor is shut down much sooner. I already did a lot of tests for this video, I used stock sets and fairly simple motors swaps so you are free to replicate and extend the tests. I don't think locked diffs would make a difference with this behavior.
@@RacingBrick I will do, as soon as I can get my hands on some PoweredUp gear and BuzzWizz. I think locked diffs will make a difference, or at least a shared power train. On 5:30 the front wheels spin but the rear motor stalls. This is of course because the 42099 has independent motors for front and rear. In this case the front motor waste its energy on spinning while the rear motor can't keep up. My idea was that this could be prevented when all wheels are connected to a shared drive train and all three diffs are locked (or there are no diffs at all) because therefore the power is equaly distributed on all wheels. I hope I can try this out one day :)
@@lbbde1 at 5:30 you can see that despite the high load on the rear wheels the BuWizz unit does not cut the power, that was the point to prove. Of course with a different configuration (locked diffs, other drive train etc) the climbing abilities could be improved, but that was not the subject of this video.
Since a week in the lab can save you an hour in the library - have you ever bothered to just _ask_ Lego??? I am sure you will get an answer if you just ask somebody from there!
Been playing about with the motors and the app, but I have found that the display dials don't provide the rpm that i thought it would. On my XL motor it caps out at 125 but on sariels app it says it caps at 198rpm for 9V. Is this meant to be the case?
@@RacingBrick perhaps i may have gotten a bit confused. Is it possible to measure rpm of a motor using code in the powered up app and display it on the dial you can find in the widgets? And will it display rpm accurately as when i tried my own code it displayed 125 but i thought the xl motor could go up to 330?
@@vdygdb you can measure the rotation of the motor in degrees. It is possible to write a code to show RPM, for that you need to measure the rotation in degrees every second, then divide it by 360 and display that value on the widget.
@@RacingBrick apologies for wasting your time but how would i do that. I tried obtaining an average over 10 seconds by dividing rotations by 10 but after that point the value on the widget increases exponentially from 300 to 1500 and more
@@emanym3909 sorry for being grumpy, had a bad day. Your ideas are good, I might take a look at them in the future but it was already a lot of work and testing to put this together so I could not spend much more time on it this time.
@@RacingBrick If you got them from unreliable sources, that sounds about right. Some will die within first couple cycles, some will last maybe 10 and one in 10 will last 100 But for power, they are the most powerful rechargables in the AA form factor
@@GeorgeTsiros I got them from Conrad, quite reliable retailer in Europe. My main problem is exactly the inconsistency, this never happened with the regular rechargeables I use. I also tried Li-ion AAs, those seem to be better but the price is still very high.
@@RacingBrick please do not quote me on this but I _suspect_ the AA Li-Ion ones have a DC-DC converter built-in? On a similar note, since the hub expects an open-circuit 9V - 7.2V would it be a good idea to use a 2S Li-poly pack ? Something back in my mind tells me someone has made stuff like th--- wait. That's what the newer hub has.
Just to add a little information as I see this in lot of comments - this is not as simple as "the XL has more torque". Their performance is pretty similar in low power / high RPM and low RPM / high power situations, but apparently the XL motor can take more load before the cutoff so there have to be internal differences. The reason for the cutoff is still not clear for me, the L motor has a slightly higher current peak but it's not that significant so I'm sure there are other factors as well.
Could it be thermal limitations with the L-Motor, given the XL has a larger casing where it might be easier to dissipate the heat?
@@mrunimog1582 thermal limitations after two seconds? I would prefer saying this might be pure firmware limitants. Would be interesting to see them from inside if there are any differences.
I recently bought the Liebherr for the 3x XL and 4x L motors and I have a strange issue with them because I think they really sound bad. There is nothing wrong with them but they just sound bad compared to the old PF motors. It sounds like there is more plastic rubbing in the motors. What do you think?
I've built several Technic Trains (video shortly) that run on 9 stud wide tracks. I changed the PF motors to the new PU L motors (4x) but now the cool train sounds bad. It's an issue I had not expected haha! I think I will add some grease to the axle hole sides but it will probably not matter. By the way, compared to the cheap replica PF motors, the PU motors don't run as fast, so my cool train is running slower and also sounding bad! 🤪 P.S. the PU extension wires from china work!
Tldr: xl motor has more torque
Amazing... the xl motor's reason for existence has finally been solved!
Basically only torque
Nice!
I know you
When Sariel compliments you, you know that you did good!
Thank you for this revalation! It also explains why most heavy official sets (Crawler, Liebherr, Volvo) use XL motor for drive. The only exception to this rule is the rally car. I think having an XL drive motor in the buggy and an L drive motor in the rally car would make more sense.
With the buggy it really does not make much difference, unless you want to really climb something and you use BuWizz as a power source. The rally car would be fine with the L motor.
Disassemble them. XL is quiet when operating. And turn more freely if pushed without power. Meaning XL is less geared than the L version.
You nailed it!
Finally the video i've been waiting for. Thanks
sep 1st revals the new smaller motors for low torque mocs
Pretty nice video! For me it was puzzling the similar performance of L and XL motors. It seems that XL motors unleash their potential not in speed but in high-power demands. I guess one would only see a difference in speed if a light model is geared to go as fastest as possible; in such condition it is possible that we may see a difference between L and XL motors.
I've just ordered a speed computer for this test case almost. RC Boat using two (Either L or XL now) motors combined to spin a prop as fast as possible. Will test total output speeds when it gets here.
Please post results :)
As usual RB, good video!'All of your comparisons are thorough, rather than some off-the-cuff opinion. Your videos are getting better and better every time!
Great vídeo! The final test could be on a moc equiped w/ 4 motors for drive, like you did on the 42069, and compare all L motors vs all XL motors
In many places a (new) XL motor has same price as L. So unless you need a small form factor motor, XL seems to be a clear winner
Summarized:
The L motor can’t withstand as much load and will cut sooner than XL
But lego can’t provide enough power for that to be noticeable.
I feel like the L motor will work best for my build but I’m getting the xl just in case it’s too heavy or there are some steep hills
Kudos for solving that puzzle! But what about engineering stuff behind it?
Seems like XL needs less amps for delivering same torque, compared to L; and we can't really judge L's performance since current protection kicks in.
Agree?
I'm not sure about the reasons, the current draw of the motors is not very different at the cutoff (~0.2A difference), so there should be multiple factors.
@@RacingBrick You should measure the amps at free spinning, under load and at stall and compare the 2 motors more accurately.
czcams.com/video/gwFE-NkzR-k/video.html
@@R0Sch88 these measurements were already done by Philo and there weren't many useful conclusions drawn from them so far, at least I didn't see them. I wanted to test and show real-life practical differences that builders can actually use.
this seems more enjoyable to learn from, start by talking about topic, likeable and nice
TL;DR: Get XL motor + BuWizz for heavy builds, use L motor and any power source you want for light to medium weight builds. The most important difference is higher thermal limit for XL motors (high torque output is allowed for longer until the hub cuts the power). Note that XL motor max rpm nor max torque are not meaningfully different from L motors, the XL motor can just output high torque constantly for longer.
Good stuff! Super close to 100K subscribers, too! I've pushed you one closer.
I was thinking of upgrading from power functions to power up for my real-time control, but it's just too expensive
Thank you for your time spent on this. The result is very useful
It seems to me that the hub itself detects what kind of motor is connected to it and sets current limits accordingly. So XL motor gets more current at heavy loads. The reason for this might be that XL motor is designed to handle more current (e.g. less heating, more heavy duty electronics, etc). Until the limit is reached, motors behave similarly.
I'm not sure if the hub "sets" anything, it's rather a limit coming from physics. As you saw BuWizz has a similar difference and I'm sure there're no such limitations there.
@@RacingBrick Or it could be internal electronics of motors themselves. At least they have a resettable fuse inside.
Jealous of your BuWizz 3! Thanks for the video, always good to see tech stuff like this. Also just ordered a speed computer!
I am building a combination of the 42099 offroader & the 42110 defender. I thank you, and my build thanks you, for your work.
So you will be making an... offender?
Or a defrauder?
🤭
It's depenf of three thinks: voltage, carry of motor and gear.
Very informative, thank you for digging further into this.
I do wish you had shown the differences longer instead of the subsecond split. When they were performing the same, you had a side by side multi second snippet. When they were actually performing differently, it was one at a time for only a second or less (6:38) but it would have been nice to see them side by side, with the configuration in one corner instead of two corners.
Still very helpful after reviewing it by rewinding those split second snippets.
I choose scenarios where the difference is significant - one cannot climb, the other can climb the same ramp. It's not a minor speed difference so I don't think it needs a split screen demonstration.
So I watched your video, my question is since the XL motor produces more Torque than the L motor, why was the XL motor retired then? I also understand in the new Liebherr Crane, they are using the different type L motor that kinda looks like what was used in set 42131, does that particular motor have more torque than the standard L motor? I'm assuming it must because that Liebherr crane is a very heavy set, heaviest set on record (weighing in at 19.3 pounds) so I figure they would have to use strong motors to be able to operate the whole thing and move the whole super structure.
I just did some research and found that the reason they are using the L angular motor in the Liebherr Crane is because the angular motor has more speed and alot more torque than the powered up standard L motor. It makes a lot more sense now why they decided to retire the standard XL motor now because they can get more torque out of the L angular motor instead. Which further explains why they used them in set 42131 because being such a heavy build, slightly heavier than 42100, it needed the increased Torque to be able to move the whole set.
This is great to know, thank you so much!
So more or less less is more! Except the more reduces the weight more or less enough so the more has less to carry and therefore everthing inverts!
Thanks for the demonstartion, great video as usual :) Because of my very-biased-pro-construction-vehicle-opinion a Buwizz + 42114 combination would have been nice though ;D
Yeah, a motor swap in 42114 is not as simple as one in 42124 so that was not recruited for this video :) I will definitely think about you and 42114 for my next extensive BuWizz test video :)
Interesting part - hub can't provide enough current for XL motor to show its advantage of higher current cap :)
My take away is the L motor is for small vehicles with low current draw
The XL motor motor allows for more of a current draw
can you also do a test with the ptc's inside the motors removed ?
great explanation. thx for proof that buwizz is same power like standard hub and aprox 50 time more expencive
I'm not sure where did you see this in the video but I suggest to watch it again as it is simply not true.
So what I'm getting is that they have the same speed, but XL has more torque. About what I expected, but nice explanation.
Can you get each of these vehicles in the L and XL option? I saw a video of the big orange one with 2L motors but when I went to buy one it said it had 2XL.
There are no options when you buy the set. You can of course swap them later but the difference is negligeable
Can you test these motors for servo functionality. Which works better
Thanks! Great info as always.
3:38 I noticed the buggy steer to left and right here,is this the problem with differential?
Buggy and rally car : *struggles to climb a few centimetres on the ramp*
Xtreme off-road with XL motor and 2 kg weight : which ramp ?
Clear results!
Great video, thank you!
Hi, super comparison. do I understand you right that at 5:18 the two PU L motor caused a powercut at the Buwizz 3.0 Pro?
I'm not sure if it is a power cut, some sort of protection kicks in. Might be thermal protection or anything else, but the L motors are clearly overloaded here while the XL motors keep running.
Strange, here czcams.com/video/7YBMLVrOBdo/video.html is opposite result. It looks like one motor on hub configuration the winner is L, but in the case of 2 motors on the hub XL wins.
Could you repeat the ramp test with weight but with double wheels for more traction and also with the wheels from the 4x4 Offroader (because they are softer)?
Plus could you test it with no differentials / with locked diffs (front mid rear) to prevent spinning wheels??
I already suspected that the L and XL Motor are similar in speed but the XL offers more Torque.
It's not as simple as offering more torque. The performance is pretty similar, but the L motor is shut down much sooner. I already did a lot of tests for this video, I used stock sets and fairly simple motors swaps so you are free to replicate and extend the tests. I don't think locked diffs would make a difference with this behavior.
@@RacingBrick I will do, as soon as I can get my hands on some PoweredUp gear and BuzzWizz.
I think locked diffs will make a difference, or at least a shared power train. On 5:30 the front wheels spin but the rear motor stalls. This is of course because the 42099 has independent motors for front and rear. In this case the front motor waste its energy on spinning while the rear motor can't keep up. My idea was that this could be prevented when all wheels are connected to a shared drive train and all three diffs are locked (or there are no diffs at all) because therefore the power is equaly distributed on all wheels.
I hope I can try this out one day :)
@@lbbde1 at 5:30 you can see that despite the high load on the rear wheels the BuWizz unit does not cut the power, that was the point to prove. Of course with a different configuration (locked diffs, other drive train etc) the climbing abilities could be improved, but that was not the subject of this video.
logic for the comparison of engines:
L: speed + torque -
XL: speed - torque +
the more weight or slope the more torque is needed ...
is it even safe to use 12v on motor that is made for 9v?
The motors can handle the voltage easily
Very informative👍
Great!
I use lipo 7,4v 1000 mAh
Since a week in the lab can save you an hour in the library - have you ever bothered to just _ask_ Lego??? I am sure you will get an answer if you just ask somebody from there!
Quick question which isn’t relevant to the video. Which would you rather have: 42099 (4x4 extreme off-roader) or 42110 (Land Rover defender)?
42099 is way more fun :)
@@RacingBrick but you get gears & more shocks in the defender. My collection of Lego is really quite small. But thanks for your opinion.
I think power functions are better
Been playing about with the motors and the app, but I have found that the display dials don't provide the rpm that i thought it would. On my XL motor it caps out at 125 but on sariels app it says it caps at 198rpm for 9V. Is this meant to be the case?
I'm not sure which dial you mean but there's no rpm meter in the Powered Up app
@@RacingBrick perhaps i may have gotten a bit confused. Is it possible to measure rpm of a motor using code in the powered up app and display it on the dial you can find in the widgets? And will it display rpm accurately as when i tried my own code it displayed 125 but i thought the xl motor could go up to 330?
@@vdygdb you can measure the rotation of the motor in degrees. It is possible to write a code to show RPM, for that you need to measure the rotation in degrees every second, then divide it by 360 and display that value on the widget.
@@RacingBrick apologies for wasting your time but how would i do that. I tried obtaining an average over 10 seconds by dividing rotations by 10 but after that point the value on the widget increases exponentially from 300 to 1500 and more
It is pretty difficult to explain it like this. I will include the function in a future tutorial video
Finally
Even in Lego dont know the difference, but you find it! Belisssimo!!!)
Thank you!
The whole test focuses just on driving. What about steering? What about controlling the new pneumatic valves?
Yeah, sorry for not solving everything in one take...
Oh sorry, it wasn't meant that way. I just wanted to give some more ideas!
@@emanym3909 sorry for being grumpy, had a bad day. Your ideas are good, I might take a look at them in the future but it was already a lot of work and testing to put this together so I could not spend much more time on it this time.
And I could have been a little more careful about my wording. I'm looking forward to se further results!
So basically the XL has the same speed as the L but doesn't cut power as fast
Not really interested in electronics in Lego sets personally , nevertheless a comprehensive comparison video, keep up the good work!
Ok, so the new Zetros is a trial car and has 1M and 3L motors, what is this telling us about Lego?
I will test it for sure, but there might be a lot of reasons why they went with this configuration. Don't judge before knowing the details.
@@RacingBrick I will wait your review for sure)
Conclusion : Xl motor: more torque !!!????
Not as simple as that
Maybe XL is better when both has very high gear ratio like 25:1(2x8t,40t).
hi
Try NiCd batteries 😁
Try them, not a fan. Bought a big bunch and after a few months half of them is dead
@@RacingBrick If you got them from unreliable sources, that sounds about right. Some will die within first couple cycles, some will last maybe 10 and one in 10 will last 100
But for power, they are the most powerful rechargables in the AA form factor
@@GeorgeTsiros I got them from Conrad, quite reliable retailer in Europe. My main problem is exactly the inconsistency, this never happened with the regular rechargeables I use. I also tried Li-ion AAs, those seem to be better but the price is still very high.
@@RacingBrick please do not quote me on this but I _suspect_ the AA Li-Ion ones have a DC-DC converter built-in? On a similar note, since the hub expects an open-circuit 9V - 7.2V would it be a good idea to use a 2S Li-poly pack ? Something back in my mind tells me someone has made stuff like th--- wait. That's what the newer hub has.
Hehe, looking forward to test that small hub and motor :)
So XL is for torque but both still suck
The only real difference between the 2 motors is the protection thermistor it cuts out sooner it's easy to bypass it though
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