We did a solar Lego car post a while back. It turns out the newer lego motors, the M-Motor 8883 and 8882 are a tiny bit more complicated than the older motors. They have a wire with 4 leads instead of 2. By trial and error, we figured out pretty quickly that the middle two leads power the motor. A quick scan on Lego’s site or Wikia give us more info about the role of the other two (more advanced motor controls?). If anyone has details, let us know.
Here’s how we connected to the motor.
Chopped off the end of the wire on the Lego Motor and exposed the ends (you only need the middle two, but we show all four).
Chopped off the USB end of one of our USB Out Cables and exposed the two wires.
Twisted the leads of the wires together – you can switch them if you want motor to turn in opposite direction and then plugged the cable into our 3.4 Watt panel. You can clean this up.
A little bit of gearing will help make the motor output more useful as in this car built by Play-Well.
Either our 2 Watt or 3.4 Watt portable solar panels will work for running this motor.
I got your 2 watt solar panel and lego motor but I can’t get the solar panel to power the motor. Could it be because the solar panel only puts out 6 volts? The battery pack from lego puts out 9 volts.
Hi Jeff – Can you send an image of your setup to our support portal? http://tech-support.voltaicsystems.com/customer/portal/emails/new
A few things to check:
– wires are connected securely and properly
– you are outside on a sunny day (inside will not work unless you have an incandescent bulb next to the panel)
– nothing is shading any cells on the panel
Can you hook the middle two wires from the lego motor directly to the solar panel?
Yes.
The extension cable exposes the power pins outside, so you don’t need to cut your engine cable out. http://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-Power-Functions-Extension-Wire-8886
hi Roberto
we are also TRYING to build a solar power Lego car , we got the power function extension from Lego can tell us what is its role and how we need to connected to the dc motor. Thanks
I am doing a science fair experiment. I need to build a Lego solar powered car. I know I need the motor and panel, but where do I get a USB out cable?