Liebherr R 9800 Lego Control + Application

 Liebherr R 9800 Lego Technic Control Plus(+)

A simple manual for Liebherr R 9800 Excavator instruction.

Downloading the Control + app

Open Google Play or iOS App and look for the name "LEGO TECHNIC CONTROL +".

**Good luck in finding instructions to download this from the BOX, literally there were no instructions on how to get your app.

Connecting and Turning OFF

To connect to the Lego controller blocks:
1) Turn on the phone's bluetooth and GPS (location).
2) Then follow the app's instruction to connect to the Lego controller blocks. In sequence it should be the top followed by the bottom. But the first bag #1 build, only the bottom needs to be connected.

Make sure GPS and Bluetooth of the phone is allowed and turned on.
The icon turns green when both are switch on.

In case the ordering of the controller brick is switch in different order, this screen pops up.
I.e. switched on the lower controller brick instead of the upper during the first startup,
it ask to select the "LOWER" manually.

When all goes well.

To turn the Lego controller brick off. There are only 2 ways to achieve it

1. If it is not connect to the Lego technic control + application, the controller will auto turn off after 5 seconds.
2. If it is already connected to the Lego technic control + application, turn off the bluetooth of the phone/tablet. The controller will automatically turn off after 5 seconds.

P/S: Green color controller block has no OFF function, only ON.

What's in the Lego Controller + Menu

The application has the followings in text.

Menu - Control

The basic controller is this, you can control the arm/boom move forward backwards. It's fun to explore on this so no need for instuctions. However there are these things non-written:

A - shows which part of the arm/boom was moving.

B - The position of the machine. There is a sensor to know the tilting position of the excavator in degree. If it goes up hill, the meter will show it's tilting degree.

C - Battery power remained. Top means for the 6 batteries of the top controller, and Bottom line means for the other 6 batteries on the bottom controller.

When you swipe up on the center it goes to another control panel that shows the position of the body.

This menu "calculates" the spin position of the excavator body. It does not really tell the real/physical angle the excavator's body is turned, but remember it's position based on when it is reseted. So with convenience sake, there is a reset button.

When you swipe right, there is is simple arm movement.

shadow arm control

It's not as easy to control honestly, but fun to see how it gets controlled. In case the arm is not working as expected, calibrate it again from the menu.

Menu - Program

Similar to Lego mindstorm, programming it is the same using blocks.

It also allows shortcut. By pressing on any of the blocks, it can be assigned to 1-4 shortcuts to the control.

Assign shortcut

Finally there is a "record" mode. Each record is constructed into a block, this is actually useful for multiple parallel movement, e.g. I can spin the body and at the same time move the boom up, also in the same time opens the bucket.

Menu - Games

Not sure this menu option is meant for kids, but it actually teaches me how to operate the excavator. It's kind of an ok thingy.

What's special is that there are new "missions" being unlocked. Some missions even have a video. 

Those achieving under "Liebherr" comes with a short clip.

Menu - Calibrate

This menu let you to recalibrate the excavator's arm. It's useful for the "shadow" arm controlling. During calibration and you hear "crack, crack" sound, that's normal. It's the grinding of the gears when the actuator actually reaches it's minimum position.

Menu - Settings

These are the settings:

Sound - The default are only set to 50% and it's not loud enough. It's best to adjust to the maximum and control the rest of the sound volume of you phone/tablet media sound. The sound effect it's actually cool and realistic.

Language - Supports of the variety language from Deutsch to English

Metrics - For me it is defaulted to meters. I'm from the Asian part, so that's fine.

Test - Incase test were skipped, I can come back here and redo all 4 tests of the build.

Help - Help? Not really helpful.

Reset - Reset the whole application and restart it again. It may even reset you other linked Lego that uses the same app.

Conclusion

The app is well written and very powerful. Sadly not much instruction was provided, even the basic instructions to download the app was no where to be found.

Btw, if anything goes wrong just uninstall the app, or totally clean up the app data from the phone's setting menu.