Intro to the Open Panzer Project - and a new Control Board

[LukeZ]

In regards to those seeking refunds for their defective TCBs, as you are entitled to, I have made repeated requests to Hobby King for an update and why it is that they are issuing store credit instead. Here is the response I received this evening from my contact at Hobby King, Richard Mahmoud:

Luke,

We received an update from our CS team yesterday, and they have confirmed every customer that has contacted them has been given a full refund.

If you have someone approaching you regarding not been given a full refund, as advised previously provide me with their name and order number and I will check with our CS team. Also any documentation from our CS team that they have been sent advising they will only get store credit This is being handled like all other products that customers raise with us as faulty. in this situation we have given a full refund.

Richard Mahmoud

His information contradicts directly what at least half a dozen people have told me in PMs and emails. At this point I am no longer going to do Hobby King's customer service work for them. If you still have not received a CASH refund, please PM me on this forum or any other, and I will give you Richard's email address and you can write to him directly.


Luke

[Smaily]

Thanks LukeZ,
I have right now 27Mhz heng long boards in both of my tanks, but would like to switch to some other control units in ner future. As I already have Turnigy TGY-i6S, I would like to use it, so it seems only aftermarket boards are the way (well, probably new Taigen unit would do the job, but still only one sound is available there and not too many or any options to do some personalization on board it self).

TCB looks like a nice board and price is nice too I would say, I have checked wiki on open panzer page and there is most of operations nicely explained. Only minus seems to be missing sound, but that can be sorted with Benedini or Taigen (again, if they will work on sound module - I expect they will, as it will be no sense to have it as separate module if they do not plan to update sounds more often then whole board).

To be honest I planned IBU2 to buy, but once Open Panzer was presented here, I am starting to be convinced that buying of TCB would be good decision. Again, I do not have much experience, so I can not compare much.

I would happily take one off their hands, I never run lights on my tanks anyway,

That is same for me, at least for one of tanks I would take it have friend of mine, who is quite good with solredincg ftuff on such boards, so he could preplace faulty parts, or I would use it without those LEDs or recoil.

[LukeZ]

Some eagle-eyed observers have noticed the TCB is once again for sale at Hobby King. I have still not received a sample to test but let's hope they learned from the mistakes of this summer. If any brave soul buys one please report back your experience!

[LukeZ]

Update - I've finally been able to examine a board from Hobby King. As it turns out, they are not selling new-production boards, instead they have gone back and manually replaced the incorrect components on the originals. This is obvious from a visual inspection. In talking with some other people who have recently purchased boards theirs are the same. 

Although this is no what Hobby King told us they were going to do, it is certainly within their right and no doubt it made economic sense to them. 

I thoroughly tested the board and all functions work correctly, including the ones related to the MOSFETs that have been replaced. So far no one else has reported problems with their fixed boards. I think the coast is clear for anyone to proceed with these boards if they are still interested. 

[LukeZ]

By the way - I just noticed that Hobby King is selling a new version of the classic Turnigy 9X transmitter that comes bundled with a PPM-capable receiver, meaning it is compatible with the TCB out of the box. It sells for ~$60 US making it now the cheapest route to 8 channel control. (If you want more than 8 channels then you need still need to either modify your 9X or buy a more expensive radio of which there are many to choose from.) 

[Max-U52]

I ordered a TCB yesterday, but I already have a 9X!

I won't be using it for the TCB, though, as that tank will get a FlySky i6 of it's very own.

[LukeZ]

Stop the presses! One of our users who just ordered a "new" board has received instead the same board being sold this summer, with all the same, wrong components. As listed above all the "new" boards are in fact old boards with the parts manually replaced, but apparently they have not fixed all of them and certainly haven't tested all of them. Some do seem to be functional (the one they sent me is) but there is no guarantee what you will get.

I must conclude that Hobby King can not be trusted to get this right. It is not beyond their ability but they simply do not seem to care. If you have not purchased a board yet, I would suggest you do not unless you want to take a risk. If you have purchased a board, please examine closely the MOSFETs Q1 through Q8. If any of them have the markings "23EG" on them, they are wrong and your board will not function. The image below shows which components these are.

For those that receive faulty boards, you can take your chances and request an exchange, or if you want a refund let me know and I will provide you the email address of my contact at Hobby King so he can deal with this directly. 

[c.rainford73]

Luke I'm very sorry to hear this. I've the one from the original shipment and I've very carefully replaced the mosfets. Will be using it in one of my builds this fall.

Is there a serial number on the run from the first group versus the second batch of is it simply check the number on the mosfets?

Such a wonderful product. Any chance you can get it produced by another manufacturer?

I know that maybe a tall order but I'm hoping this goes smoothly for you and many can experience this board.

All the best

[Max-U52]

This just might be my fault. I think the RC Gods just don't want me to have one of these. They kinda went to extremes and punished the rest of you to prevent me from getting one, but who knows why the RC Gods do what the RC Gods do?

[LukeZ]

Is there a serial number on the run from the first group versus the second batch of is it simply check the number on the mosfets?

The best I or anyone else has been able to tell so far, there is only one batch in existence, so no, there is no way to distinguish between these boards and the summer boards since they are in fact one and the same. At least that is the case for the ones I or others have examined thus far.