RC car pistol grip radio use

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Chi-el
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RC car pistol grip radio use

Post by Chi-el »

Hi Everyone,

I've recently stumbled upon the existence of the OP TCB and must say I'm quite impressed.

I'm planning to build a high speed "tank" or actually more towards the direction of a Ripsaw EV2 in approx 1/5 scale. After having been racing with 1/8 scale truggy's and bashing those around I got a bit fed up with the enormous amount of components that can break on them. Most are made from a kind of plastic and with the machines on 6s or 8s doing 100+ km/hr stuff breaks easily and wears like crazy. Don't get me wrong I love working on them, but I just thought there's room for improvement.

So I figured the way to go is a tracked vehicle.
Some hints on the equipment:
- 2 x Hobbywing Ezrun Max6 on 8s
- 2x Hobbywing 5687 motors

Here comes the catch, sincethis will be quite a high powered machine, I feel I have the best level of control using an RC car pistol radio with steering wheel on it.
Reading through the Wiki I have a feeling it would work as the steering signal would be deducted from the throttle signal going to both motors, but i'm not quite sure.
I see Luke is also active on this forum, so I hope he (or anyone) could shed some light on this.

Thanks!!
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Kaczor
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Re: RC car pistol grip radio use

Post by Kaczor »

If you want use pistol grip to steer a tank you have to make some kind of servo operated switch to operate motors.
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tankme
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Re: RC car pistol grip radio use

Post by tankme »

Are you going to build the TCB board yourself as in buy all the components and solder it yourself? Because that is the only way you are going to get one these days unless someone puts one up for sale (which is rare) as Hobby King no longer carries them. They are not sold as completed boards anymore. Luke does have an account here, but you will be better off contacting him through the TCB forums: http://openpanzer.org/forum/index.php?action=forum . I have 3 of the boards and they are not for sale. Like any non-plug and play type board there are a lot of options which leads to some fiddling to get them working the way you want them to. Just wondering why you would need the TCB board as you are not using the Tamiya battle functions, the sound function, machine gun, or LED functions?

As far as the radio is concerned I don't think I've ever seen anybody try it, but more power to ya. The TCB has the ability to mix the tracks together on one stick (2 channels) or separate the tracks on 2 sticks. You wouldn't need the TCB to do the track mixing either. You could use V-Tail Servo Mixer. Let us know how it turns out.
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Chi-el
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Re: RC car pistol grip radio use

Post by Chi-el »

Thanks for the quick response.

I'm aware they're unfortunately no longer for sale. Building one myself is not my cup of tea. I'll focus more on the design and build of the rest of the vehicle.
I want to take the TCB details and ask for couple of local PCB fabricators to quote me one and see how that turns out, this isn't a cheap build I'm afraid, so lets see what quotes I'll be getting.

I must say I do not yet have the experience of 1 stick control at high speeds, but something just tells me that if that was offering better control than pistol grip, why aren't the rc car racers using it. In the worst case, I'll just have to familiarize myself with a different method of control, but basis my understanding of how the TCB accomplishes the differential steering I thought this could also be accomplished with the pistol grip.

He who knows, maybe my build sparks up a whole new market of high speed tracked vehicle racing :D :D

Have also signed up for an Open Panzer account, but am awaiting the Admin to approve my Registration, so I'd just start out here.
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quitcherbitchen
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Re: RC car pistol grip radio use

Post by quitcherbitchen »

I run my tank on Opentx with a Frsky Horus 12s. It can be done in the mixes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YewheGdSqPU OpenTx is really powerful.
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LukeZ
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Re: RC car pistol grip radio use

Post by LukeZ »

Hi Chi-el, you certainly can use a pistol grip radio with the TCB. Just assign the steering wheel to the steering channel and the throttle trigger to the throttle trigger, and then the tank will work as you expect. Most pistol grip radios don't have a lot of extra channels, though some do, so you may be limited in how many other functions you can assign, but as for driving and steering there will be no problem.

Of course as the others have pointed out, the biggest challenge at the moment will be procuring a board...

I've approved your account on the OP forum so feel free to post any more questions here or there, I monitor both places.
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Chi-el
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Re: RC car pistol grip radio use

Post by Chi-el »

Thank you all! That was the confirmation I was looking for.

My focus will now be on getting a reasonable price for the fabrication of the TCB. Will keep you posted on the costs.
I'm sure it will not be the $50 or so it was initially.
Perhaps at higher quantities. Let's see.
Chi-el
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Re: RC car pistol grip radio use

Post by Chi-el »

Hi Everyone,

Quick questions on radio / receiver selection.
So I'm obviously out for a pistol grip radio. Going over the wiki's on radio and receiver selection there obviously isn't a pistol grip added.
Basis the selection guides I'm looking to get this one:

https://hobbyking.com/nl_nl/turnigy-gt5 ... eiver.html

Can anyone see issues regarding communication with a TCB?
I do not need so many channels, so this is sufficient for the time being.


Besides this I'm very busy designing and drawing, have ordered most drive components and have decided to scale up a bit under the hood. It will now be driven by 2 x 7,35 kW 780 kV motors on 8S.

Thanks for the help!
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jhamm
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Re: RC car pistol grip radio use

Post by jhamm »

TCB need a reciever connected by PPM,SBus or IBus.
http://openpanzer.org/wiki/doku.php?id= ... install:rx
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LukeZ
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Re: RC car pistol grip radio use

Post by LukeZ »

Jürgen is right about the receiver, but you can still use that transmitter. You just need to buy an AFHDS-2A compatible receiver that provides iBus, PPM or sBus outputs (this is a FlySky protocol so typically it will be iBus). Under the Receiver Selection Guide in the Wiki you will find several receivers listed under the AFHDS-2A section, and no doubt there have been even more released since that was written.
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