Best drivability, better than HL?

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General Jumbo01
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Best drivability, better than HL?

Post by General Jumbo01 »

You may have noticed that l've been building a WW2 Russian SU-100 based on a Trumpeter kit, a Taigen hull and hybrid electronics and in doing so l can confirm that the Trumpeter SU 100 and T34/76 mod 1943 make superb tops for donor HL and Taigen hulls and with not too much fettling. So what's that got to do with drivability?

I chose to use the Taigen v3 mfu so that the IR function was compatible with the rest of my WW2 fleet but also because l wanted extra channels for hobby grade servos for gun elevation and panning. By using a 10 channel Flysky radio system that is fully compatible with Taigens option cables that connect to the Skyfly receiver (or any other hobby grade hobby grade kit).

Now, the revelation! We've all been applauding the superb driveabity of Henglongs new v6.x series MFUs and how these have left Taigen MFUs behind. However, drive your Taigen tanks using the great, cheap Skyfly radios and raise the game another notch! It's using the same Taigen v3 and its internal ESCs but not the Taigen radio components so l can only deduce that the fine granularity of the Skyfly proportional controls make the remarkable difference, and it is remarkable!

No, l haven't been able to figure out how to get the machine gun to fire but those extra 4 or 5 channels allow you to operate all sorts of extra features that the MFU doesn't facilitate plus you can mix channels so that existing MFU sounds can be used with hobby standard servos etc. You can also assign any channel to any of the ten or so control sticks, switches and rotary controls.

With the 10 channel radio combo costing under £40 on the likes of Banggood, any v3 Taigen tank can be very cheaply enhanced, both in functionality range and quality. Any further questions, just ask.
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Rad_Schuhart
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Re: Best drivability, better than HL?

Post by Rad_Schuhart »

Yeah, that is pretty much what some of us were doing since... almost 10 years ago?

Kevin from RC tanks australia used to make some sort of adaptor where we could use our hobby radio with the old 27mhz heng long boards and also made us able to trigger light and smoke from the radio, using only 5 channels, having the rest free.

Time later I discovered that I could add a benedini lights and sound card which lets me trigger all the light and sound I could wish, even replacing the motor sounds... And then I realized I did not need the Heng Long board at all. So I managed to make my own electronics using some ESCs, some servos, benedini boards and of course and the most important part of the hobby: a programmable radio. Sure it does not have IR battle capabilities but I never use it, so that does not matter to me at all.
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Re: Best drivability, better than HL?

Post by sclui »

Instead of hoping to ever find out how Taigen hard-coded the MG mix, I may just go the cheap way by getting these now that I'm driving with OTX.

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/dr-mad-thru ... eaker.html

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/dr-mad-thru ... _analytics
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Re: Best drivability, better than HL?

Post by General Jumbo01 »

"Yeah, that is pretty much what some of us were doing since... almost 10 years ago?"

Yes Rad, we've been mixing for years in all sorts of RC hobbies, mostly in racing for me, but the headline is drivability and the enhancement on the v3's standard performance is remarkable, in my opinion even better that HLs very good V6 performance. If you've got a v3 with a set of cables, try it.

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Rad_Schuhart
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Re: Best drivability, better than HL?

Post by Rad_Schuhart »

General Jumbo01 wrote:"Yeah, that is pretty much what some of us were doing since... almost 10 years ago?"

Yes Rad, we've been mixing for years in all sorts of RC hobbies, mostly in racing for me, but the headline is drivability and the enhancement on the v3's standard performance is remarkable, in my opinion even better that HLs very good V6 performance. If you've got a v3 with a set of cables, try it.

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Hi, I have tested some V3 electronics when I had to fix a friend's tank. Sure for me it is not only a vast improvement to use my own hobby radio, but a must. No radio, no joy, no play, lol. So yep, I applaud everybody using their own radios instead of the ones that comes with Taigen.

But what I mean is you don't really need the V3 electronics at all. Not sure how much a set costs today, but the setup Id use costs:
Dual ESC or two single ESCs for driving +-5 eur.
Another ESC for turret rotation + 2ish eur.
Servo, for barrel elevation, 2 eur
Cloned benedini board, 15 eur.

With that setup you have all the driving capabilities, your own motor sets, loads of own sounds (commander shouting, etc) and loads of lights, synch with sounds, like machine guns, barrel flash, notek, headlights and so on.

If you really need IR capabilities then you can add a Mako board with the most complex battle system out there.

Sure you have to wire all of that and God knows I'd rather use an all in one board, but IMHO this is much better than using the taigen/heng long electronics, and cheaper.
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Re: Best drivability, better than HL?

Post by General Jumbo01 »

I couldn't agree more mate, in fact that's the sort of electronics maze l use in all my military trucks.

The problem, as you eluded to, is fitting it all in to small spaces and keeping it out of sight. However, as your price list suggests, like you l use very cheap unbranded items for the trucks and these items are normally bare circuit boards and tiny so the biggest issue is often the bundle of wiring! That's the magic of RC based hobbies - the possibilities are endless. As is their budget!

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Herr Dr. Professor
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Re: Best drivability, better than HL?

Post by Herr Dr. Professor »

I'm downloading this one to read and think over. :think: EDIT: If the General is right, a good transmitter is a relatively simple way to get even better speed performance from the newer Taigen MFUs. DUH I guess that's rather obvious. :/ Get me some more coffee. :yawn:
Last edited by Herr Dr. Professor on Wed Jun 16, 2021 2:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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General Jumbo01
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Re: Best drivability, better than HL?

Post by General Jumbo01 »

Appreciate your thoughts! However, if the control of the two motors is still provided by the sealed v3 mfu then the only difference is the incoming signal from the external radio and receiver.

I'd always assumed that the steering and throttle control were down to the quality of the electronic speed controllers in the mfu but if that isn't the reason for improvement in the smooth control then it surely must be the fine proportional steps the mfu is receiving. Damn shame about the machine gun!

Let me know your thoughts though. I may be missing something.

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Re: Best drivability, better than HL?

Post by Herr Dr. Professor »

"With the 10 channel radio combo costing under £40 on the likes of Banggood, any v3 Taigen tank can be very cheaply enhanced, both in functionality range and quality. Any further questions, just ask."
:think:
How idiot-proof is this kind of modification? I.e. Could I handle it? :haha:
I have a FlySky i6X (which actually handles 10 channels, or so it says). I don't necessarily need to use extra servos. Rather, I am interested in improved driveablity because I do like the HengLong V6/6.1, driveabillity, but the Taigen V3 sound. Can I use a FlySky receiver to bind the Taigen V3 MFU to the FlySky transmitter? Can it really be that simple. :lolno:
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Re: Best drivability, better than HL?

Post by General Jumbo01 »

Simpler! You don't bind to the Taigen mfu because your Hobby grade transmitter doesn't talk to the mfu directly but via the Flysky receiver. You just connect the small set of Taigen cables from the receiver to the mfu. Remember to fit the small bridge plug so that the mfu knows you are using the Flysky.

You can use the channels as suggested by the Taigen manual or use your own configuration to choose which sticks etc control what. If you use, say, channel 8 to turn your own turret servo, mix 8 with the Taigen turret rotate channel to retain the synced sound file via the mfu and sound module. Spare channels can perform other duties.

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