XRAD'S Electronic Designs

[xrad]

For those of you interested in using adafruit trinkets/arduino and programmable sound cards which could be operated off a Rx, I found that the programming of the trinkets to do special lighting effects and sound is not all that complicated using basic C++ and provided libraries. I use arduino IDE and have compiled my own code and adapted free code on net. Many of these devices go into my own 3D designs. I typically use pololu low side rc switches to fire the effects in the vehicles. You could easily adapt these systems to a battle field or tank and use IR or motion or RC switches. The Adafruit Trinket is a great cheap little device for this. They offer many 'shields' and breakout boards. Also Pololu has many items. I use their 5v multi-amp regulators all the time, and their power up-down switches....

I also built a website (avoid old style website builder HTML code if possible..takes forever to edit):
http://www.elegantminddesigns.com/

Real laser blaster version I
Design components...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1YbbmdHNFc
Finished:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuRCv_8eQVo

Here is a real laser Blaster in a Kriss Vector Version III:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWKC-wcrbZE

Plasma Crystal effect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz9PFWAi8aM

Plasma crystal effect Final:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqUTvHKPW7I

RC Horn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hIEKinKPZ8

RC Multi horn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMG8qHjUfOQ

RC Smoker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1XEIDR5n4c

Final installed version of smoker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpjS5LuAAq8

Nantucket Lightship w/lights and sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGWoK1OVomI

[midlife306]

You sir, have far to much time on your hands lol
They are all absolutely brilliant!!!
I’m keen to learn more about the smoker, it does a splendid job
Cheers
Wayne


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[xrad]

Hi Wayne, Thx! It does put out a lot of 'smoke.' Fan speed is semi proportional. It is a 5v fan which runs off the motor power wires off an ESC. These small fans require a certain amount of voltage before turning on, so a little off time before kicking on allows the coil to heat the fluid a bit. I tried a few of my own coils and they worked well. I used about a 1" length of hair drier heater wire. This was 'ok' but not great.

I then switched to Burn Effect V3 heater coil and coil driver unit which I ordered from China. They sell the coil and energizer circuit separately, or you can buy a whole unit for about 40$. I used an aluminum rc crawler radio box for the heater coil and fluid. Fluid is "fog Juice' for the big dance club foggers. works great. My fluid bottle is 15yrs old and still smokes fine! Site for parts is :

http://www.rcmart.com/burn-effect-21303-p-68732.html

Metal container for the heating element holds 10-15ml fluid . Added a diode to the neg side as the brushless 5v fan only likes to run one direction and will get hot w/reverse polarity. Designed a special plate inside the smoke box to hold the heating element and to keep fluid from sloshing around. I 3D printed this in abs .Just add fluid through brass angle when needed.

All this was for :
http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/ ... #msg634952

an RC crawler build which also has some great info on rust effect on plastic and metal. All on Modelboatmayhem . If you can't see the pics, join the site. quick and painless and well worth it.

another great smoke unit I almost purchased was BurnoutDemon off ebay, but it was about 100$ or so. My whole system costs 35$ or so (but I had some of the parts already like the fan and the radio case).

Alternatively, you could write the code for the Rx frequency throttle position and use it to decode the power to the fan and heating coil and build your own power setup. but for 23$ it was easier to buy the V3 unit.....

[xrad]

I spent much time researching RC tank control boards and sound boards.

Many of my electronic projects use a WT588D sound card triggered via 'button press.' This sound card is very fast to play different WAV sounds and can run a background sound which can be interrupted by a momentary second-4th sounds. This can be upped significantly if using serial mode. But that requires a second processor, such as the TCB. So I was going to build this setup but honestly, the time it takes to decode the triggers and write the program and record all my favorite sounds takes too long.

There is IMHO the best sound from the benedini card. His throttle up algorithm sounds more realistic than any other and blends nearly seamlessly. And you can update and change sounds on the card if you wish. Benedini costs a bit more than I want to spend but the sound is excellent and worth the price(as in 'price = my time to build'). A few minor issues such as you can't fire the machine gun and the cannon at same time. This could be in the coding or in a limited playback (accessing) rate in the memory or that the triggers come on the same channel. Another is that full throttle comes a bit too early at about 40-50% stick up (even at 70% throttle on Tx and OPTCB). Minor sacrifices. Huge plus is that this board is plug-play w/OPTCB!

A second option was the OPTCB sound card 'kit.' Again, I did not feel like building another board and recording the sounds and everything else. When it is finalized, I would try it.

A third option is the recent Taigen sound cards. These are pre-programmed for different tanks. They at least have the KT and panzer III/IV versions out. I always liked HL /Taigen control boards. Super cheap and work well. In fact, you can get a whole Tx RX sound board , tank control board, and speaker for 99$. Really can't beat that. 2.4gHz!

As another plus, you can use the Taigen sound cards plug-play on OPTCB . You can purchase the Taigen boards from taigen for about 25$(always sold out) and the OPTCB for about 60$(but you still need speaker and ESC's). But financially, the best buy is to just get the Taigen full control system for 99$. It sounds pretty good for this price.

Another (cheapest in cost) option is to control two inexpensive 123electronic sound cards together off the HL/Taigen board using the 'button press' triggers (main gun fire, MG fire, Engine start, pseudo throttle up, etc..) as Battle Armor does: https://battlearmorrc.weebly.com/adding ... x-mfu.html

[xrad]

For those of you who would like to control a relay, LED, or smoke generator using PWM(PPM) Rx output w/a 'Y' cable , such as throttle position, here is a little program that works well. It was written for arduino NANO, but could be adapted to a smaller processor such as adafruit trinket. You can adjust the 'ON' point by raising or lowering the PWM signal number. 1500 is generally neutral stick, and I would allow a bit on each side of this before turning 'ON.' For a smoker unit heater coil, the 'ON' point could be >1550 and <1450. You could run the smoker and the fan relay off of this set-up. Not proportional, however.

This is different than an RC 'switch' such as pololu, as you can adjust the on-off points without too much difficulty. Note that int pin is specific to certain pin outs/ins on the NANO, and not all NANO boards are correspondingly labelled.

Also, you could add these lines after 'else' code to turn the object pin off as well if you only want a certain 'ON-OFF' action for a portion of the stick movement:

Code: Select all

  if (duration < 1750)
    {
      digitalWrite(outhigh, LOW);
     }

Also, I used unsigned long duration instead of int duration and this worked too.

Code: Select all

// Basic sketch reads RC PWM (PPM) input pin 2 and 
// when greater than 1700msec led pin 17 out HIGH
// when less than 1300msec led pin 15 out HIGH  
// can check pulse width millis on serial monitor

int PWM = 2;  // pwm input
int outhigh = 17; // LED pin to blink
int outlow = 15; // LED pin to blink
int duration; // Duration of the pulse

// setup serial and input, output pins
void setup()
{
 
  Serial.begin(19200);
  pinMode(PWM, INPUT); // PWM input pin
  pinMode(outhigh, OUTPUT);  //LED Blink pin, using the build in LED on pin 17
  pinMode(outlow, OUTPUT);// LED Blink pin, using the build in LED on pin 15

}

void loop()
{

  duration = pulseIn(PWM, HIGH);
  if (duration > 1700)
    {
      digitalWrite(outhigh, HIGH);
    }
  else
    {
      digitalWrite(outhigh, LOW);
    }
  if (duration  < 1300)
    {
      digitalWrite(outlow, HIGH);
    }
  else
    {
      digitalWrite(outlow, LOW);
    }
  Serial.println(duration);
  delay(100); //delay so you can read the scrolling output
}

[xrad]

Decided to try TSUNAMI from Robertson electronics. Polyphonic sound board. 5-20msec sound track boot, 4000 tracks, looping, fading, multitrack playback at one time(!), multiple triggers including switch and serial, seamless loops at any track length, and all libraries provided. Much more than needed, BUT, everything is already built in the library code, so makes my life easier. Processor is the issue. Cheap and small footprint. Maybe a teensy 3.2 (w/3.3v logic).....might be able to get away with NANO 3.0 but less memory, slower processing, and will need 5v to 3.3 v ttl converter (which slows down data transfer) . Would be nice if I can run serial mode AND switch trigger at same time on the Tsunami. will have to find out.... That will save on code writing time.....

[xrad]

NEW DEVICE:

So with a bit of coding, I combined and Adafruit 1.8TFT with a teensy 3.2 and a TFMini 'lidar' device. Came out great, Just need to add sound and and some button actions to change range from 10m to 5m etc...

Right now, the TFMini is hot glued to a servo aimed into a corner. The distance is pretty accurate. It originally is decoded into cm's. I converted this to decimal meters. Also, some of the original code for the scan display was set to 40cm, so this had to be modified, as well as all the code to convert ping.h to TFMini.h. Some of the original code was designed for the sparkfun ultrasonic transducer, which of course has way too short a range for my needs. This TFMini transducer is pretty accurate (within 1cm) when I first tested it.

Honestly, the hardest part was just getting the teensy to display on the TFT. Had to update my libraries....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQYZ23f ... e=youtu.be

[Rad_Schuhart]

NEW DEVICE:

So with a bit of coding, I combined and Adafruit 1.8TFT with a teensy 3.2 and a TFMini 'lidar' device. Came out great, Just need to add sound and and some button actions to change range from 10m to 5m etc...

Right now, the TFMini is hot glued to a servo aimed into a corner. The distance is pretty accurate. It originally is decoded into cm's. I converted this to decimal meters. Also, some of the original code for the scan display was set to 40cm, so this had to be modified, as well as all the code to convert ping.h to TFMini.h. Some of the original code was designed for the sparkfun ultrasonic transducer, which of course has way too short a range for my needs. This TFMini transducer is pretty accurate (within 1cm) when I first tested it.

Honestly, the hardest part was just getting the teensy to display on the TFT. Had to update my libraries....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQYZ23f ... e=youtu.be

I have no idea what are you doing, but looks very cool! Keep on working whatever you are doing, lol. I love to see new gadjets.

[xrad]

Thx! Rad. Basically, it's an IR range finder displaying as a radar scanner. Could put one on a modern type RC tank or boat and transmit data back to the Tx..... possibilities......

[Rad_Schuhart]

Thx! Rad. Basically, it's an IR range finder displaying as a radar scanner. Could put one on a modern type RC tank or boat and transmit data back to the Tx..... possibilities......

In fact it looked something like those Alien saga scanners. Thats BEYOND COOLNESS man! Keep on investigating, and then post easy step by step tutorials for dumb people like me, lol.