How to make a battle system

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frankie
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Re: How to make a battle system

Post by frankie »

You can test the emitter with any digital camera or phone with a camera.
...just a quick one..an iPhone 5s camera doesn't pick up the ir..I spent ages troubleshooting an emitter till I found that out..
remember...it's just a plastic tank... :/
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wibblywobbly
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Re: How to make a battle system

Post by wibblywobbly »

I am in the process of preparing my KT for a new board and needed a battle system to go in it. Due to it having a Porsche turret there were very few places to hide the sensors, so I grabbed one of my old HL tank commanders and decided to try mounting them inside of his chest. It was a bit fiddly to do, but I managed it in the end. I'll paint around the holes etc before the final installation. I simply drilled the holes and used a countersink drill bit to widen the angle, then glued them in place. Getting glue on them isn't a huge problem as IR light will pass straight through it.
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Re: How to make a battle system

Post by General Jumbo01 »

I know l'm bringing to the fore an old thread but l believe it's still very topical and theres plenty to still cover. For example, l use the Taigen IR system on all my WW2 tanks but really don't like the traditional apple or often where it is mounted.

I've bought a few of the IR receivers identified in part 1 as suitable but from all the text above cannot work out where the three pins need to be wired to on the Taigen v3 mfu. I assume you can use the existing plug/wires but the three pins are not identified in any way. Can anyone help me?

BTW, the 3 wires going to the Taigen apple are yellow, blue and brown.
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wibblywobbly
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Re: How to make a battle system

Post by wibblywobbly »

It depends on which sensors you have bought, the pins are identified in the specification that would have been shown on the suppliers web page. You also need to ensure that they are the correct spec to recognise the IR beam frequency. The required IR emitter and sensors are pretty well documented for the Tamiya compatible systems, but I am afraid that I have no idea about the Taigen system. I know that TCB guy had to play around with his design to get it to work with non-Tamiya set ups. As far as I know you can't blow anything up if you connect the pins in the wrong order, the sensor just won't work.

The old HL system uses a different frequency to the Tamiya standard, I know that much.

Not much help I know, but I have no doubt it can be done with components that match what the board expects to see.
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Re: How to make a battle system

Post by General Jumbo01 »

Thanks for your prompt response. The led detectors are the ones you showed and provided a link to but your text, wire colours and diagrams related to using a 3rd party board. The Taigen apple is simple to strip down so I'll start by copying the positions used on that. I've plenty of the the units to play with so as long as there's no resulting in board damage it will be okay. The Taigen apple has a small circuit board that the pins attach to but l've no idea what the components on that board do. Is the pulse decoded within the apple or the MFU l wonder?
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Re: How to make a battle system

Post by wibblywobbly »

That's where the trickery comes in, an IR emitter emits an invisible stream of binary code in bursts, the sensor detects the burst and recognises it, then accepts it, and opens a logic gate to the board. The circuit is then complete and the 'hit' routine is activated.

The three pins are the permanently live, a negative and a gate. much like a relay works. The terms used to describe the three pins vary between spec sheets and are not always in the same order, just to make things interesting.

The difference between the systems is the IR burst, what it contains, and how long the gap is between the binary code strings, and how many strings are sent in each burst.
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Re: How to make a battle system

Post by General Jumbo01 »

Thanks again. Well, here we go. If all else fails there's the detector in the apple, which incidentally looks identical. I'm not giving up now that l've crammed a highly modified Taigen recoil, barrel flash and elevation module into a tiny T34/76 mod 43 turret. All the components work fine but the apple looks crazy on the small turret roof. If the detectors work I'll post the cable sequence ;)
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Re: How to make a battle system

Post by wibblywobbly »

I made a plastic wood slat effect crate and stuffed 4 sensors in there on a T34 I did years ago. To reduce the wiring you can daisy chain the pins so that you only have 3 wires coming out of the sensors to the plug.
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Re: How to make a battle system

Post by General Jumbo01 »

That's a great way to reduce the gear in the turret. I was planning to maybe use your suggestion of a holey chested commander. Were they daft enough to stand proud in the heat of battle?

It's a pity the periscope that sits on top of the front of the turret isn't a little broader in diameter. I managed to fit a small two pinned IR detector in it but the three pin types are much bigger.

So that's tomorrow's programme sorted!
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Re: How to make a battle system

Post by wibblywobbly »

It always made me chuckle in Fury when the Tiger appears with the commander facing a field full of Shermans....not quite an accurate depiction. :crazy:
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