Kodiak AEV 3 Armoured Excavation Vehicle

[AlwynTurner]

Hi Rob I have been following along in awe, that is a really great build. The electronics sounds like a nightmare and is an area I still have a great deal to learn so following with great interest. Regards Alwyn

[AlwynTurner]

Hi Rob, just maybe a stupid thought but is there any way the elevation control could be switchable between the dozer blade and the arm, I mean you won't want to use them both at the same time? Alwyn

[wibblywobbly]

There would be if an RC controlled switch exists, would be interesting to know if one does. I could use a spare channel on my tx to switch between the circuits that way.

My other madcap idea is to use one HL tx, two RX18's and two receiver boards. I plumb both RX18's in to their receivers, and then modify the tx to take two crystals. I could then run the AEV around on one RX18, flick a switch and use the other one for the excavator. I am pretty certain that this is feasible, as I wouldn't be using both at the same time (they would be on different crystal sets).

Yet again, I could use the IBU2 to run the AEV, and get sound, and still use 2 x RX18's to control the excavator. It would mean two tx's unless I was just using the dozer blade in which case I could just run the 2.4ghz to control the AEV and the dozer function.

[AlwynTurner]

Hi Rob, could you use the machine gun button as a switch if you aren't using it maybe (again may be a daft question)? Alwyn

[wibblywobbly]

The issue is fwd and rev, the only circuits that do that are the main motors and the turret rotation, I did wonder whether I could use the mg circuit to power a small motor that flipped the polarity on the elevation wiring. In my head it would work, but as to whether it could be set up to do that is another question altogether. I could also use the IR 5v, it would just need a blip of current to rotate a motor to switch two sets of contacts. Ho hum....

If this was a normal tx/rx I could modify a servo to do it, apparently it does it anyway. But of course, thanks to HL, which doesn't use standard RC signals, I can't...

http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/electron ... witch.html

Anyway...After a bit of faffing around with linkage lengths, and a lot of head scratching, I managed to get the mechanics working. Those little motors do the job ok. I have a right angled 6v motor driving the turntable, I also realised that those motors would be ideal for anyone who wanted to power a narrow tank that won't take HL gearboxes.

[wibblywobbly]

Not much to report in the way of progress,(been busy on other things) I installed all of the excavator motors, and gave it all a quick blow over in green to find gaps in the styrene. Still need to figure out the best way to operate the arm though I think I have a cheap and cheerful way to do that.

[mcevoyi]

Looking so damd good right now I have been watching and really enjoying the build so far .,,
I know have time my self to start building again ,,,, wahoo ....

[wibblywobbly]

Get on with it Iain, you know it makes sense. lol.

[wibblywobbly]

Seeing as I am awaiting a replacement part for the printer, I decided to dive in at the deep end and start designing a few parts that I need for this build, that would be pain to do in styrene.

The parts have been designed so that I can pull them apart and print them in a way that the printer won't mess up. I have yet to work out the mechanism for lifting the dozer blade, the arms have to go around the rather large motor that sits centrally in the front of the hull that operates the excavator turntable. I am working on it though.

[hawkeye3guns]

Hi wibbly
I just read you idea on switching between motors.
I remember reading about a guy who did that on a RC sailing vessel. He used a multipole relay to switch the control wires from one motor to another. ie. when the relay is "relaxed" the power/control is connected to one set of motor wires (main sail) and then when the relay is "energised" it switches the power/control from the first set to the second motor(Jib sail). he just used a spare channel to operate the relay coil. Not sure how you are working your AVR but maybe you could use a micro switch on another function, Ie. at a certain position it operates the micro switch which switches the relay?
Some food for thought maybe?
Regards Denzil