Mato M4A1(76)w - Loss of control with Smoker unit

[BFT2002]

Greetings...

First a bit of history:

I pulled my old Mato guts out and put in a Heng Long RX18 2.4GHz system. The main reason for this over the Mato 2.4GHz system was the controller never really worked the way I wanted it to. The right drive side pole for instance was so spring tight that subtle movements were very difficult to execute. Also, when I went to do a very slow left or right turn the tank would actually quickly turn the opposite direction before going in the direction I was trying to make it go. Needless to say this made driving not at all fun. I opened the transmitter and reduced the spring tension on the drive side which helped with the feel of the controller, but had no effect on the erratic turning performance. The Heng Long system was a cost effective means to correct this issue.

So... has anyone with any tank ever experienced this oddity?

With the RX18 so far functioning perfectly, I decided to install a Heng Long Proportional Smoke unit. After hooking up the leads to the motors and plugging it into the RX18 with the switch, I start up the tank. First issue was the smoker did not move, so I prodded it with my finger and it starts to work nice and slow, then I apply some power to the motors and it speeds up. So far so good. Suddenly I lose all control over the tank and it just keeps running. It was on blocks so no harm done, but I had no control over it and had to flip the power switch off. I reset the tank, started it up and proceeded to drive forward. Again the pump did not begin until I either push on it or apply some power (to me that's a sign right there, but of what?). After 10 seconds of slowly accelerating I lose all control over the tank again, the tank maintains the last speed applied before signal loss. Repeated 3 more times to make sure. Battery was fully charged and I use 3000MAh high quality hobby batteries over the OEM supplied ones.

Now, I have read on one post somewhere in the past week about the Mato motors having a single cap or something across both contacts, but on Heng Long/Taigen tanks, there is a cap per contact. As I'm going with Heng Long electronics now I am wondering if I need to replicate the motor connections with that of Heng Long.

I should say, with the smoker unplugged, the tank does not have this issue with loss of control, nor does it have an issue with a standard smoke unit. I'm thinking some current draw is happening at a specific point in the throttle up and robbing the RX18 of something that causes total loss of signal which is why I mentioned the motor connection set up.

Thanks!

[jarndice]

Hallo again, If you scroll down to ELECTRONICs and select HENG LONG, then scroll down 8 lines you will get the best instructions on fitting and wiring a proportional smoker BUT and a very big BUT do read the whole thing as there is a very important final entry. shaun

[ALPHA]

Hello BFT....I think you are on the right track with your thinking... I too remember that post with concerns to the resistors on the motors ... that could well be your problem as I do believe that was the plight of the other person as well

Anyway the digital proportional smoker is working ok ...it's supposed to go slow... then speed up as you drive... then cut out ...saving your battery for other functions

Good Luck

Happy Tanking

ALPHA

[BFT2002]

Ah, ok thanks to both for the info! I'll check out that other thread then.

[BFT2002]

Hallo again, If you scroll down to ELECTRONICs and select HENG LONG, then scroll down 8 lines you will get the best instructions on fitting and wiring a proportional smoker BUT and a very big BUT do read the whole thing as there is a very important final entry. shaun

So yes, I did use the Panzer Commander instructions for my smoker wiring, but now that I read it again it does say smoke in roughly 30 sec and I did not wait that long, hence me poking it. I'll try that again, though I'm still unsure as to why I am losing control, but I'll further investigate the potential motor connections Heng Long style vs Mato and go from there since it certainly seems to be a motor/power thing. A few things had to be changed anyway with this conversion, for instance the original connectors I re-used from the Mato for the L/R motor and Power in, we all reversed vs what the Heng Long RX18 has. So I had to pop out all the pins in the connectors and swap them.

Fingers cross, so far I've not managed to blow up my RX18.