Raspberry Pi 3 Tank Board?

[Tiger111]

Greetings to all the guests and fellow members here at the forum!

In this new post today I'm deciding to go over the topic of tank motherboards, e.g. those such as the Elmod, Clark, and open panzer boards, etc. and after research I found a neat idea that I was wondering if it could be implemented into the RC tanking community. It involves something called the Raspberry Pi 3 - a very powerful supercomputer in a miniature size that is lightweight and inexpensive. The Raspberry pi 3, or the "pi3" as I call it, is also a very popular item in DIY projects - anything from creating a Home media system to replacing your entire PC with a matchbox sized computer with half the cost. What came interesting to me, though; is that people have actually created their own RC MOTHERBOARDS with this computer to make self driving RC cars/trucks, wireless wifi drones, and even RC all terrain machines! This made me wonder, what if I could use my existing Pi3, and create the first hobby tank motherboard with it! So my main questions are; would it be possible to create my OWN motherboard out of the pi3? Would it be possible to bind the custom motherboard to an RC transmitter? And finally would it be possible to purchase electrical components to make a Plug and play board, not each unit being soldered on? If anyone has any knowledge of this particular subject, feedback would be appreciated!

[wibblywobbly]

You have answered your own question,

Is it possible? Yes, anything is possible, if you know how.

[jarndice]

Hi,It is absolutely possible,
The question that many in the hobby would ask is WHY WOULD YOU?
The beauty of using an aftermarket Control Board is that for a reasonable outlay you have a custom R/C Tank that requires only that you plug all the cables in the proper sockets and bind the receiver to the transmitter and your in business, Which allows us to concentrate on the build and the finishing,
A lot of us see the electrical side of R/C tanking as a necessary evil and look for the easiest system with the greatest number of bells and whistles for the least amount of input and cash taking up the least space, If developing the "Raspberry" is what you enjoy then I will not criticize you, but it takes me away from my raison detre,
Because I can do something is not a good enough reason of itself to do it, there has to be some kind of advantage and I see only expense and frustration going down the path you are proposing.
I hope you understand that this is a personal comment and you should not assume I am putting you down,
Horses for courses Dear Boy as we English sometimes say.
Shaun.

[Rad_Schuhart]

The question that many in the hobby would ask is WHY WOULD YOU?
The beauty of using an aftermarket Control Board is that for a reasonable outlay you have a custom R/C Tank that requires only that you plug all the cables in the proper sockets and bind the receiver to the transmitter and your in business, Which allows us to concentrate on the build and the finishing,
A lot of us see the electrical side of R/C tanking as a necessary evil and look for the easiest system with the greatest number of bells and whistles for the least amount of input and cash taking up the least space, If developing the "Raspberry" is what you enjoy then I will not criticize you, but it takes me away from my raison detre,
Because I can do something is not a good enough reason of itself to do it, there has to be some kind of advantage and I see only expense and frustration going down the path you are proposing.
I hope you understand that this is a personal comment and you should not assume I am putting you down,
Horses for courses Dear Boy as we English sometimes say.
Shaun.

You ask a why, and I think I have the answer,

The Raspberry is way cheaper than any aftermarket board. Maybe a good skilled guy could desing some king of plug to connect it in the Raspberry, and then all the tank wires could be connected to that plug. It could be 100% plug and play.

The Raspberry is a very powerfull machine, so definitelly a skilled guy could transform it into a tank board. And if the price is good, he could sell a ton of them. Definitely Id buy a couple.

[Tiger111]

The question that many in the hobby would ask is WHY WOULD YOU?
The beauty of using an aftermarket Control Board is that for a reasonable outlay you have a custom R/C Tank that requires only that you plug all the cables in the proper sockets and bind the receiver to the transmitter and your in business, Which allows us to concentrate on the build and the finishing,
A lot of us see the electrical side of R/C tanking as a necessary evil and look for the easiest system with the greatest number of bells and whistles for the least amount of input and cash taking up the least space, If developing the "Raspberry" is what you enjoy then I will not criticize you, but it takes me away from my raison detre,
Because I can do something is not a good enough reason of itself to do it, there has to be some kind of advantage and I see only expense and frustration going down the path you are proposing.
I hope you understand that this is a personal comment and you should not assume I am putting you down,
Horses for courses Dear Boy as we English sometimes say.
Shaun.

You ask a why, and I think I have the answer,

The Raspberry is way cheaper than any aftermarket board. Maybe a good skilled guy could desing some king of plug to connect it in the Raspberry, and then all the tank wires could be connected to that plug. It could be 100% plug and play.

The Raspberry is a very powerfull machine, so definitelly a skilled guy could transform it into a tank board. And if the price is good, he could sell a ton of them. Definitely Id buy a couple.

Thank you for your support in the idea! I have no electrical/technical knowledge whatsoever, so if someone knew how to program a Raspberry Pi 3 and make a Plug and Play board, it'd be extremely useful for the RC tanking world!

[Raminator]

The question that many in the hobby would ask is WHY WOULD YOU?
The beauty of using an aftermarket Control Board is that for a reasonable outlay you have a custom R/C Tank that requires only that you plug all the cables in the proper sockets and bind the receiver to the transmitter and your in business, Which allows us to concentrate on the build and the finishing,
A lot of us see the electrical side of R/C tanking as a necessary evil and look for the easiest system with the greatest number of bells and whistles for the least amount of input and cash taking up the least space, If developing the "Raspberry" is what you enjoy then I will not criticize you, but it takes me away from my raison detre,

I'm not having a go at you Shaun, but that's kind of reductive. I'd say there's a reasonable overlap in the Venn diagram between people who enjoy RC modelling and people who are interested in electronics. For me, at least, I want to make something that's as prototypical as possible; it's no good for me to make something that looks like a tank if it doesn't behave or sound like one. The current aftermarket offerings all have their limitations in one respect or another, where flexibility and customisation are key. Having something more powerful to oversee all of that can't hurt.

So my main questions are; would it be possible to create my OWN motherboard out of the pi3? Would it be possible to bind the custom motherboard to an RC transmitter? And finally would it be possible to purchase electrical components to make a Plug and play board, not each unit being soldered on? If anyone has any knowledge of this particular subject, feedback would be appreciated!

It would certainly be possible; the Open Panzer project uses an Arduino Mega 2560 to control all of the tank's functions, and it's not as powerful as the Raspberry Pi.

• 

You'd be able to make a breakout board or something that has all of the connections for the tank (they're just JST-XH connectors, you can get them online for cheap) so the Raspberry Pi could control them, you wouldn't need to make a completely custom board. I'd recommend looking into the Open Panzer project, the code is all open-source so you can look through it and see what will work for you, especially for the groundwork like radio communication and motor control.

[jarndice]

I absolutely know you are not having a go at me
I was just trying to say that some of us indeed many of us if the correspondence on these pages over the years are anything to go by are more interested in the build and are not too keen on watching the "Magic Smoke" as it pours off of a £150+ control board because of a simple error.
I stand back in awe at the mental skill of people who not only work on and with these Boards but actually enjoy doing it and understand it
I burst out laughing at your comment on the limitations of modern Control Boards,
Time was I would have killed for a working Turret MG, Just about everyone supplies a socket for exactly that purpose now and I never thought the time would come when I needed more than 8 channels but here we are,
Progress don't you love it,
Now would someone like to tell where Concorde is? I havn't seen it coming over Walthamstow at 1100am for goodness knows how long,
It literally stopped any work on the industrial estate every time.
Shaun.

[HERMAN BIX]

Electronics in these things really is voodoo art to me.
I guess its like anything.................once you know-you know and its not daunting.

As for a Raspberry, like any man made thing in the world- dont ever get the first version !!
Cars, TV's etc etc, try to get the one the bugs are all ironed out of

[wibblywobbly]

I can only speak as someone who has dabbled in the code required to run a 3D printer, Arduino code, and various other programming languages during my career. It always makes me chuckle when someone says 'if "someone" plugs something into something then "they' should be able to make something work'.

If you understand the Open Panzer coding from start to finish then great, you are a genius, if not then you have to kneel before those that have spent years expanding their knowledge and understanding.

The rest of us log in to Paypal....