Intro to the Open Panzer Project - and a new Control Board

[c.rainford73]

Thank you Rad for clearing that up for me I think I will buy the benedini mini sound board just to have it ( it sounds splendid) If I so choose I can add it to my Clark Tk22 boards too.

Gary I will go the Taigen sound card route for my other open Panzer board to cut down on the costs.

I have heard the Taigen and it sounds very nice. I've only heard the Tiger I sounds. Are other sounds available soon? I hope

[Max-U52]

I think right now all they have is Tiger and Panzer III and IV but more are coming soon. Personally I'm waiting for Pershing sounds!

[jhamm]

Hi mate, Luke explained it in this thread better than I can.

The mikro clone will always work in wathever you have. You will have motor sounds and you can trigger the ton of extra functions, but it wont work with the open panzer in a satisfactory way. The motors will work perfectly but not the cannon sounds, machine guns and so on...

I am afraid for the open panzer you need the benedini mini, which has no clone so far and is expensive...

Hi,
that is not correct!
For Mini exsist an configuration-file for the Coder.
The coder of the Micro clone have to teach in.
This is the big difference between Micro and Mini.
Teach in the coder is very difficult, you must follow the order of 16 sounds exactly and you need some switches - turret stick is possible for turret rotation and barrel elevation only.

[LukeZ]

To be clear - when used with standard RC gear (forget the Open Panzer board for a moment), both the Mini and the Micro must be taught the switch positions of the Prop3 input. On the Micro you can have up to 12 positions and on the Mini up to 16. These control all other sounds besides the engine. Jurgen is right, teaching the Mini/Micro these positions with a standard RC transmitter is not simple and requires a special switch to be installed in your transmitter (Benedini has instructions for making this switch on his website, or you could install something like the Nautic multi-switch).

When paired with the Open Panzer TCB, there is no teaching required for the Mini. We provide a Mini configuration file that gets loaded onto the Mini using Benedini's software. That tells the Mini what all the 16 positions will be, and that's all you have to do. You can use a very simple transmitter and the TCB can take care of deciphering all the 16 sounds and triggering them at the correct times.

There is no configuration file option for the Micro and anyway it only has 12 positions and the TCB is programmed for 16, so even if you teach it manually it won't work with the TCB. You can still use the Micro and get the 12 sounds but you will have to control them directly from your specially-modified transmitter, not from the TCB. In this regard, Rad is correct that "The Micro clone will always work with whatever you have." Yes, that's true, when you control the Micro directly from your transmitter the way all Benedini products were originally designed. But few people have a transmitter capable of utilizing all the functions even of the Mini. I have never seen anybody with such a transmitter but some of those crazy European guys use them.

[LukeZ]

I think right now all they have is Tiger and Panzer III and IV but more are coming soon. Personally I'm waiting for Pershing sounds!

Max, I have not seen even the Tiger 1 sound card sold separately yet (it appears to be bundled with an entire MFU but that is not much use if all you need is the sound card). If someone knows of these sound cards being sold individually, or of other sounds besides the Tiger 1 becoming available, I would be interested to know so I can try them.

[Rad_Schuhart]

Uops, Im pretty sure that I answered you, jhamm, but I think the message dissapeared, or maybe I lost the internet connection for a second, dont know...

Anyway, this week I spent a lot of time with the benedini micro clone, and I must say I like it a lot, and its a tiny very powerfull board... But is very complex and it is insufficient for our tanks.
The sound quality is not very good. 22000mhz 8bit mono sounds) and the maximum lenght of all the sounds together is something about 20 seconds... Only the cold start in my sherman lasts something about 40 seconds, lol!. Also the output power is 1W, so you might need another extra board if you did not have enough inside your tank...

As you mention, programing it is a real pain in the ass... But with time and skills you can do it. I think I managed to do it with a 6 position switch in my hardly modded radio, but I have no idea about how to do it with a normal radio.

Also you need to select first which sound you want, and then trigger it... So I think It does not sound like what we want for our tanks...

Edit: some wrong info here. Please take a look at this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=81&t=24339

[Smaily]

So my boards were just delivered. I will check both, if I get corrected ones. And I will install one to my stock plastic Panther to see how it will work. As Pz. III is under complete reconstruction now.

[c.rainford73]

So my boards were just delivered. I will check both, if I get corrected ones. And I will install one to my stock plastic Panther to see how it will work. As Pz. III is under complete reconstruction now.

Mr Smaily are you using the benedini TBS mini for sounds? I'm very interested as I'm going to use the open Panzer board in my t-34/76

[Smaily]

Well, for now I will have to live without sounds. I will wait if Taigen sound board will be available anytime soon at least for Pz. III, for Panther I would like to have TBS Mini (but that is far away now, first finish Pz. III, than all upgrades for Panther, so sound is last on the list). Maybe I will try DasMikro module for one of the tanks.

[LukeZ]

Good news, Taigen has just posted their first sound card for individual sale: TAG 120750 - PzIII/PzIV Sound Card

You will need to make an adapter cable, the instructions are HERE.

The cable is not difficult to make if you are able to solder. In addition to the cable that is included with the Taigen sound card, you will need a standard servo cable. The TCB already includes three servo cables intended to be used with a Benedini sound card, so you can just use one of those. You have to splice the Taigen cable to the servo cable as shown in the instructions (I'm attaching the picture here also). The +5v signal from the TCB (middle pin on the servo connector) will actually need to be attached to two pins on the Taigen card. If you are familiar with soldering and splicing wires with a bit of heatshrink, the job will take you all of five minutes.

NOTE: The wire colors shown in the diagram will not match the wire colors of the cables you receive. Just be sure you connect them in the correct order and ignore the colors. The colors in the diagram are traditional colors for representing the purpose of each wire (ground, power, signal) but the colors that are used in China make no sense!