Battle Systems

[wibblywobbly]

Has anyone tried the EGS or Darkith battle systems, or has anyone converted a HL system so that it is Tamiya compatible?

The Darkith seems to come as a pile of components that have to be soldered together.
The EGS seems a tad more refined.
The HL runs off an RX18 board, and is not currently Tamiya compatible.

I am just wondering if anyone has any feedback, good or bad on these. I am now the proud owner of a Bulldog, and don't really want the expense of an Elmod system as I already have that in my Tiger.

Cheers

Rob G

[Matdragon]

hey i dont know about the egs, and i too would certainly like to know about the EGS,

but the DBC / DBU can be bought from phil (the Blitz) for around the same or less price as the EGS, and built to the same stage, just put into the tank! contact phil at fluegivation@gmail.com

give him a mail and hes a good guys so im sure he will sort something out!

Matt

[wibblywobbly]

and just found another one!

http://www.rctankhq.com/
"In Feb 2009, ETO Armor will be launching an improved, cheaper version of Tamiya's often hard to obtain Battle System;(53447). The new system emitter reportedly has a more focused IR beam with a longer 'kill reach' over the TBS. Stay tuned for a review with further details coming soon. "

I thought the prebuilt Darkith units were around £160?

I am also interested in what the differences are between the systems, whether any have functionality that the others don't etc. I know that the EGS has proportional braking, but does the Darkith? If anyone has used these systems it would be great to know.

[Ex_Pat_Tanker]

Contact the Blitz, he assembles David's kits and provides covers for the DBU hardware. He can better explain, but you have 2 choices - the basic DBC that works with the HL radio and receiver, or the DBCRC2 which allows you to replace the HL receiver board and tranny with something better (either 40MHz or 2.4GHz). They also come with sound cards that add to the existing HL sounds.

The EGS does not have any sounds as far as I know. I've been waiting on an EGS from Tankzone for 4 months now, I gave up and asked if I could have something else instead!
There is also www.tankhobby.com's system, its a little cheaper but you have to supply your own mounting and cover for the IR receiver tower (I sent mine to the Blitz because I suck at scratch building!).
A possible drawback is that it does not slow the tank down when you get hit (it does have a connection for a shutdown relay tho - something that David's system is lacking), I have a couple of sets for use with tank destroyers, as I find that after a couple of hits the DBC equiped vehicles are almost immobile and combat degenerates into a turret match - not much fun if you have no turret!

[Ex_Pat_Tanker]

Rob,

Prebuilt Darkith units are $160, about 110 quid at the moment (sadly the exchange rate has dropped considerably since Matt bought his).
His system does feature momentum simulation as well (I assume thats what you mean by "proportional braking"?)
Mart

[Matdragon]

hey,

just checked and its about £98 today

[wibblywobbly]

Thanks for that Matt, thats cheered me up no end!! 

I may order Darkith's kit build system, I am pretty handy with a soldering iron and understand circuits etc so it is the sensible way to go. One thing puzzles me though, there is an option for 'no sounds preloaded', if I took this option...how do I load my own sounds onto the Darkith chip?

As far as the Bulldog is concerned I intend to make it as good as I can whilst spending as little as I can. I learnt a great deal doing the Tiger, and reckon that painting plastic parts achieves much the same effect as buying white metal ones and painting those. It will be an interesting project, especially if I make my own accessories rather than buying them. I have already stripped it down and I have only had it a few hours!

As soon as I can get Greeny to launch an attack on the Tiger I will video it and put it on You Tube, I have changed a few of the sound files...and they make a huge difference compared to the stock Elmod offerings.

Rob G

[Matdragon]

sorry  :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\

if your good with a soldering iron the go for it!!

i too have a bulldog with the dbc / dbu installed but i got the whole job ready installed from blitz !!

cheers,

matt

[Ex_Pat_Tanker]

Hi Rob,

Instructions on recording the sounds, and a couple of samples are on Davids site:
http://darkith.dyndns.org/~darkith/html/dbc_snd.shtml

Mart

[Ex_Pat_Tanker]

For those of you who don't visit the "not named" forum - there was a thread regarding the ETO/Impact system:
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_8309451/tm.htm
From what was posted, it appears to me that their system is a straight forward cheaper replacement for the TBU and a more accurate emitter set up (which lets face it, the standard Tamiya mounting of a 5mm diameter LED in a 10mm long tube ain't really that accurate - and yet the 'Tamiya only' Nazi's get all wound up about the alternatives  ::) ::) - sorry, I'll get off my soap box now... >:( )
It is not (at least as far as it is explained in the post) a self contained system like the EGS, or Davids circuits. It still requires a MFM/blah-de-blah/pay-us-loads-a-money Tamiya control unit.

I hope this clears up this up 
Mart