RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

The information you're seeing when the board first boots up (the debugging info dump) is telling you what settings you have applied to the board from OP Config. It isn't actually able to detect what accessories you have connected (and in this case, you had nothing connected). Well, with one exception - it can tell whether you have a receiver connected, and if so what type (PPM, SBus or iBus).

What you interpreted as a "repaired" Clark board is in fact the repair IR setting, which you have set to the Clark repair protocol. The repair protocol can be used to "repair" tanks that have taken hits during IR battle, but is seldom used by anyone that I know of.

The information is just a way for you to confirm that the board really does have the settings you selected in the Windows program.

But anyway I'm glad to hear your experiments are working so far!

I have tested the motor controls, used a super cheap Chinese Bustephedon esc, and an HL turret motor, saw the advice about removing the positive wire, hooked it up to the 2560 and a battery. It works, forward and reverse. Tested it on both the elevation and rotation pins too and it worked fine.

Need to sort out esc's for the main motors now. If anyone can tell me which Sabertooth esc works, it would be appreciated.

If Hobbywing 1060 RC Crawler esc's will work they are cheap and bullet proof, but I guess the Sabertooth does a better job.

I also tested servo's on the turret circuit and they worked too. I can 3D print a servo recoil, I already have the Openscad files for a variety of designs that I have done, so will replace the mechanical recoil with one.

You can use any of the full featured Sabertooths (don't get the RC-only versions!), the size you choose depends on the model you're putting them in and specifically how much current you expect to draw, which only you know. However I can say that for lighter-weight tanks the 2x5 is usually more than adequate (the 2x5 can provide 5 amps per motor continuous with up to 10 amps peak).

If you don't want to spend as much money a standard hobby ESC really works just as good, only since you need two of them they take up more space and there is more wiring than with a Sabertooth. Also most of the inexpensive Chinese ESCs don't operate at ultrasonic frequencies so you may hear some motor whine, but that's not a big deal to some people and anyway it will still be far less whine than you get with the stock Heng Long/Taigen electronics. The Hobbywings Quicrun you mentioned would be fine, I also frequently recommend the XCar 45 ESC from Hobby King - they only cost $11 US and can handle more current than anything you'd ever need in 1/16 scale.

Both the Quicrun and the XCar speed controls are discussed on the Open Panzer wiki page dealing with hobby ESCs, with either one you need to remember to disable the brake functionality on the ESC and let the TCB handle the braking.

Thanks for the info Luke, much appreciated.

The cheapie esc's I had lying around (I used them in WPL trucks) are these.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32908047257.html

20 amps, and a switch to turn the braking on/off.

I will test them on the main motor drive, and if I don't get magic smoke then it will be a success. If they blow then I'll get some X45's. I've got RC crawler esc's sitting in the spares box, so I can use one of those for the turret rotation. Elevation I'll never use, so not fussed about that, and a servo for the recoil, and it should all be good to go. Will just need to sort the muzzle flash using the info available.

I have the Das Mikro Mini clones that will be good for the sounds.

I'll post up a step by step here for anyone on the forum when it's all up and running, for those who want to give this a go. I'll also include links and (very low) costs. It's all very easy to do, all thanks to your excellent forum, and the incredible amount of work you have put into the firmware.

Well that was quite easy. I used pin strips on the Arduino and soldered the wiring onto the pins to make it all secure. The Open Panzer forum shows where to attach all of the wiring. This is running two of the cheap £4 esc's shown in the link above, and a PWM/PPM converter. It's a bit glitchy but this may be due to interference on the esc's as they are simply thrown into the hull for the test (along with everything else). I'll see if I can smooth it out, but if not I'll look at better esc's.

wibblywobbly wrote:t's a bit glitchy but this may be due to interference on the esc's as they are simply thrown into the hull for the test (along with everything else). I'll see if I can smooth it out, but if not I'll look at better esc's.

Good work. Your cheap £4 escs will work fine, I don't think they are the cause of glitching. Most likely that is a result of using PWM radio inputs. I would try moving your PWM-PPM converter as far away from anything else, especially the ESCs, but ideally as mentioned before use a PPM receiver directly (or an iBus/Sbus receiver).

If you tell us what radio you are using I may be able to recommend a more suitable receiver.

I am testing it using a Flysky FS-T6, which is past it's sell by date.

One of the esc's has a permanently lit signal light, and no matter what I do with the sub trims and trims, I can't get a neutral position so that the light goes out. All mixing and any other programming is switched off.

I also have a Turnigy with E9RX firmware, and a Chinese Trasped tx that came with a truck, this might be PPM but I couldn't get it to talk to the Arduino when I tried it a while back.

The FS-T6 uses the original AFHDS (not AFHDS-2A) protocol. You can read about the single PPM receiver we have been able to find for that transmitter in the Wiki. I'm not familiar with the Trasped, but you can certainly get a digital receiver for your 9x, but it will depend on what module you're using in it.

A good upgrade to your FS-T6 would be the FlySky FS-i6X also discussed in the Wiki. It is similar to your FS-T6 but has 10 channels and an iBus receiver that will work with your Arduino with no extra components. It is very inexpensive.

Best option IMHO, a multiprotocol module for his 9x with er9x.

I am pursuing the option of making this work by the cheapest method possible. At the moment I either have a faulty PWM>PPM converter, or a faulty 2560 board.

A replacement Arduino should be here tomorrow, if that doesn't fix it then it's the converter, which will take a week to arrive. The new one is higher quality (I hope).

Initially, as shown in the video, and although I hadn't set up the tx, the tank was running ok. Not easy to control but that was to be expected.

Not long after, it started playing up more and more. It sometimes just sends intermittent bursts of power to the drive motors, even when it is sat on the bench, others times nothing at all. I had it running around today, but it was nowhere near where it should be.

It's a broken contact somewhere on one of the two pcb's, or a bad solder joint. One way or another I will find out which it is. It's definitely interrupting the signal, as I can tell from the flashing led's on the esc's whether there is a signal or power getting that far. Pins 26-29 seem to have a problem, so it could well be the upstream of those on the 2560.

It's an interesting little project, and as said above, it's not 'that' complex to set up. I've printed a fully enclosed case from Thingiverse for the Arduino, and a mounting plate for the esc's, and PWM converter to keep it all tidy.

It also occurred to me that this set up would work well on an RC boat with single or twin propellers. Two props can be controlled the same way as tank tracks, and servo's can be run off the turret rotation for the rudders. I have an RX18 in one that does just that.