RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

just had a look ,if you turn the recoil unit upside down with the two yellow capped motors facing you the + wire is the left hand side of the left hand motor, this one goes to permenent live , i feed mine from the middle terminal of the main on and off switch. the other wire that went to the bb switch  was removed, i will add pics tomorrow

Just wanted to jump in here.

Quick bit of history:
Ordered multi-board Elmod set up the day that they switched to single board with plug in blaster. Sure enough they sent the old kit that they were getting rid of! Ok, at least I had Elmod boards..until the Flash card holder fell off before I had even installed it. Sent it back, and eventually they sent me the new kit as a replacement..except they simply put them in plastic bags and let them bounce around in the box, the blaster pins were all bent went it arrived! Straightened them all out ok, so at this point I had working Elmod boards, but didn't install them as I had ordered a Creeping Death turret (170fps airsoft, laser sighting, tracer shell machine gun..from the US).

Ok, so the turret arrived in double quick time.

This was where my problems began. All of which could be avoided if Elmod supplied a connector cable from the 8 pin turret socket to their board, but hey I can make  one. It wasn't too difficult, just note the colour order, cut off the turret socket, and solder on the board wires. Now I had a socket that plugs straight onto the Elmod board, and 8 wires that go to the turret circuits.

Black/Red are the turret motor.

Yellow/Brown/Blue are the Barrel Motor, Common Live and Airsoft gun (not necessarily in that order!)

Green is the Light/Machine Gun positive
White is the Light negative
Orange is the MG-Flash

It helps if you get three cable ties and group them together. Put them into block connectors so that they don't short out.

Pins 1 & 2 on the Elmod board are Turret +/- so they go straight to the turret motor. Job done.

Pins 3,4,5 on the Elmod board are the tricky ones. Get these wrong and you may blow something!
Pin 5 is the brown common live. This connects to the turret red wire.
Pin 3 is the blue airsoft wire. This connects to the airsoft gun wire, probably black (though my Creeping Death one was yellow).
Pin 4 is the yellow barrel motor wire. This connects to the black turret wire.
If you get the blue and yellow around the wrong way then your airsoft motor will make a horrible noise when you pull the lh stick down as you will be running the motor backwards and potentially stripping the teeth.

The last three pins are straight links to the originals that went on to the original socket.

If you have a recoil, connect it before you use anything. This does not connect to the 8 pin socket, you need permanent live feeds for this. Connect them to the fused side of the power feed to the board.

(Creeping Death have a motor drive for the recoil, linked to the airgun. If they are connected incorrectly, or used independently, then it's possible to burn out the motor).

Now, what Elmod don't make clear, especially if you have a 6 channel tx.

The gun switch channel has to be on/off/on. They state that a rotating pot knob will be ok, but as I have discovered...it's not! The gun switch has to have a centre off when you fire up the ignition via a seperate on/off switch (Yes, you have to be very careful which 6 ch £200+ tx you buy!).

When you operate the machine gun by flicking the gun switch you get the nice machine gun noise.
When you operate the main gun you get the nice cannon noise. This sends a 5v signal down that airsoft gun wire, this activates the airsoft, and triggers the recoil.
What it also appears to do is disable the barrel motor.
Likewise if your left joystick isn't centred when you fire the cannon, your gun may not function. The voltage drops to 0.03v.

This seems to be due to the two functions sharing the same common live feed. The system cannot support both the barrel elevation motor, and the airsoft + recoil at the same time. That would be 10v, as each wire takes 5v.

The upshot of my many hours trying to figure out what killed my Creeping Death turret, the vanishing cannon fire sound, and my disappearing barrel motor drive is that:

1. The guys at Creeping Death have been stars. They responded to emails instantly 24/7 and provided me with technical info without hesitation. They are also going to replace my turret internals free of charge, and wire in an 8 pin plug for direct connection to the Elmod board, all I will need to do is connect the recoil wires. They are going to send it back to me postage free. I honestly cannot praise them highly enough. They are going to include 200 bb's as well! We had quite a discussion via email on the wiring required to make the Elmod kit work predictably etc, and they now realise that if someone doesn't pay close attention to the wiring then they will fry the turret. My guess is that they will supply Elmod compatible board connectors as an option if asked.

2. Thomas at Elmod must get the 'avoid answering a straight question' award 2008. I must have sent them countless email asking simple questions, and I never got a straight answer to one of them.

3. If you are using a 6 ch set up, it seems that the correct start-up procedure is as follows.

Tx Off
Tank Off
Tx gun switch in neutral position (otherwise you may not get both functions when it powers up).
Tx lh stick in neutral position.
Tx ignition switch in off position.
Switch tx on
Switch tank on

Test gun and machine gun functions. If you don't get both then switch it ALL off and start again, checking your settings.

There are a variety of recoil systems out there. The correct jumper settings must be set before using the gun. Get the wrong one and you may damage the recoil unit.

There is not a lot of space in a Tiger for the new style boards, and as to how anyone managed to fit the old multi board units in is a complete mystery to me! I had to remove my newly purchased proportional smoke unit to get my kit in.

The best approach to fitting the Elmod kit is to:

Remove everything from inside the hull.
Solder on the new motor wires.
Dremel out all stand offs, and the battery box.
Epoxy in two styrene rails ( I used plastruct girders) just inside the suspension arms on the base of the hull.
Epoxy two styrene sheets across the girders to create a new base, leaving a gap between them. (don't glue them down yet).
Mount the speaker at the rear.
Box in the motors and gearboxes and line with acoustic sheet (this means you can smother them in grease and it won't fly all over the place).
Position the Elmod board and tx receiver box on the front styrene sheet, and connect all of the cables.
As described in the Elmod instructions, leave all the jumpers in, connect the motors,  switch on, then remove jumper 6 to see if the motors run. Then disconnect power, replace that jumper and continue.
Install the board and receiver box and battery loosely to see where it all fits.
You will soon see which way round it has to go. The space between the styrene sheets is to allow the battery connector to go underneath the styrene so that it remains accessible for recharging the battery. I put my power switch and and volume control on the rear panel.
Take great care with the Blaster board. The old ones have fragile flash card holders and the new ones have fragile pins.
Connect up the turret wires.

When you KNOW that everything works, you can attach the Thinktank board to the styrene sheet with stand offs (Maplins sell them).
Use double sided sticky pads or velcro to secure everything else!!

Always keep the battery and tx charged up when testing, and always switch off before moving or connecting/disconnecting components.
If you have metal suspension strengtheners make sure that the back of the board does not touch them, or something will short out.
Elmods use more juice than an HL and a 3300 battery is recommended.

Jeez.. I was only going to type a couple of sentences when I started this! (Oh and the Tiger has my spare turret on not the Creeping Death one - I am going to convert this one to IR battle systems, recoil and muzzle flash).

Cheers

Rob G

here you go percy1510


wibblywobbly , the elmod doesnt need a cable from the turret conector to the elmd tls ,all you do is plug the 8 pin turret socket straigt into the tls unit, making sure the two groves face tthe outside of the board as in the tls instructions
regards,ice

Thanks Iceman that picture makes everything nice and clear. As soon as my replacement TLS arrives I will wire mine as you suggest and let you know the results

Glyn

I don't have a seperate tls unit, the latest Elmod boards are all in one, only the Blaster card is seperate and that plugs into the top of the Thinktank board (which does everything else). By putting an extension lead in I can remove the top hull and leave it all connected while I work in the lower half, great for testing circuits etc as I have all the room in the world to play with.  ;)  Adding the Creeping Death turret and the additional wiring/loom splicing etc made this pretty much a necessity.

Bearing in mind that the Blaster board has to be unplugged from the main board to get at the flash card or jumpers, it makes it very handy. I now have the King Tiger cannon sound on my Tiger 1..it's a much better sound. I can also reconfigure the chain squeaks, engine sounds, or add my own sounds (would love to find a German Tank Commander shouting "Achtung! Achtung! ...Fire!!"  ;D )

Eat your hearts out Tamiya owners, try reprogramming and customising your sound files?  ???

Rob G

i see what you mean wibblywobbly i thought you meant elmod had left a cable out, im pretty sure you can swop the proportional knob for a 3 way switch
regards,ice

hi rob , i have just swopped the prop turn knob for a 3 way switch on my tx works fine, its just a simple desolder the knob resolder the switch keeping the 3 wires the same, hope this helps
all the best ,ice, wonder if there is a way of swopping a 2 way for a 3 way switch ?

Monkey you are a star, I will be off to the local electronics store tomorrow, I reckon Target in Bristol centre will stock the switches. That is the best news I have had all week!

Cheers

Rob G

glad i could help, i got mine from my local rc model shop,rob on your hitec eclipse i guess cannel 6 is prop witha knob ,what are 5 & 7 ?
regards,ice

I managed to get two switches from Maplins. An off/on/off for the gun/machine gun, and an on/off for the ignition. Both are spring loaded back to off.

I have just fitted the off/on/off one in place of the VR2 knob (mine is a 7 channel - this knob is channel 7).

I am now having a problem configuring the tx to take a gun signal one way, and machine gun the other? I have tried altering the EPA settings in programming mode, but the tank response to the switch seems pretty random! I am by no means a tx buff, so do you know how the control should be programmed?? 

Cheers

Rob G