RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I have slowly been modifying a Heng Long KV-1 tank for long range FPV. It has been an expensive endeavor buying and trying different parts. When it comes to ground based FPV some of what works good in the air does not necessarily work good on the ground. I have tried 1.2GHz and 2.4GHz video transmitters of different milliwatts. What seems to work best for me has been a 900MHz - 500mW video system. It has better reception going around trees and objects. Increasing the milliwatt output of the video transmitter did not yield any better results. I have added 2 infrared LED clusters for night vision. All other LEDs and speaker on tank have been disabled. At night this tank can be heard from the gears but not seen. I have been able to go 1000 feet from base so far. After return trip the battery is exhausted. The weight of this tank in 13.75 lbs. This is still a work in progress. Here are a list of parts that have been added. I hope this thread helps people who are interested in tank based FPV.

a) TK20E receiver board
b) Futaba FUTK4200 4YF 2.4GHz transmitter & R2004GF receiver
c) 900MHz 500mW transmitter with 5dBi omni antenna
d) Oracle Diversity Controller with 2 x 5dBi omni antenna receivers
e) 2 very bright IR LEDs for night vision
f) 7.2v 5300mAh battery
g) Taigen (Asiatam) metal hull with bearings
h) Green laser
i) Modified airsoft gun for use with TK20E board
j) DPCAV Tiny-Mic
k) PZ0420 camera with 4mm low light lens

That is truly insane ! Well done. Love the confused horses too

Here are my new upgrades so far. I added a small fan to help keep down the heat generated by the video transmitter. An 8 dBi patch antenna has also helped on the video quality at longer range. The Taigen metal hull with bearings have added more traveling distance to the battery life by taking away the friction of the plastic wheels on plastic suspension arms that came with the stock bottom hull. The plastic arms were also starting to wear grooves in them with the added weight. As the tank is rather slow I am concentrating on the best video quality I can get as there are trees to somewhat block my line of sight.

Here is a short video of my new modified KV-1.

Here is a pic of the servo with micro switches to control the zoom function of the camera.