How to build a working IR Artillery Gun

[LukeZ]

Nice work and a very cool idea on the PIR trigger.

Do you have a sense of what is causing the clicking/ticking sound? I found this thread over at Adafruit support that might be useful to you. Seems like power considerations are important on this device.

[T.Watson]

Thank you
I tried the voltage correction to 3.3 V.
It has settled down to 0 clicking for the last 5 mins
The PIR is definitely working as it is detecting my movement from 1.5-2m away as I am typing this

[T.Watson]

I have Updated schematic below to reflect the changes for the FX board wiring to 3.3v on the arduino.

[T.Watson]

If anyone wants to go (Motorhead) louder this maybe worth a look for for £3.55

This is a 35w high gain amplifier

http://www.dx.com/p/digital-power-ampli ... ZRzLq2ZPEY

[wibblywobbly]

The tank install was quite easy, though I opted for two batteries, one for the RX18 and one for the Arduino. They will fit in a Tiger but smaller tanks would be a problem.

It does everything, eg all tank functions run off the RX18, and as the IR firing is triggered into the Arduino, that takes care of firing, muzzle flash, hit sensors, and hit led's. It's a good, cheap way to get an IR battle tank, though of course there is no slowing down of the tank, and it can't be killed. It did cross my mind that a way around that would be to have a programmable hit counter in the sketch, after say 9 hits, an additional red led would illuminate signalling that the tank was clean out of luck.

Waiting for some parts to arrive from China (super cheap) as I am out of switches. I've also ordered two Uno's for £6 the pair as the one I use for experimental work has a dodgy plug strip on digital pins 0-7 which causes me frustrating intermittent problems.

[T.Watson]

Any chance of a video of the tank working?
I have a couple of spare RX18 from converted tanks.
I am going to finish the PAK 40 diorama then post a video of it in action. Hopefully this will be at the end of next week.

[wibblywobbly]

I made this one back in March, the only thing not hooked up was firing the IR via the HL tx fire (left stick up). Oddly the servo was working back then, but something messes them up randomly, could be a need for a separate battery, will resolve that oddity when I get back on the case.

phpBB [video]

[LukeZ]

It did cross my mind that a way around that would be to have a programmable hit counter in the sketch, after say 9 hits, an additional red led would illuminate signalling that the tank was clean out of luck.

There already is a programmable hit counter in the sketch, either based on the three Tamiya weight classes or you can define a custom one of your own choosing (see the A_Setup.h tab).

The hit notification LEDs follow the Tamiya pattern. On the kill hit the LEDs will flicker as with any hit, but then they will blink slowly for 15 seconds to indicate the kill (if this were a Tamiya model, that 15 seconds would indicate the regeneration time).

The blinking is pretty noticeable so I think that would address your desire for some kind of kill signal.

[wibblywobbly]

Well thanks Luke, I have never hit the tank enough times to reach that point during testing, I will have to look at this function the next time I am working on it.

[sateng]

This is a very cool setup!
I rebuilt it myself as described - works fantastically.

What I plan to do is control a bunker with an artillery gun with a separate rc controller / receiver.

Unfortunately I have no advanced skills in programming an Arduino.
I tried to add a function for an additional servo (to pan an artillery gun by an RC) but I fail all time.
What I did is have a look at the original project from openpanzer.org and rebuilt the TurretElevation routines - still with no luck.
The reason I want to send the PWM signal through the Arduino is to set the servo speed so the gun can pan slowly and realistically.

But, I did manage to read the signal from the receiver to fire the gun

Any suggestions on this?