RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I am wondering of any of the electronic wizards out there would happen to know the voltage emitted by an Elmod board for the flash LED. The reason for asking is that I have fitted two identical barrels from tank_modellbau, one to my Panzer III which has a Clark board and is still going strong. The other was fitted to my Puma with an Elmod board. It worked initially, but after a few firings packed up. I have just received a replacement barrel for the Puma and in the packaging was a warning to fit a suitable resistor or the LED would be damaged. I assume the fitted LED is 5v. All and any advice gratefully received.

I thought LEDs were 3v

I stand corrected. However, I still need to solve the original question.

I don't know about Elmod, but I have always used 3v LEDs for the Clark flash without a resistor and never had a problem. The only time I need a resistors for Clark is when there is more than one LEDs for the headlight so that it will balance the load, or if I decided to use one of the 5v switch port for LEDs to reduce the voltage.

It sounds like Elmod does need a resistor for the flash, and it probably lasted couple of firing because it was a quick burst. If it was headlight which stays on it would have burnt it out right away.

I use 5v high intensity led's on all my tanks, yellow or orange when I can get them.

wibblywobbly wrote:I use 5v high intensity led's on all my tanks, yellow or orange when I can get them.

The barrel comes with the led already fitted. I guess I need to attach a resistor to cope with the voltage.

It seems a bit odd that Elmod would make a board specifically for the Puma, but that the flash led is the incorrect voltage. I would be tempted to ask Thomas at Elmod to confirm whether a resistor was or was not needed.

The barrel and led were not part of the original kit, but my modification. However it would be useful to know what the flash voltage is.

If the original led was prefitted with an led, and it blew, then it would logical that the Elmod puts out 5v, and the the barrel had a 3v led in it. So, you either need a 5v flash led, or a resistor on a 3v one.

It may actually be sending the full battery voltage, Richard. I've been checking and measuring voltages over the Elmod Fusion Pro to figure out how to rewire my T-34, and it looks like a few things are counter-intuitively getting 7.4 V straight from the battery (a 2S LiPo). The muzzle flash signal flicks on and off too quickly for my multimeter to get a decent reading, but the headlight and MG on the 8-pin plug are certainly getting much more voltage than they ought to. Even though an LED should be alright to run slightly over-voltage for short periods, if you're hitting it with >8 V from a freshly-charged battery it wouldn't last long.