RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Hi everyone, just joined and very excited!

I would be grateful for any general guidance about the following:

For my very first r/c model I have bought a used 1/8th scale all metal tank (in for a penny in for a pound!).

This had the following r/c equipment fitted inside it: 5 x ESC’s, 4 x (VT) tank mixers, 4 x ZGM’s and 1 x BEC Module (all by mtroniks). The Transmitter was a Hitec Laser 6 and Hitech HFD-08RD receiver.

I am not entirely sure what all of this was for although I have googled what each component does and have an idea as to its purpose.

I intend fitting an Open Panzer Tank Controller and I was hoping if someone could tell me if a modern board such as this does away with much of the above that was previously fitted, notwithstanding I appreciate I will still need 5 x ESC’s (for 2 brushless Drive motors, and 3 brushed motors for turret, gun elevation, and rotating a 12 shot blank firer).

As regards the ESC’s can these be any kind provided they are rated correctly (i.e. for a car, boat, plane etc). Do they need to be programmable or will the TCB control the manner in which they function?

I have already purchased a Turnigy 9X transmitter and an IA8 Receiver.

Thank you anyone who responds, I know it’s probably pretty basic but it sends me on my way for the time being whilst I accumulate some parts.

Hi, you only need 2 additional esc's for drive motors. Op board has x2 built in esc's for rotation and elevation brushed motors. Have a look at their wiki it has all the specs and functions in detail. Its amazingly customisable! Great bit of kit.

Hi RZPanzer and thank you for responding to my plea for help! I don't think I can use the built in esc's because they provide 2 amps only which is not enough. I am a big fan of this board because of the selfless effort by others to make it happen and I have read the web site thoroughly to try and get to grips with the issues. I am still a bit unsure if the board replaces the need for all the equipment previously fitted (and as stated I am not sure what it all achieved). For example if using external esc's does the board control them or do they have to be programmed individually (for slow start, speed and overun for example).

You shouldn't need most of those stock electronics, the TCB will handle all the channel mixing and control the ESCs. So long as the ESCs have reverse (i.e. ones for cars/trucks/crawlers, not planes/boats) they should be fine. In case you haven't checked it out, the wiki page on motor control covers all your options.

Hi Raminator - excellent, thank you for confirming that. Looking at the Wiki it would seem I can use any esc I wish (as far as the boards is concerned), and point taken about reverse (that would have been easy to overlook for the first time!). For the turret and gun elevation I also need esc's with reverse, for up/down, left and right? not sure about the pyro multishot, I presume this must rotate in one direction only. One last question - can the board disable reverse anyway? I think I am going to go for some of the HobbyKing XCar 45A for the three brushed motors and possibly Sabretooth serial card or two separate esc's for the (brushless) drive motors (not sure what is best in that regard really). Thank you again!

Hi outofmydepth, and I think you chose your username with some honesty.

Let me ask you this - since your model comes with 5 ESCs, why would you not use them? Mtroniks is a good brand and I see no reason why you would need to go buy 5 more speed controllers if it already comes with them. You should be able to connect all of them to the TCB and Bob's your uncle. (If any of the ESCs include a BEC circuit you need to make sure to remove the center pin from the servo connectors before attaching to the TCB as described in the Wiki.

You can dispense with the "tank mixers" (the TCB will take care of all that for you). Probably you can dispense with the ZGMs (zero glitch modules) and BEC as well, I would start without them anyway.

I see in your first post that your main drive motors are brushless. That definitely rules out any dual motor serial controller such as the Sabertooth or Pololu, since those are brushed-only.

You do not need to program your ESCs for soft start, speed, or any of that other stuff. If your ESCs even have those options, you need to set everything to default and/or turn off special options. The TCB will handle all that stuff, including inertia, momentum and all those sort of effects.

Can the TCB disable reverse? Yes, if you want. There is a setting on the Driving tab of OP Config under the heading "Speed Limits" that lets you specify individual limits for forward and reverse. If you want to disable reverse just set the reverse speed limit to 0. I think you will find this very frustrating in practice but there's nothing stopping you! As for the turret motors you definitely do want forward and reverse as you surmised.

Good luck, sounds like you have an interesting model. Keep us posted.

Hi Luke, thank you very much for your considered response. I would love to use the old ESC's (see below) but I have no means to access them (or reset them if they were programmable / not sure if they were?). If they do not interfere and allow the OP board to set all the parameters that would be great! (and I had thought the Sabretooth did control brushless so I'm glad you mentioned it). I'll drop the rest of the other stuff as advised too.

Cheers Chris

PS I am (surprisingly) up to speed about the BEC wire mod - there are a lot of warnings about this on the OP site!.

Old stuff! That looks new to me. You've got hundreds of pounds worth of equipment there, I'd definitely give it a try. You can ask MTroniks for the manuals to the ESCs which would be good to have in any case, but there is no reason why that stuff shouldn't work with the TCB.

You definitely have one heck of a wiring job ahead of you though!

Really? Gosh I thought it was all medieval! Well I will definitely use it for now and see how I get on. I will also contact Mtroniks and see what I can learn from them. It would be wonderful if I can use it, every bit helps.......