RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Since the dawn of mankind, well Heng Long anyway, anyone in the hobby has wondered how to get quality sounds cheaply, with an RX18.

I had a wild flash of insanity today.

The RX18 uses a unique RC system that is incompatible with standard 4 channel RC kit.

A sound card that runs on a 4 channel rx cannot be used on a Henglong tank, so we all buy an aftermarket board with sound.

However, both HL and standard 4 channel tx's use the same tx stick controls, right side throttle, left side turret controls.

Here is the mad idea bit.

Take the pcb and ariel internals out of an HL tx and put them in a box, stuck on the back of the standard 4 channel tx.

Run fly leads from the box to the potentiometers in the 4 channel tx, so that the stick movements on the 4 channel will be picked up by both the RX18 and the 4 channel rx in the tank. The sound card is plugged into the 4 channel rx.

So, the tank is controlled by the stick movements as the HL signals are sent to the RX18. The sounds are generated according to where the sticks are, which are the same.

Two systems in the tx, transmitting to an RX18 and a standard receiver, thus both stay in synch.

Is there a giant flaw in my theory? If it works a cloned Benedini Mini would cost about £30, and would simply get placed in the tank with a speaker.

If it helps, I did it back in the day, but fitting a RC5HL.

Receiver to the RC5HL, and the RC5HL to the RX18.
And also
Receiver to the soundcard.
It worked very good, and I had the benefit of using a very nice radio with it, being able to set controls at my will and so on.

I dont know how to connect the soundcard straight to the newer RX18, but if you do, please enlight us. Id start making the RX18 board compatible with hobby grade transmiters, which are the most important part of the model. If you achieve that, you will open a world of infinite posibilities.

different voltages between the two circuit boards would be one concern, also no telling what having a second board drawing power off the radio power supply would do to the output seen at whatever the pots are normally connected to?

I know the guys at Danville had a reload timer circuit rigged to their fire buttons on the radio, but I think that was a double pole switch so they were electrically isolated from the main radio.

A bit different, but with the v3 Taigen/Torro you now have the option of using the kit Transmitter or a standard hobby one. If you use the latter you can fit a hobby receiver and then use both the tank's MFU and any other servos, sound cards, whatever direct off the receiver. You can do this by fitting Y splitter cables off the receiver. There are also special channel 1 & 2 mixer cables to facilitate two electronic speed controllers plus an engine sound card.

Its possibly cheaper and definitely easier to avoid proprietary MFUs for customisation. The Taigan route, or indeed open cards will make it much easier.