Tamiya Abrams M1A2 electrics problems ?

[MartinC]

Hi Everybody,

It's been literally years since I've done any model making but I've just built a Tamiya Abrams M1A2 and I'm now consuming time weather the thing .....

I've got it hooked up to a Skyfly PL18 remote which appears to be working well at least iot's got 4 working channels connected to it.

Now I've got almost all of the electrics going, the forward and reverse and steering and I have a rotating turret and I can elevate the gun .....

However the manual is rather vague (!!) and I have problems getting the lights working when you press SW2 the headlights come on and they go out if you press SW3 which is the N/B mode switch ie lights out in Battle mode.

I have working brake lights but no tail lights when the front lights are on and I can't find a combination that turns on the Blackout marker lights at all.

I also can't get the gun to fire and recoil and for some reason the turret rotation limit switch appears to do nothing, I can just rotate the turret till I get bored at the moment, if I disconnect the switch the turret will still rotate and if I short the two pins on the turret switch input to the turret electrics it carries on going, the micro switch Is being activated as the turret rotates.

I've spent 30 years in the IT industry so am used to not reading the manuals ... however I've read and reread the manual and I'm either being an idiot or I'm not pressing the buttons in the right combination to make it all fly ....

so HELP ... anybody else got a Tamiya Abrams and know what the secret to my issues are ??

Cheers in advance

Martin

[MartinC]

I guess what would be really usefull is inderstanding what Tank Mode L M & H do along with how you get the gun to fire and recoil

I believe I have the RC system synced with the tank via the steps on stage 30 and motion, turret and elevation all work but the gun eludes me ....

anybody with a Tamiya Amrams Rc - can you help me with how you trigger the gun to fire ?

[Ad Lav]

I used a Spektrum dx6i with my Leopard 2A6 - basically the same setup.

Gun is triggered by setting end points on the trims.

I’ll try and chime in after dinner.

[MartinC]

Hi Everybody, so I figured it all out ..... You need to ....

Take your RC handset and assign the four channels to the four main functions, throttle, steering, turret rotation and finally gun elevation.

Set the gun elevation to only provide 75% movement and then sync the remote with the Tamiya turret controller as per step 30

Then select another switch on your remote control and configure that so that it produces 100% movement on the gun elivation chanel rather than 75%

100% up fires the gun

100% down fires the machine gun

To do all this on a Flysky PL18EV have a look here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80I1naa2giQ

for 'horn' in the video read 'fire gun'

[Herr Dr. Professor]

Now that's an interesting trick. Thank you! Since I do sometimes use a Flysky transmitter, I will check out the video.

[tankme]

Glad you got it fixed and shared it with us. I'm not an expert on Tamiya controls as I'm not a fan of them, but the Tamiya Sherman I have is adjusted the same way. I just didn't remember how I did it. I do remember it was a process to get the driving on one stick and the turret on the other and then configuring it to not use trims as trims are digital now on my radios.