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jayd177
12-18-2002, 11:06 AM
Hey all,
I found some interesting things inside of my controller and tank. I popped open the controler and to my surprise I found two solder points that had no wires soldered to them, labeled M+ and M-. So, out of curiosity I opened my tank and found that the left motor is soldered to two points called LM+ and LM-, and the right motor is soldered to two points called RM+ and RM-. Are we starting to see a trend yet? Now get this. Above the LM+ and LM- there are two more solder points with no wires coming from them and they are labeled HM+ and HM-. Exciting, huh! I believe they fully intended on making the turret controllabe and took it out for whatever reason. This could also explain why we see a lot of those curious 4 shoulder-button controllers in pictures (like on the back of the box). The upcoming sub controllers look very similar, but they're in a different color scheme.

Well, there's a snag. I tried soldering wires up to the contollers' M+ and M-, and an extra to a ground in the controller, and I soldered one of my little motors to HM+ and HM-. I tried all combinations of circuits and unfortunately, nothing happened. the tank was definately charged. I may have goofed the soldering job. I may have the wrong ground to complete the circuit. Maybe they just never programmed the IR for that function since they scrapped it, but it was cheaper to leave the manufacturing equipment the same. I really need someone whose better at electronics and pcb's than I am to look into it.

I'll keep messing around with it and maybe I'll stumble across something that will work. I'll keep you all posted. Jay

BillyBonz
12-18-2002, 12:40 PM
Jay, Nice find! You forced me to take apart my controller and take a look for me self. It really makes me wonder why they abandoned the rotating turret. I really can't see why it wouldn't work. All I can think is it was a cost decision. These tanks are somewhat costly as it it.

Another strage thing I noticed poking around in the controller was there appears to be an IR receiver module under the PBC by the IR LEDs. Why would the controller need to receive anything from the tank? There is not any bi-directional communication that I'm aware of. Any ideas out there?

For those who are smarter than some of us and don't take their toys apart, here is a pic if the circuit board in the controller.

BillyBonz
12-18-2002, 12:45 PM
Here is a shot of the front where the IR LEDs live and the receiver module.

jayd177
12-18-2002, 03:21 PM
The only thing I can think of is that the tanks broadcast their id. I tried setting two different model tanks on the same id and it wouldn't let me set the second one. I wonder how their going to add the 2 new Japanese tanks, or if it will always be 4 player max?
Anyway, Billybonz top picture shows those two extra solder joints I was talking about. On the left there are 3 connections for steering, and then 2 connections for the shoulder button, and then 2 empty solder spots labeled M+ and M-. I imagine you'd need a ground also so it would be M+/gnd for one direction and M-/gnd for the other.
Billybonz, can you post a pic of the pcb inside of the tank showing those 2 extra solder spots HM+ and HM-. They're just forward of where the left motor is soldered. I don't have a digital camera, and maybe it will help someone else who wants to give it a shot. Thanks, Jay.

BillyBonz
12-18-2002, 08:22 PM
Jay, I tried to get a pic of the tank PCB but my camera doesn't have a macro mode. Maybe I'll see if I can get someone at my old job to snap some good pix off the microscope. While I'm at it I'll get an x-ray of the tank too. I won't help anyone out but they sure look cool. I sure miss having access to all those neato tools at work.

Jordan_person
12-19-2002, 12:04 AM
the 4 button controler(silver) is for the digi q submarines

BillyBonz
12-19-2002, 12:25 AM
Look at the back of the box on the tanks. They show a green controller with 4 buttons. There is an empty space between the two drive motors that is the same shape as a drive motor, a ring gear on the inside of the turret and some holes for prolly a drive shaft. There is little doubt in my mind they tried moving that turret. As soon as JayD177 figures out how to make it work, you'll see. hehe:D

Helix
12-19-2002, 03:56 AM
Originally posted by BillyBonz

Another strage thing I noticed poking around in the controller was there appears to be an IR receiver module under the PBC by the IR LEDs. Why would the controller need to receive anything from the tank? There is not any bi-directional communication that I'm aware of. Any ideas out there?


BB,

if im correct, the controller is a bi-directional IR unit as it needs to receive info from the tanks when registering HITS.

Purple Penguin
12-19-2002, 08:11 AM
I don't have one of these tanks yet so I'm not sure but I read somewhere that when you fire they kind of jerk backwards to simulate the recoils of firing. if this is true it may be the reason they decided not to allow the turrets to rotate, maybe they thought it was corny when the turret was facing behind and cause the tank to jerk towards they way you fire, or if the turret were facing to the side the tank woud jerk to the side and it just didn't look real enough for them. so instead of programing the different recoils into the tank they just decided to scrap the rotating turret. or maybe they simply couldn't find a motor slow enough to make it enjoyable to rotate the turret. again I don't have one so I might just be sounding like a complete moron here, but I figured that I might as well throw out my theries.

jayd177
12-19-2002, 10:15 AM
I thought about that too, with it looking silly when the tank recoils backwards when the turrets facing sideways. Here's a couple things about the tanks to help clarify:
1. The turret only rotates about 30 or 40 degrees off center, so it never faces completely sideways or backwards.
2. They wouldn't have scrapped the turret control because of the recoil because it still looks goofy. I can manually rotate the turret all the way to one side, but the recoil is straight back, so why not let us rotate it with the controller.

And here are some points for Jordan:
1. If you read my top post here, it says that the SUB controllers are in a different color scheme. (Silver/blue) I said that.
2. The controller on the back of the box is not for divergear, it is not the divergear color, and it is pictured immediately next to a tank.
3. Those pictures of the 4 button controller (in green) were showing up before the first tanks came out, well before the concept of divergear was released to the public.
4. Those older pictures of the 4 button controller (in green) were in a series of pics showing the then up-coming combat tanks.

I agree that the sub controllers have 4 buttons also. What we're trying to say is that the sub controller isn't out yet, and imagine when it does come out that it only has 2 shoulder buttons because they took a feature out. That's what we're saying happened with the tank, 4 buttons and the turret.

jayd177
12-19-2002, 10:46 AM
You can go here to see a close up of the pcb. http://www.geocities.jp/s_lx60/cd/make.html This is the same page as all the cool mods.

On the bottom right of the pcb there are two vertical points for rm+ and rm- for the right motor. On the bottom left are two horizontal points for lm+ and lm- for the left motor. Just above those are two more horizontal points labeled hm+ and hm- which are for nothing. How very curious.

JTM
12-27-2002, 08:05 PM
an easy way to test this is just wire up another motor, connect them to the pcb on the tank, then hook the two connections on the remote up.. and see what happens

jayd177
12-27-2002, 09:46 PM
Yeah, I tried that (2nd paragraph, 1st post). Nothing happened. I'm wondering if there needs to be another wire leading from the IR inside the turret to the pcb (there aren't any extra) or if they just didn't put the programming in the controller and pcb. Either way, I've given up for now. It's back to school.

mcap27
12-29-2002, 11:56 PM
I got a digital camera for Christmas so here’s a pic of the tanks PCB. I hope we can figure out how to get it to work. I also noticed the design has room for a 3rd motor and a worm gear (similar to the drive train). The set up should be simple enough if the electronics work. Notice the HM- HM+ . I can’t wait!

mcap27
12-30-2002, 12:00 AM
The slot looks like it would fit the same size motor as the other two in the tank. I could almost make one fit in but the wires were to short and I didn't wnat to take them apart.

BillyBonz
12-30-2002, 09:36 AM
mcap27,

Thank you so much for those pix. My camera just doesn't have the rez to do shots like that.

It seems to me that they were so close to making those turrets work. I'm starting to think they left out the electronics required to make them work, but I'm not going to give up yet.

Oh yeah, welcome to the board!

T_T_52
01-06-2003, 08:59 AM
I know how to make the motor for the turret:D you use the motor from another gearbox and the worm gear then use a small bit drive gear that goes on the motor.b45m b35m bg12 bg657 bg395 bbimpb zztbo

jayd177
01-06-2003, 12:19 PM
I don't think the mechanics of the gearing is much of a problem. Right now I'm concerned about how to control it. Putting in the motor and gears is pointless if I can't control it.

I was really hoping that the solder points already in the tanks and controller would operate a 3rd motor, but it doesn't (unless I goofed, but I double checked).

Assuming the +'s move the tank forward and the -'s are reverse, then the best I can come up with is to wire the L+ and R- to the 3rd motor to turn the turret right. Then wire L- and R+ to the 3rd motor to turn it left.

I don't like this at all though. There's no independent control here. All that would do is turn the turret in the direction the tank is turning, and only when the tank is turning. It would do this when turning while driving forward and doing the super spins, but would turn the turret away from an enemy when reversing and then executing a turn (it would always turn toward the inside of the turning radius).

Example: I'm reversing and I want to shoot someone on my left. If I press right, so the front of my tank is facing the badguy, then the turret will turn right also. So you'd actually have to turn even further around than you would right now.

I personally think that this whole idea would suck, and that I would be constantly over-aiming, so I'll keep hoping someone else figures it out.

P.S. I have another theory about why they may not have included this in their tanks. As it is now you can only fire when you're not moving. I wonder if this is because the IR can only send/receive so many signals at a time. I'm thinking that maybe you wouldn't have been able to send independent control to the turret while driving, or fire while controlling the turret. Oh well.

Panzer
01-06-2003, 08:17 PM
Jay, what are you talking about? The turret motor was most likely soldered to the two points labeled HM- and HM+ on the circuit board in the tank. The red wire is attached to the + and the black to the -. The direction that the motor turns depends on the direction of the current in the circiut. The third and fourth shoulder buttons were apparently the buttons that controlled the turret. If you pushed the left button the turret would turn left. If you pushed the right button the direction of the current would reverse and the turret would turn right. I would not be surprised if the ability to utilize the turret were still there but what needs to be done is to take out 2 shoulder buttons from a second controller and solder them to the empty points on the controllers circuit board(upper left in the picture in this thread). The thing that bothers me though is that I could only find two solder points on the controllers board.

Panzer
01-06-2003, 08:21 PM
My theory for why they left out the turret control is this: there is only a limited range that the turret can turn and in order to keep from ruining the motor or stripping out gears (when the max of each turn is met) there would have to be some sort of clutch. They may not have been able to make an appropriate clutch that would work well in the space that they had.

jayd177
01-06-2003, 09:28 PM
hey Panzer, (read the whole thing please)
I'm not trying to be rude here, but did you read the first post in this thread?? I posted that about the HM+ and HM-. In that post I also said that I already tried exactly what you said about soldering wires into the controller (at m+ and m-) and soldering another motor into the tank at HM+ HM-. I also said that nothing happened. It didn't work. No moving motor. Inside the controller I tried crossing m+ with m- and Nothing. Then I tried crossing m+ with ground and Nothing. Then I tried crossing m- with ground and Nothing.
Also, you should only need the two solder points and a ground. M+ and ground would send a positive signal and M- and ground would be negative. Example: Forward and Reverse are controlled using the left thumbpad only, correct. In this picture that is on the right side (because it's flipped over) and you can clearly see only 3 solder points. If you trace them you'll find that two are for signal and the third is a ground. Exactly the same as what should be m+ and ground or m- and ground. 3 solder points. (the other set of 3 on the same side doesn't come from the thumb pad. It goes from the controller's pcb to another pcb just for the IR leds). The 2 solder points I mentioned in the FIRST post in this thread (M+ and M-) are visible in the picture and the ground can be soldered directly to ANY ground in the whole controller. That's what I tried and did not work. The difference is that when the thumb pad for Forward and Reverse are pressed an IR signal is passed on to the tank and the tank decipers the message and sends juice to both the Left and Right motors. Well for what I tried either no signal was sent, OR it isn't being decipered by the tank and sent where it needs to go.
The point of my last post (before this one) is that the IR signal just isn't getting sent or decipered. Since they scrapped the idea, it probably isn't even programmed into the chips in the tank or controller. What I was trying to say is that THE BEST I COULD ACCOMPLISH is a completely alternative way to wire a 3rd motor up, and that is to use the leads for the first two motors. That is a separate idea that would make the turret movable, but it isn't good enough for me. I put that up as a possiblility because I know that RM+/- and LM+/- are definately getting juice and someone else might want to just go ahead and do that. HM+/- is getting Nothing.
If you don't want to take my word for it open it up and try it.


Again, I'm really not trying to be rude, but if you had read the posts completely you would have seen that I had already said what you did.

jayd177
01-06-2003, 10:39 PM
Off Topic (sorry) I finished my Mame Cab!!!!!! WooHooo!!
DrJsArcade (http://www.geocities.com/drjayd177/DrJsArcade.html)


http://www.geocities.com/drjayd177/drks.txt
http://www.geocities.com/drjayd177/litf.txt

ruf
01-07-2003, 07:47 PM
2 probs.

1) U6 is not installed.
2) the gear mechanism to drive the turret is going to be a serious PITA.

jayd177
01-07-2003, 07:51 PM
Ruf,
Could you please elaborate on the U6? Thanks

ruf
01-14-2003, 04:04 PM
Sorry, I don't check this board often.

HM- and HM+ appear to be connected to an 8-pin device labelled U6 that has been "not installed" or omitted from the BOM. My guess is that U6 is the motor driver.

jayd177
02-15-2003, 08:50 PM
To everyone who was involved in this thread..... If you haven't already, check this thread out. .Controllable turret video (http://www.tinyrc.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=8353) You won't be disappointed

Meltdown
02-16-2003, 06:44 PM
Hello, i'm new here. Just ordered a two tank set.
(panther/T34). On the subject of the rotating turret:
Now that we know that only one of the firebuttons (instead of two for normal operation)
and the right stick is used to rotate the turret on the forthcoming models has anyone tried this
with the HM+ and HM- terminals? Could be that it works that way.
I will try when my tanks arrive.

Meltdown
02-18-2003, 06:05 PM
Just got my tanks. Awesome!
Will look into the turret thing.
The mecanics won't be a problem for me.
Iv'e got a watchmakers lathe and mill.
I can make my own gears.
The electronics are another matter.

jayd177
02-18-2003, 09:26 PM
When I wired the motor to the H+/- I did not try to operate the turret the way it shows in the video. However, I still think it won't work unless Maybe you get the upgraded roms from the new tanks. I say this for 2 reasons:
1. The roms for the new tanks are supposed to be different.
2. Pressing a single fire button (left or right) causes the old tanks to fire. You don't need to press both simultaneously. So what would happen is when you press that fire button trying to steer the turret it will fire a round.

I'm happy with my old tanks, but I'll be getting the newer ones anyway.

Meltdown
02-18-2003, 10:05 PM
Where did you see that Rom info?
Do you mean the detachable rom on the controller? Why is it detachable anyway
if they don't plan to upgrade the older tanks? I think that the missing U6 chip
is the key to it all.
The controller and the tank's pcb seem to be ready for turret operation.

Tony A
07-14-2003, 05:11 PM
Firebox.com has clone tanks that have rotating turrets + infrared...when fired, if the turret is facing sideways the tank dosn't jerk backwards, it piroutes very slightly...they are about the same size...(60 x 40 x 34mm)...it would seem that all this talk about enough room/gears/motors is a bit moot...which only leaves electrical...there are mpeg's + pics too...check it out

Meltdown
07-14-2003, 06:24 PM
I've got all 3 tanks from firebox.
The "problem" (i find it more real) with those tanks is that in order to have them turn. It will first move the turret to the right for them to turn right. When you want to go strait the turret must center first. The same goes for left turns. First the turret must point left for it to move left It's because they only have 2 motors. One for the turret and one for the drive train. So you can't run strait and take a left turn without stopping first and let the tank rotate the turret to the left or right first. They are not proportional. One speed only. They are a tiny little bigger than the Digi ones. They aren't cartoonish like digi but more real proportioned. Not as detailed like the digis but the wheels pivot like the real ones, simulating suspension. The submachine gun (which i will mod) is a red led which flashes and gives a ra-ta-ta sound while pushing a button on the controller.
Same goes with the main gun. The tank will recoil in a much more real fashion than Digi. A very short recoil and back with a gun sound. The nice thing is the games you can play. One game will let the tanks fight each-other automatically. They seek each-other out by infrared signal. One major disappointment was that they aren't compatible with the digi signals or visa versa. I tried. I think they are very nice tanks. Very different than the digis which have more steering control but i find the firebox tanks more real, more authentic. The funny thing is that they sound exactly the same as my gun sound mod i did on the Digis. The components are also the same! Had the right idea i guess ;)