Glory Hawk

I have been playing FPV airplane with my friends for few years. Several months ago, we have an idea to start a FPV tank project and have lots of fun. We were using WIFI modules to compose the tank and FPV equipment to do so. The combat is using IR and IR sensor to simulate the gun. We found it most interesting and I asked another friend to join us and work on the APP for combat. I was working on the WIFI controller board and put everything together. Now we have a simple combat system which allows two tank to battle each other!

We were wondering If we can share this combo technology to your guys, how much you are willing to pay for these combat system?
If we get a positive feed back, I would make 50pcs or 100pcs for those who are interested with it!
The system would include
1. A Camera module
2. WIFI module with antenna
3. Tank motor control board connect to the WIFI radio system
4. IR LED and IR sensor with 360 degree lens to collect IR signal from the other tank IR LED
5. A combat APP with this screen (check below attached photo)

We were thinking about selling it at 200, 250 or 300 USD for two complete sets of modules with the APP?
Please let me know your Feed back of these two sets of modules for playing the FPV tank combat!

Glory Hawk

We were trying to put the phone in a 3D goggle and create another remote control unit so that you have better immersive FPV and the control is also much better than using your mobile phone! Please also feed back to us if you need this additional remote control unit!

Thanks! Glory Hawk

CaptainB

This FPV stuff holds no interest for me what'so ever. I have used it in RC flight and found it too restrictive in terms of what is going on around you. I appreciate the technology but I wont be investing in this. Just my opinion.

Cheers

CaptB

Crius

Right now I can put together a complete FPV system for a tank for about $100 US, and it has a dedicated screen without having to use a phone. Why would I spend what you want for a system that I have to also have a phone for? You have a good idea, it's just too expensive.

Glory Hawk

Does that $100 includes all the IR and Sensor with Motor control portion?
Maybe the motor control is already included in the tank system, we should take out the motor control!
How do you get the IR & Sensor? from the tank supplier? How much additional you need to pay?

Crius

The IR emitter and receiver come with the tank. Some guys will add the four LEDs to the Apple but that's about it. If you buy a new Tamiya apple and emitter it costs about $90 but that's for Tamiya quality. You're not going to find that in an aftermarket system.

like I said, you have a good idea, it's just not going to be cost-effective.

Crius

What you might want to do is add up everything that it cost you to make the system and then add 20% for profit, instead of saying you think you can get as much as $300. Just because some idiot is willing to pay that much doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

Glory Hawk

Hi Crius, if we put everything in two toy grade tanks and sell it for $200? Is that something would make sense to a modeler here? I mean I can find two tank and put all of them in them and make it work with battle score system on APP! It can be a complete combat system with two tanks!

Rad_Schuhart

Sometime ago I did my own FPV system using two old mobile phones. One sticked behind the turret and the other next to my radio as a receiver, it worked with wifi... I had some lag, not a lot, but enough to be annoying.

I am considering to buy a FPV kit at Bangood or elsewhere, because I want to fit a tiny camera behind the driver vision port or somewhere like that, and also I would like to use in the forest, in parks and so on instead of connected to the house wifi network...

300 Hundred bucks for the wifi FPV system in my opinion is way, way too much. You can make your own hidden battle systems for less than 2 dollars (I did some for my Tamiya tanks)

Shark27

There was a group from Asia somewhere that had a complete indoor battlefield setup with two FPV cameras in their 1/16 scale tanks, one camera was for the driver and one was for the gunner. As I recall they had a custom setup where the teams could only "see" using the FPV camera's view, they had no external view of their own tank. They operated as teams with two crew per tank. I believe this is a minimum FPV configuration for those wishing to battle with IR battle systems on turreted tanks, as you need to point your turret at the enemy and shoot and that may not be the direction that you would like to drive the tank. With the turret turned to the side (looking for enemy tanks) you could easily drive into a large rock or a tree or a hill or worse another tank.

Even with a very wide angle lens you would only see about 120 degrees in front of you and that diminishes the size of the enemy tank if he is any great distance away like 30 to 60 feet for example with HD resolution they may be very hard to see, with 4K resolution that would be a different story, as far as spotting enemy tanks.

There is some on YouTube that illustrates this situation. Both Commander Bob and myself had HD cameras mounted just to video the battles we were in. Bob went so far as to link the lens to the gun elevation on his Panther to follow the action better when the gun was raised or lowered.

I think if you want to design an FPV system for the IR battlers among us, you may want to adapt something that could interconnect to an IBU2 type board or operate parallel to the existing tank electronics, if you plan on replacing the existing electronics to tie everything to a WiFi cellphone app, you would need to take into account all that the existing electronics provide for the tanks. A $300.00 system would have to include most if not all of the features that the existing tank electronics and battle systems provide like proportional control, sounds, turret rotation, gun elevation, battle damage effects, weight classes/reload times, etc.
Just my two cents
Steve

Crius

If you want to share the technology with guys that would be great, but here at RCU we have a "no advertising" rule, so for you to join the forum and then talk about selling something in your very first post may not go over so well. It seems like you're focused on selling these, and that's not what this forum is about. You should get to know some of these guys and present your idea simply as an idea and not as a product for sale. Then I think you'll have much better luck and get much more useful input. The guys here are more focused on improving the hobby, not making a profit.

Panther F

This is a great idea you have but not the right approach. Many guys here like the birds eye view of a battle scene, enjoying the model aspect of the tanks and using them other than sitting on a shelf or driving around the garden. It has it's strong points but is very one dimensional like Steve said and becomes more of a game than any form of a tank battle.

There is more of a chance of running into other tanks and scenery which is NOT allowed at the museum and very frowned on amoungst other tankers. Now, maybe a league of these but the start up cost would be non-negotiable to say the least. Kinda like air-soft tank battles.

Jarlath

Here is my 2cents. As a modeller myself, I have very little issues with kit bashing and making my own FPV systems on a Tank. Aka custom to what I want.

However, one of the cheapest and simplest options is to use the following.
5.8G receiver that hooks into your UVC compatible android phone/tablet. $25 USD
5.8G camera/200mw transmitter/antenna combo (Connects to a spare channel in your receiver) $20 USD
The above is not pretty, but can be easily transferred from tank to tank (Velcro strip) so only one camera needed per active tank, vs. every tank having a camera, even when not in use.

phordman

I added a fpv camera and used my fpv goggles on one of my shermans, its too difficult to have the turret rotate independently of the hull cant tell when centered makes driving really hard. I have a stug when I get a board for it Ill fpv that and use an extra channel on tx to rotate camera.

you can get pretty good camera for 30 ish and a head set under 100.00

Sky_HawK

FPV tank battling would be fun, much more so than being able to see your tank, enemy tanks and the whole battlefield from a bird's eye view. Would add so much more immersion!

Imex-Erik

I would first go check and watch some of the live club battles around your area if you can. FPV tank battling is not just something simple as point and shoot with our tankers. If you are going to develop a system I would speak to the board designers such as Open Panzer, Clark, or IBU, and see if these guys will integrate a system with you. Developing a control board is pretty daunting, I personally would rather work with another dev that could possibly integrate your system into it. Have you tried looking at Open Panzer yet? It is open source and I'm sure you could find a way to integrate your IR system with it.
Also WiFi fpv will create tons of lag, I've tried it many times and hated almost all of it. I have only recently started to see decent WiFi cameras and they are still laggy. With the tanks and lots of bumps this can be very disorienting. 5.8GHz is probably the best solution but can cause lots of legal issues too. You need a HAM license to operate anything over 25mW and even then some of the channels are not legal to use anyways (legal channels are 5.725-5.875GHz). Screens are cheap, but personally I would rather have the Android FPV receiver (sorry Apple fans) than any WiFi fpv device. I am under the goggles around 10-15 hours a week just for reference. I have my googles, 5" screen, and a FPV watch I'm turning into a preview screen for my TX.
Do you happen to have any video of the items working or the lag between them? I love seeing anything custom relating to tanks!

ausf

I have to ask the simplest question: If I'm going to battle by staring at my screen, why not just play WOT?

Sky_HawK

Because WOT sucks.

phordman

lol I enjoy WOT, and a few others.

I do not think driving/battling from my phone would be much fun, but with a 5.8ghz camera and goggle set looks interesting, its a totally different experience.

Sky_HawK

I used to like WOT, got tired of the environment. Armored Warfare showed promise, by My.com are greedy douches that don't listen to their player base. The NA server population basically evaporated and after a year, I lost interest. They had a good idea with Global Ops, which was fun because I get sick of PVP. PVE was fun, but it's pretty easy and gets extremely repetitive.

Glory Hawk

We are hoping to get feed back from you so that we can make something that would meet your demand. Ideas are very valuable for us! The item is still in experiment process.
Using 5.8G, we will face a lot legal problem and the player would not be able to play it legally! There is only 4 video channel in 5.8G so we cannot have enough channel for more people to play the same time. So we have to rule out the 5.8G radio system.
Actually the complication of the system would be the battle system. How to let the shooter know that he has a successful hit to the enemy? The tanks need to talk to each other about who is being hit from whom? That is the reason we use WIFI so each tank will talk to each other! So the tank player could confirm the "shot" is successful or not! With the Score system, the battle is not really going to work well. To achieve this, take a lot efforts! We are still trying to make it work better when in 4 vs 4 and 8 vs 8 situation.
This is not yet ready for sale but need a lot improvement!

Jarlath

There were 4 bands of 8 channels on initial 5.8G. Around January 2016 a 5th band (Raceband) and currently there are 9 bands of 8 channels...(yes 3 of those bands are illegal in the USA) and some of the channel frequencies would require a license.

Jussek

well, i've tried if with two cameras for years, i've one on the drivers visor and one on the mg aperture on the turret for the 'gunner' and i can assure that to drive looking from the driver's seat is so difficult!

in a computer game you do not risk anything, in 'real 1/16 life' you would drive SO carefully not to hit anything or fall to the river!

best regards

Jarlath

You would want a team of three anyways... Driver FPV (limited FoV), Gunner FPV (Limited FoV), and a remote/360 controlled Tank commander.

maillemaker

I don't battle, but I would like a drop-in FPV system that allowed me to drive the tank from the tank driver's perspective.

I was on gearbest and other sites trying to piece together the things I'd need, but I never pulled the trigger as a lot of the systems had some degree of latency, like my GoPro does talking to my phone. Plus I could never be sure the camera was small enough to work.

I'd pay $100 for a drop-in FPV non-combat system.

Steve