YHR

What you see here is a lens that focuses the IR light and extends the range of the IR Cannon. How would the clubs you belong to, look at this????.

If these lenses were used on Tigers and Panthers it would allow them to have an effective range that was greater then the Shermans and be more prototypical. THis would mean differnet strategies involved in battle. i.e a Sherman's wouldn't want to battle Tigers in wide open spaces, and instead want to draw them into confined vision spaces.

So what do your club rules say about this? Would the extended range cannon be frowned upon if used on Tigers and Firefly Shermans???

blitzkrieg65

What is the extended range??? I got 50 feet in daylight out of the stock DBC!

The Blitz

YHR

I get varying ranges, and I am not sure why. A couple of my tanks have trouble outside 20 ft. A couple of others seem fine at 40 ft. So I am not sure what the reason for this is. Right now I am using the lenses on the poorer tanks to make them equivelent to the "good" tanks. However I am sure if these lens was attached to the strong range tanks the range would be extended. These were harvested off of a lazer tag gun which claimed ranges of over 100'.

I am searching for the answer for the varying ranges. Not sure if it is the IR led or the efficiency of IR sensors of the tank being shot at. Snow is melting so I am hoping to get out in the yard and do some range testing this week.

heavyaslead

You'll have to do better than that, a tank with the Tamiya system will pop you from 100 feet!

I guess the Tamiya range is more like modern ranges.

Panther F

He he! Looks like playing against a DBC might be fun!

Dugster

Not a bad idea in concept, but very few battlefields are large enough to make this meaningful unless you also reduce range on the smaller gun tanks. Even on a large field like SCAT the Shermans (and every body else for that matter) can reach you from anywhere on the field.

Another point is that, from my experience, most kills come at ranges under 20 feet. Those long range sniper shots are cool, but it is very hard to hit someone at 60 feet.

blitzkrieg65

Heavy, I have battled against Tamiya, and I have not been hit from 100 feet but then again we don't start that far apart! I have been the last man standing on a few occasions so bring it on! I won't be in Danville this year but I will be there next year, I look forward to meeting you and Panther F in person!

Oh, and if your going to Danville this year, there will be at least one DBU you can battle against.....You will know it after you get nailed a few times

The Blitz

YHR

A 100 ft. Wow pretty impressive. I am pretty sure I can get a 100 ft with the lens, but you would have to be extremely accurate. More focus means less spread of the IR beam.

I will be equipping my Sherman with the Tamiya system, as I thought I better have a standard to compare my other tanks to. I'll be putting your Tamiya comments to the test.

YHR

Again does anyone know what limits the range. IS it the IR transmitter or the recievers in the DBU/TBU. I find it stange that an IR LED varies from 40 ft to 100 ft, and would like to find out why this is.

Panther F

123Splat

Yellow Horse,

What limits the range is the sensitivity of the reciever and its ability to reject "noise". Doesn't matter how much energy you dump on the reciever , if the reciever is not sensitive enough, or the noise rejection it to high, to recieve the signal. Conversely, givena "standard" reciever characteristic, the more IR energy that you can put behind your signal, the farther away your transmission can be recieved.

That in mind, and just between you an me, if you are using emitters scavenged from LaserTag pistols, you are, most likely, using overdriven high output emitters ( or, at least, that has been the case in my experience). Replacing same with collimated IR Laser diodes, will give you much more output power, at the cost of: a more sophisticated driver circuit which can be modulated by your existing battle circuit, and, more power input required (but not really that much). I have used 'IR Laser Illuminators' (laser diodes) to transmit intelligable information over 100 YARDS in broad daylight, down here in Texas.

Oh Darkith, little buddy, your destiny is calling....

shenlonco

My Feedback: (2)

That's not to good my tamiyas shoot each other from across my whole yard...my yard is not the biggest but it's bigger than 40ft

pattoncommander

wierd....looks like a combo Sturmtiger and panther rolled into one.. may work, but optically [:'(]

YHR

The only thing I am using out of the laser guns are the lenses. The rest of the components are stock DBC and DBU stuff.

I am just noticing a difference in range with the same components so was wondering where I should look to fine tune the poorer ones. There doesn't seem to be much difference in the IR emitter set up , so maybe it is not the shooting tank that is the problem but the tank receiving the hit. All the emitters are the same and all are driven by the same circuit, so I would expect them to deliver similiar results.

heavyaslead

The Tamiya emitter driver roughly drives 10x current pulse compared to the LED continous current rating.

The sensitivity of the DBU detector may be the variant as YHR said. I can try the DBU head in the Tamiya socket and see if range is different, although construction of the housing potentially leaves much to question its affect on the sensitivity.

The Tamiya TBU 'can' be made more sensitive, whereby in my testing ranges up to 125 feet are possible.

blitzkrieg65: I accept your challange and look forward to meeting you as well!

I will be bringing David's 'Fanban' to the April event to try out as well.

darkith

All good points. The range is a combination of IR LED Power, IR Sensor sensitivity, IR Sensor filtering, and ambient conditions.

The IR LED is one of the better ones I could find with suitable power and angle of spread. I did get better results with the Radio Shack LED that's frequently quoted as a Tamiya replacement, but can't get them in bulk for a decent price. Note that variable power may be explained by the gauge of wire you use...too thin a wire and the resistance will reduce the voltage the LED sees.
An IR Laser would be neat for sniping, but I suspect that aiming would be hard without a video camera and display, and at short range the lack of spread would let other tanks eat you alive!!! YHR may experience the same thing with his lens, but it would depend on how focused it got.

The IR Sensor sensitivity seemed to be decently comparable, but of course that depends on the housing and filtering you apply.

Naturally, if you were a hardcore competitor, you could hookup a TBU and the Tamiya LED to a DBC instead of the DBU. You might need to add a resistor inline and tweak it for equitable range though.

I'll be interested to hear what the results on the upcoming battles are. Pity I can't join in!
Hrmm...perhaps if I hooked a tank up with a camera and a wireless internet connection.......

Cheers,
David

Planedev

YHR from teh looks of your IR detector filter, maybe the gaps of the filters could be a little big? so far I have mine set up with gaps of 1.5 - 2mm and a total of 4 disc shades to try to mimic the TBUs and have been hit outside of 40ft. Also in my own test, the DBC IR emitter seems to have the same range hitting tam tanks if not a slight edge.

I feel that the variance in range you get should be more tied to the receiver than the emitter.