I am finally happy with my kitbashed TBU's.

I take a Heng Long DBU, and replace the IR sensor with a 38K one to make it Tamiya compatible. I then added an LED circuit to it as well, with 4 bright red LEDs, one resister and a capacitor, a little soldering and a rubber sleeve made from a bike inner tube.

I now have a low cost IR sensor with a factory look about it. Here is what it looks like. I never took progess photos as I wasn't sure it would work out or not. Now that it has, next time I do this mod I will take progress photos.

All in there is the cost of the HL sensor + about $4.00 worth of other stuff.

can you detail how you added the LED circuit? a schematic, notes, or a quick sketch please.

What do you mean by replacing the 38k sensor?

Perry

Can this set up give and receive hits with Tamiya and DBC/DBU equipped tanks? If so please post more, oh great saver of money and giver of much tanker wisdom. I humbly sit at your feet (here in Ontario that is) and await your reply. Seriously YHR you are a deep well of experience and good information, please don't ever change.

Perry

The IR sensor in a Heng Long is focused at detecting a different Frequency then the DBC or Tamiya. IF you buy one of Davids DBU kits you have four IR sensors that can be used in this conversion. The HBU(Heng Long battle unit) has a mirror assembly like Tamiya and only needs one IR sensor per unit. You take out the Heng Long Sensor and install one of David's in it's place. The pin out is different though so you have to make sure you get the pins on the sensor where they need to go. Using Davids DBU instructions you can figure out which pin is which.

Yes I understand. I thought that you had installed a DBU with different IR sensors. So this is kinda a YBU then.

Perry

This will work well with Tamiya and David's DBC. However it will not work with the Stock Heng Long system because of the different IR frequencies involved.

I have never tired changing the IR sensor in a Stock Heng Long system to see if that would make it compatible with Tamiya. I think David tried it but the info packet sent in the IR beams must be different because I believe he had no luck with the Heng Long picking up the Tamiya signals.

Eggman

One of the things I find fascinating about this hobby, is the ideas and opportunities it provides for us tinkerers. I cut my teeth on these tanks on this forum, and I had lots of help along the way. I am happy to pay it back to help out others.

YBU hahaha Just to add to the confusion.

OK, I was a little over-the-top with admiration but I'd still like to know how a DBC/DBU would react to the IR emitter from the HL tank. It's my understanding that they are not compatible.

Just a word of caution. You have to identify the 5 V pin to insure you plug this in the right way. Reversing the plug in will have a bad effect on your DBC. So when building this always ensure you have some method of identifying the Positive pin.. I usually paint that side of the plug Red to clearly identify it.

I posted too soon, you have answered my question. This unit then, plugs into a Tamiya or DBC does it?

Yes I think you are correct. I believe on Darkiths webpage he did some compatibility testing, so you should read what he had to say about it,

Yes this works with a Tamiya or a DBC. Just make sure you plug the 5V pin to the 5v supply

Do you replace the single sensor in the HBU with a single 38k sensor? I just cracked mine open and the reflective pyramid looks to have a really low quality plastic chrome surface. Do you still get good performance?

Perry

I have not experienced any issues. They are on Par with the Tamiya sensors.. Remember a highly effective sensor is to your disadvantage. You want it only as good as your enemies!!!!!!!!!!!!

that is the truth. we had a battle day yesterday and some of the tanks with various non TBU IR receivers seemed to just ignore alot of the shots from TBU systems. Maybe a little too unsensitive if you ask me.

Really? The 4 IR sensor heads are typically more sensitive then the TBU, putting them at a disadvantage when up against Tamiya's, but I hear where you are coming from. The function of the TBU, or whatever you want to call it is critical to the fairness of the game. When you get a multiple of home built sensors, who knows how sensitive each one is. That is why I wanted something that was inexpensive and predictable. By utilizing the inexpensive HBU, and adding the LED circuit, anyone can build a Battle detector that is standard for under $20, and it's function is solid and predictable.

I strongly suggest every IR battler have one Tamiya TBU in their toolkit as well. This gives you a standard to use should someone have a problem with your homebuilt TBU. Tamiyas offer 45 degree defense, as well as slope defence(Physical limitations of the design) and if you seem to be gettnig taken out to often, switch to the Tamiya sensor and see how much your luck changes.

Personally I think the EL MOD system is the best out there. The different battling modes reduces the predictability of the game. I like their random kill option. i.e a lucky shot can take a tank out in one hit.

I saw TBU's advertised for $21. If that was the everyday price, I wouldn't have been on a quest to find an alternative.

Hi I have a couple of these and they work fine ,but have slight differance at the bottom mine have USB plugs &sockets in the turrets .It stops them being fitted in the wrong way round.

regards pete

Will a TBU plug into a DBU connector with out modification?
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you just need to rearrange the pinout. Since you would be installing the female connector in the cupola (or wherever), it is more like arrange then rearrange. David has instructions on his website for this.

Perry

very nice, thanks

When the Detroit club did some testing (in a borrowed school gym - nice and level, and no sunlight) last winter, we found that the style of baffling that Phil @ rctankwars was putting on his newer DBU's tended to limit the effective range that the DBU could be hit from. Our club standard was agreed as being able to take a hit at the same range as your tank could shoot (~70ft for the IR LED's Phil supplies). Phil's current design was not able to do that on all sides with the 2 examples we tested - where the dozen or so examples of his original style (which Phil kept making specially for me ) with wider baffles and bigger windows for the sensors were able to be hit reliably by a Tamiya tank at 80ft and a DBCRC2 at 60ft on all sides. On the down side I do tend to get shot up rather easily at close range with these... [&o]

So I believe both YHR and Panther G are correct: the DBU can certainly be more sensitive than the TBU, but by trying to make the DBU behave like a TBU at a certain range and/or angle it is very difficult to do so without making it less sensitive in other situations.

I also tried the HBU with a DBU sensor inside, the problem I found was that it very sensitive to the positioning of the sensor under the prism. Get it a little off center and we found it will bias the sensitivity to one side at the expense of the others. We also found when you did find the side that was most sensitive, it was good for 40ft but wouldn't take a hit at 60ft. I suspect as somebody pointed out, this may well be due to the HBU prism being as 'rough as a Badgers bottom'...

The solution I am currently testing is a TBU mounted on a 9pin sub D connector and plugged direct into Phil's DBU socket - you can wire the TBU socket direct to the DBC board, but as I have a lot of DBC/RC2 equipped tank's already this seemed like a better idea [8D].
The pin out is the same order as the socket Phil supplies, just make sure you get it the right way around [X(] The 5V feed for the IR sensor is on the left in the pic, the +ve connection for the LED on the right. Also be sure to leave enough of the pins on there so that you can push the socket over to a more central location, otherwise you'll struggle to plug it into a Panzer III/IV cupola [:@].

So far it seems to work, but I have had both of the DBCRC2 tanks I tested with it glitch on me after a while. In my experience the DBCRC2 tends to be sensitive to dry joints and bad connections, and I heard from Tankhobby that the TBU is also somewhat noisy electrically - so this could be the problem. I also have only one TBU converted, so there might be some thing out of spec here, altho it did work without problems in a DBC equipped tank? Does anyone else here have any experience of this?

I'll do some more testing in a couple of weeks hopefully and update if I find anything new [8D]

HTH,
Mart

I use a 5 pin socket as shown in the picture. The Tamiya sensor uses the same pinout configuration. A TBU plugs directly into this with no issues, and as I mentioned earlier settles all club disputes. If someone doesn't like your kit bashed sensor, then just plug in a Tamiya sensor and stop all arguments.

On the flip side, these HBU hybrids don't cost much to make, 4 for the price of one Tamiya apple. So if you build these like I do, with a 5 inline pin arrangement, they are totally compatible with the Tamiya systems in use. The USB and the 9 pin arrangement work fine but it prevents easy swapability with the Tamiya product. I went with easy swapability and in my opinion that is important in the systems you build. If someone complains about one of my sensors I can take it off my tank and let them use it while I use a Tamiya, End of debate

Agreed , it all comes down to who's sand box you are playing in as to how well your solution needs to perform. I started out being happy running a pair of DBC equipped tanks around my living room, and somehow ended up having to make tanks to Danville standards! [X(]

I'd be interested in testing one of your HBU design's this winter, if you could mount it on a DB9 plug with Phil's pin out - if nothing else than to satisfy myself that my attempt to meet club specs failed due to my ham-fisted efforts, and not because of the HBU being a bad start point?
PM me if interested.

Ta,
Mart

Help... I just completed 2 DBU's/DBCR2HL's and one of the DBU's sensors are burned out. Probably all 4 since I tried testing them on a board which overheated. Does anyone know what and where to buy new sensors? I have a tank battle which will be our first DAK battle without having to beg and borrow a spare tank (DAK has been wonderful, letting my son and myself borrow a spare Sherman or two to battle with them - but we have a KV-1 for my son and a KT for myself that we are very excited to battle with). The battle is in 11 days and I was hoping to overnight some sensors to make the battle.
I bought a Radio Shack IR Sensor at 38khz, passband of 940mm, 0.56mA. I put it on a board, wired an LED with resistor and no go....
I'll order several bore DBU's from David, but with the length of time for shipping from Canada to Arizona, there's no way of making it in time.
Any thoughts or ideas would be wonderfu!
tjs