SDCPs

Tamiya stopped producing their battle unit, but that another firm makes one called the impact battle unit, which is nearly identical to the Tamiya one in all regards except price--it is reportedly less expensive. This is what I know so far.

As I have been reading discussions on battle units, I find a general dissatisfaction with the Tamiya style battle units because they do not have uniform 360* reception and, from what I have seen, leading to ridiculous, unrealistic fighting tactics such as the "swing shot". For this reason I am wondering if there are any other options, any "apples" with 360* coverage, and if not, can the IMPACT one be easily modified to have uniform reception?

I have two tanks and will be using them for FPV battling, and 360* hit potential would be much less frustrating.

ausf

Tamiya hasn't discontinued their unit (53447).

The Tamiya unit is the best for the '45 degree' defense, which is preferred in most battle situations. If you really want full 360, just use any system that has four sensors like David's Battle Unit, but it's a definite disadvantage.

The TBU is the industry standard, it has a high quality IR sensor, ambient light filter and baffles to cut down on the vertical angle. You can home make units to receive and indicate hits, but the challenge is to try to recreate the Tamiya.

In terms of reality, it's usually a trade off with accessibilty. If you are just battling two tanks that you own and not working with clubs, you can tune things however you want, or even use El Mod where damage can be assessed to the side hit, etc. I tune my IR emitters to a tank width @ 30-40 feet, but I generally only battle my sons close to home. In a club stting, it's a disadvantage.

TheBennyB

Also remember if your not sticking with the tamiya battle system you'll have to replace all your electronics. The Impact "apple" is the same thing as the tamiya, but the mounting point of the "apple" and base are a little different.

borealis

In principle, all IR receiver units with 1 sensor + a prism can work with the 45° defence principle, including the HL mushroom (just put some black tape along the diagonals on the apple sides and the 45° defence works as the TBU).

On the other side, all receivers working with 4 sensors are 360° sensible from any distance (DBC, EL-mod, HL withouth tape screening).

Tankhobby

If the "pyramid" shaped reflector in the Tamiya apple is replaced with a cone shaped one the unit will react to 360 degree hits. The dimensions would need to be the same, just no corners and the reflectivity needs to be maintained. I started to play around with drilling a conical hole in acrylic and painting it silver, so far mixed results.

nyleatherneck

Radio Control Custom Tanks has just come out with a new battle unit (RBU) that will fit Tamiya, Clark and other compatible boards for $30.00 complete. Tested by Curtis at Imortal Hobbies here is what he said.
"Distance – At 101 feet I stopped moving back as 90 feet is the requirement.
The BU will only take direct shots and angled shots do not trigger the Clark or Tamiya board at that distance.
At 27 feet the indirect shot no longer triggers the board so you have the 45 deg defence but I believe Tamiya’s system stops shots at 5m = 15 feet. Once a canopy is put on your battle system this distance may shorten.
I would say it is close enough though, It seems to work fine."
Check them out.
Nyleatherneck

Jeff489

My Feedback: (12)

This hasn't been an issue with any club in California or the West. It was just an East coast thing, and even then...not so much any more. It's being phased out, along with other unrealistic battling shenanigans.

As to battle units, Tamiya still makes their battle unit, and it is still the standard for club battling.

Some of the guys in the San Diego tank club (battlefield is in Ramona) are running alternative battle units such as El-Mod, DBC, and Impact if you want to see some in action at a battle. RCU username "mortak" is the S.D. club president. They have about 4 or 5 battledays per year. We always drive down for their battledays.

FreakyDude

As long as the apple takes hits at a minimum distance of 30 meters and has a signal systemn that alerts the attacker/defender of a hit there should be no issue. I tested the system that NYLeatherneck is talking about and it works fine, it even has the 45 deg defence that Tamiya has ( At this stage it does take shots at a greater distance than Tamiya out to 25 to 27' but I think that is more the fact that the recievers were naked meaning there was no shroud of any kind on the reciever when tested )
It has 4 super bright leds on it and it works quite well. At 1/3 the cost of a Tamiya unit my store will be stocking them. Regardless it is a considerable bump up from a HL reciever.

YHR

Freaky

Are these prebuilt RTR receivers?

YHR

I just checked these out. Not sure how you are getting any kind of angled or sloped defence out of that unit.? Can you elaborate on this, as to my eyes it would appear that is would function the same as a DBU. I don't see anything there that would block an IR Beam, and it seems like it would be sensitive a full 360 degrees

Please confirm that this sensor does not receive hits from 45 degrees

Cheers

FreakyDude

YHR I am taking it down to the battle day this Saturday. I will take a video of the battle unit being shot at by both Tamiya and Clark boards. And yes at 100 feet I had the tank turret at a 45 deg angle, a friend shot it with his tank and nothing.
I turned the turret to a o deg angle and the Tank accepted a hit without moving the firing tank. We repeated the process at 10' intervals to 30' then i dropped the movements to 5' intervals. It is aprox 27' when the cannon shots stop registering but we will take much more accurate foot ranges down at the battle day.
At 50 feet it will accept the Clark machine gun fire but it won't register a HIT with Cannon fire.

had I known this was going to be in the news so quickly I would have taken a vid yesterday.

YHR

So to be clear, with a TBU you have the 45 degree defence all they way down to 3 or 4 meters, not just at the father reaches. The defense is actually created by the Pyramid, so I would be more then a little surprised if this has that kind of result unless there is some electrical circuit magic being performed by the board. From the looks of it it just seems identical to a DBU. Having said that I used to think the 45 degree defense was a fault, but it's use does add to the skill level required, and for that reason I accepted the concept. I used to be on here bashing it until I found it adds some challenge to the game.

I will be interested in your report.

Thanks

ausf

The Sharp sensors I have will take hits from near perpendicular if they are not baffled. They'll even take them through opaque white pvc pipe. They are designed to receive as much as possible since you really don't want to have to be accurate with your TV remote. As Dan stated, the reflection off the pyramid is the basis for 45 degree defense, it can be recreated with baffles, etc, but it'll be guesswork getting it calibrated.

I put these in the hull of a Tamiya driven T-34 and barely get 45 degree. I need to pull them all back a bit and shield them, otherwise it takes hits from nearly everywhere,

thecommander

Hi Jeff,
We just finished 3 days and 2 nights of battles at Danville. We have been steadily working here to make this more realistic and restrict the uber-unrealistic fan shots to fast paced limited use competition battles. We have had only one such event in the past year. We had three brand new tankers at Danville this weekend and fan shots were never an issue because of a gentlemen's agreement not to employ them. We want all tankers to feel welcome and have fun. We had many battles win which the rookies could either start early or pic their starting point which best suited them. We pair them with other veteran tankers sometime too. The rookies this weekend took to it like ducks to water....they did great.

For my money the TBU is the best. I have had and sold many Impact but that was only because I go a good deal on them. IMPACTS ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE WITH TAMIYA TBUs as Brett had already mentioned. They look exactly the same but Impact missed the ball again as the size is not accurate. Cosmetically the LEDS are different too but few people eve notice this. The emitter is just fine but the wires could be longer. The only thing in the Impact battle unit that is totally interchangeable with Tamiya in is the IR Emitter. Aside from that it is a good product.

I would love to see the "Corners and fins" eliminated from the TBU. Indoors it is fine, but outdoors the fins are needed. Cone shaped reflectors could eliminate the corners of the reflector cube. If we got rid of the 45 degree defense and "Slope defense" it would be fine with me. The Can-Am guys do fine without it. When I battled with them last year I had the only TBU tank there. I have DBU tanks too and the Clark unit goes in to my tank next week.

It is a very exciting time for this hobby....I can't wait to see what's coming next.

Strato50

This is a cool new product, I'd be very interested in trying one out on my various Clark tanks. I currently use a single TBU, and it works great but as thecommander said it puts me at an advantage over the non TBU guys in our club.

When or where will they be available? I'd probably get a couple, so my tanks can finally be able to battle themselves, hehe

SDCPs

Its good the TBU is still in production. They were just out of stock everywhere I could find, eg. (and others. But I think that's because I searched "Tamiya Battle Unit" not "Battle System"):
http://www.rocousa.com/detail.asp?product_id=TA53447
http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/ite...oduct-id=53447

I am interested in coming to the SD club some in the future. I would want to fight FPV in all probability, though. Why not--Its probably a disadvantage for me (no god-like battlefield view) and its alot more fun, on a larger field at least. Here is a video of how I fight with 1:24 forces of valor tanks (I won't clutter the thread by posting it inline): http://youtu.be/x7JAL_fO-A8

I am really excited about the RBU unit. Any links to were these are being sold? They would need to have the fins, though, since I'll be outside with my tanks. You know, we really don't need fins if the Tamiya electronics (or other packages) discriminated against sunlight. I play lazer tag and Hasbro (shoot the moon productions in reality) has done a very good job making receivers which are unaffected by sunlight. They use domes which are pinkish-clear and IR detectors which are exposed to the sun--and range is ~ 300 feet in full sun.

nyleatherneck

The RBU was developed by Radio Control Custom Tanks the web site is www.radiocontrolcustomtanks.com They are available there for now and will be available through Imortal Hobbies soon.
NYLeatherneck

SDCPs

From what I can tell these units do not come with the standard housings, nor wiring, nor IR LEDs. Anything common with "fins" I could put them in? I Need the housing to make it resistant to sunlight.

But I suppose it wouldn't be hard to make your own "apple" without the housing by following these guidelines

Or at least one could solder 90* IR receivers to effectively make 360* coverage if desired.

CustomRCmodels

you need to check the AAF tank museum shop , they do have them :
http://shop.aaftankmuseum.com/Produc...ductCode=53447

Tankhobby

You can use more than 4 detectors, just connect them in parallel. I've seen some that were installed in tank comander figures for a more realistic appearance. If you recess the detector a bit it may help shield it from the sun and other unwanted IR sources.