Peregrine7

I've been thinking how to best title this thread to make sense. Hope it does.
I've seen a lot of tank modeling work on this and other forums, and some of the work is pure professional art, both visually and technically. People invest thousands of dollars into parts and control modules, best of which are probably Elmod, ASP and IBU.
Well, it would make sense to me to stay with the professional package all the way, and the above 3 have lots of features that make the upgrades functionally very advanced, except:

ASP is the only solution that allows programming your own radio the way you actually want it. Both IBU and Elmod have a nice GUI that allows you to set up and modify many features, but in the end, they force you to use radio controls in a very restricted way, which I see good for novice users, but not for advanced users.

Out of the 3 above, I have no personal experience with Elmod yet. So recently I contacted them researching all features and options available on Fusion Pro. And it all sounds fantastically great, except for the radio control part.
This is what sends me wanting to jump out the window every time I think about it. If you have a Taranis or Turnigy radios, or any other professional radio, you already have an abundance of channels and switches and combination you can use that you can set up as it suits you. In this example, I have the Taranis with so many switches, I can set up control for 2 tanks simultaneously. The last thing I need is to use gimbals for anything other than acceleration, steering, turret traverse and barrel elevation, and maybe braking. I want the flexibility to set up all controls the way I want them. Not to mention, I actually prefer driving using left gimbal, and controlling turret with the right (as if playing WOT on keyboard). And if I have different control boards on tanks (ASP on one, Elmod on another), I still want to make sure my controls are set up similarly, so I don't get confused switching from one tank to the other.

Both IBU and Elmod don't give you that option, only ASP does. I can understand it's a little overwhelming with ASP, but that is because Kevin is not moderating his forum very well, if at all. The info you need is all over the place, sometimes very hard to find even though you know you've seen it somewhere before. Some things may be stuck in threads with totally different headings, etc. This is what I had to learn to close my eye on, because at the end, when you figure everything out, you get the control flexibility you want.

IBU, I'm not gonna go there, I had some disappointment in the past and will not go that route again.

But the goal of this topic is related to improving Elmod. They could easily modify their GUI to leave all the functions and controls as they are, yet allow a more professional radio control compatibility. They could for example make 2 options selectable to user in the GUI: Basic Controls (for everything as it is now), and Advanced Controls, where you'd be able to assign all controls for channels choosing options/switches by yourself in radio profile, based on channel signal chart they would give you.

However, Thomas from Elmod told me that I'm the 1st guy ever that asked for it - ?!?!?!
Am I really that picky? Or are some people just compromising and not speaking out? Please let us know what you think.

If you are in this advanced group of users that has spent lots of money, time and labor on developing your tanks into better "killing machines", you do invest into boards like IBU, ASP or Elmod, and you do have radio(s) that can handle everything, please speak out. Do you enjoy having to switch between different controls? Do you enjoy turning majority of your functions with the gimbals, which I'm sure gets confusing sometimes? I don't.
So my vote in the poll is a clear YES - allow control flexibility. And that is coming from a guy that 1.5 years ago had absolutely no prior experience with RC hobby grade radios. I've learned everything from online research and some experimenting, and it's really not that difficult.
Elmod, please improve your professional solution to allow flexibility of controls for professional users !!

Thank you!

Peregrine7

wow, either not a lot of people that use Elmod here, or really nobody cares...

Green Amphibian

Not many use it here.
Herman

Peregrine7

thanks
Maybe ill post on the uk forum then.

tankme

Even if I wanted an ASP which I've looked into them, they are almost always sold out. If the support is hit and miss also, that's two strikes against what is probably a good product. Haven't really seen that a lot of users use the Elmod in these forums. The way I see it, the more complicated you make a product the less market it appeals to. The extra complexity usually leads to a higher price and more frustration to the new users. Simple and cheap sells. As I get older I want things to "just work". I don't want to spend a bunch of time customizing it because the longer it takes to complete a project, the more likely the chance that I will lose interest in it. That's my personality and I'm sure it affects others as well. It's all about the instant gratification. Sad to say, but I'm falling into that crowd... Companies will build to the majority of users, not the minority.

Ex_Pat_Tanker

I use El-Mod and I'm happy with it - they more or less follow the standard controls that Tamiya (and by extension HL) established for the hobby, generally anyone who does anything different is considered an odd-ball. "turning majority of your functions with the gimbals" might be true of some of the systems out there, but most are not that complicated. The Pro version of El-Mod's offerings relies on switches and pots for its additional functionality, but the Eco is aimed at low cost 4 channel radios (as is Tamiya's DMD/MF system).

Peregrine7

I can definitely sympathize with this, I'm all about instant gratification, too, and hate to have to spend lots of time accomplishing what I want. But many people in the tanking community seem to spend an amazing amount of time in developing their tanks. And to me, flexibility and ease of controlling it is half the fun of driving it. So yes, at the end, I do invest a lot of time to get my tank model fully functional and looking the way I want it, but radio controls are also a big part of the whole project.

Peregrine7

I have no experience with Tamiya, but the first time I ever tried HL controls, I was disappointed that you had to use a gimbal to shoot the gun. Fortunately, all the other functions were on separate switches (the 2.4GHz radio).
It's not that using the gimbals for everything is very complicated. But to me it feels annoying that I have to use gimbals as switching functions, when they're not really designed for that, while I have about 10 real switches I can't use. The Pro version doesn't rely on many switches, mostly only to switch between gimbals functions (see bottom of page 8 here). And then you have to deal with moving the sticks in speed variations to achieve different results (fast, slow, short, long. quick for 1 sec, hold for 3 sec, etc). For a novice, or someone with a limited radio control, this is a good solution. And it should be retained, of course. But for someone who's looking for a professional solution, this is simply retarded, I'm sorry to say that.. Fumbling with the gimbals.. quick, fast, short, slow, holding, etc, is just not what I want to deal with when I want to enjoy controlling my tank.

So now I'm really at a crossroads, because as much as I'd like to get Fusion Pro for its board features, my blood boils when I think about having to control them...
And I don't think I'll be able to cope with this downfall, especially for the price Fusion Pro costs. For that much, they should be able to whip up advanced radio controls in few days. It's really not that difficult for them.

Rad_Schuhart

Hi Peregrine. I think everything depends on your radio. For example with the Tamiya tanks, the functions are suposed to be used with the gimbals and the trims, (such a primitive way... Well, primitive way for primitive electronics, but that's another story) the thing is you can program your radio like I did, so you wont use the gimbals anymore for the extra functions and you will use the switches.

I dont know if it is possible with some boards where you need to be a ninja master with your fingers like with Clark stuff, but in some of them it really works.

As you know Im using ASP2 boards, so I can asing everithing like I want... But, yep, my vote is to yes, I want to be able to program the radio exactly like I want on every aspect,

Anyway it really surprises me that people loves to spend thousands of hours and bags and bags of dough making an increible looking tank but they forget about the electronic stuff. Makes me think that most of the tanks are self queens or they really run them hardly ever. I love having thousands of functions and sounds like we have in the ASPs.

Peregrine7

Exactly my point! Thank you Rad.
The problem with elmod is their signal reception control is programmed in a way it mostly uses a combination of channels and signals to accomplish certain functions, and channels used for gimbals are fully integrated into almost every one of those. So you really cant separate to set your own signals even if you tried without a chart. They would have to create a separate advanced profile where functions are responding to individual signals on individual channels, not a as a mix. And then the signal chart would be a big help so we can set our own radio profile.

phordman

I have experience with the IBU 2 base, IBU 2 pro and hopefully soon the IBU 2 Pro Ultimate. You should be able to use what ever gimbal you wish by simply switching the leads from the RX to the board ?

standard set up for the base and standard pro is channel 1 to channel 1, 2 to 2, 3 to 3 4 to 4. If you want to switch left to right, just go 1 to 3, 2 to 4, 3 to 1 and 4 to 2.

The Ultimate you control the inputs when going through the configuration. It asks you what movement you want for each movement of the tank. It also uses 8 channels, and you can configure 5-8 to turn everything on and off, instead of inputs from a gimbal.

I have had no issues dealing with Ian, Tankbear, matter of fact he has been extremely helpful.

Peregrine7

Yeah, I know I can swap the channel wires on the receiver, but that just swaps gimbals, and that's not the major problem here.
And I'm referring to Elmod in here mainly. I had my disappointments with IBU3 and not touching that again.

Afrikakorps

I would have to agree with you Peregrine7,
the Asp2 is the most versatile board for programming what you want with whatever switch you want on your transmitter.
This is why i prefer to use the Asp and Asp2.
Yes, it might be difficult sifting through articles on a forum or Utube, but it i think it is a small price to pay for such a versatile product.
I have also looked at the Elmod fusion pro, and while the list of functions is impressive, my dislike of the elmod is the interface, the multi function stick control. I have enough trouble with that on Tamiya.
If the elmods functions were as flexible to program in your transmitter as the Asp, then it would have my vote.

P.S, I have no experience with the IBU
Cheers
Afrikakorps

Peregrine7

Thank you
Thankfully OpenPanzer is in development now (just found out last night) and Im hoping in few months they'll release all the subparts making the whole solution available and very versatile, as well.