OK, I now have a rolling chassis!
My setup is a Heng Long Sherman, with a HobbyKing HK-T6A V2 6-channel transmitter and receiver. IBU2U Base board. Stock plastic Heng Long transmissions, stock plastic tracks. TARR smoker.

Now I see what you guys mean about getting a "self-contained" programmable transmitter. I obtained the USB cable for the HobbyKing transmitter, but it was a pain to set up. First of all, all the links at the manufacturer are dead. But, I found this page:

https://www.fingertechrobotics.com/p...p?prod=fs-l001

And it saved the day.
I followed their directions exactly, using the Windows 7 driver. Some tricks:
1) After you manually install the USB to UART bridge driver, and you then plug in the cable (by itself) into the computer, you have to wait some time for Windows to install its own drivers. Be patient.
2) Instead of using the T6Config software mentioned above, I found someone's upgraded better software here:

Digital Radio - The Powerful Tool for USB Transmitter 6 Channel 2.4GHz

This is a much better UI.

Running the auto-configuration on the IBU2UB is simple. After you get it powered up, just remove the green programming jumper, and the device literally talks to you and tells you what to do on the transmitter to get it to work. However, I then discovered that 2 of my channels were backwards on the transmitter. So, I had to use the software to reverse them. This was easy - after I located and downloaded and installed the drivers and the USB Radio software. It's probably much easier to use a transmitter that does all the programming on itself without the need of a PC. So, I believe you guys now.

I am going to upgrade (software upgrade) to the IBU2U Full so that I get full 6-channel support. The Base model only supports 4 channels and so you have to rely on upper-right, upper-left, lower-right, lower-left left and right stick to do things like turn the lights on, fire the machine gun, and turn the smoke on and off. I don't like that setup. Also only the Full version gives you remote volume control.

I still have to identify the right leads and re-wire the connectors for the Airsoft motor and the gun elevation servo so I can get that plugged in. Also the Heng Long taillight connector is 3-pin even though it only uses 2 of them, so it won't plug into the tail light plug on the IBU2U. So I have to fix that.

The TARR smoker is weak. Not making much smoke. I added some smoker oil. The output smoke tubes on the smoker are smaller than the tubes already attached to the hull, so I just stuck them inside each other. Maybe this is not a tight enough fit or something.

I'm using the stock "improved" Heng Long speaker. I do not have a volume pot so I left the sound port jumpered which is what you do if you have remote volume. I figured I could set it via the .ini file. I started at 20% and changed it to 40% but I don't hear much difference.

It would be nice if the left stick was self-centering on the HobbyKing transmitter.

Steve

Steve, you can make the left stick self center pretty easily.
Remove the right left self center and copy it to a thin sheet of styrene and cut it out.
Match up a spring from the hardware store or make one from a spring lying around.
I did it to 3 of mine. Or I am sure someone has the 3D prints for one.
Digital Radio is much better than stock!

Enjoy,
Shad

Thanks, Shorty, I will look into that.

Steve