Hi Guys

I need to get a muzzle flash unit for my Full Option King Tiger but they appear to be quite expensive. Is there an alternative or does anybody have any other ideas if one can be made up.

Cheers
Gorehound

I have wondered about this too, as I would like to substitute a high brightness LED, which is cheap and readily available.

It would also be safer than the High Voltage unit.

I believe using a high output LED would make the high voltage unit unnecessary. I believe David would be the one to ask as he understands the DMD/MF signals well.

I have wired in Super bright white LED in my Heng long tanks, and the effect seems as good as the Tamiya flash without all the sounds of a capacitor charging going on. There is a little more focus with the LED then the flash unit though, so there is a small compromise. i.e less visibilty of the flash when viewing from 90 degrees.

So in my opinion, yes a cheap alternative is available. I have no idea about the voltage the DMD puts out to the flash unit though. THe Tamiya flash unit has that black junction box looking thing that goes in the turret. I am not sure what that is all about .

I suppose you could put in enough resistance in the Tamiya circuit to protect the Super bright LED????

I recently purchased a NERF style ball blaster gun that has a strobe flash attached to it (has a marketing name of "lightning strike"). Got it for $10 bucks after $5 discount since one or two foam balls were missing from the package. Stripped the gun down to check out the flash unit and it looks perfect for the muzzle flash application... compact / base circuit w/ two wires to the batteries (for capacitor charging) and two wires to "trigger"off the flash. Runs on 3V only and charging is instantaneous, can't ask for more! That's one alternative that could be retrofitted into system. If you can't find an appropriate "toy", evilbay has some kits that you can assemble yourself for a decent $$$ (you have to build/solder up the kit though)

I don't know what the cost of a replacement TAM flash unit is (or the component layout) as all my tanks are non-tamiya (can't afford it [&o]). However, I'm guessing you will only need to replace the strobe flash unit which will have 3 wires attached to it running to a connector that hooks into the DMD. If this is correct, I guessing that it may be possible to salvage a strobe flash unit from a toy as I've described or perhaps from a disposable camera, etc. and wire up your own flash unit. You may need to check the rating of the strobe + verify for correct polarity and trigger wire according to the TAM connector. Flash strobes are seemingly cheap, and very much cheaper when "salvaged" from other stuff like the disposable camera (I just bought some for $2 each). You may want to read up on the workings of strobes before considering this route through.

A word of caution on this which I learned the hard way - the capacitors hold a charge even WITH the power disconnected! I read that the capacitors get charged up to 600V or more and the "trigger" generates stuff in the kV range in order to kick off the flash strobe... very scary!!! I got shocked just the other day poking around the capacitor and that's how I know all this [>:]

One possibility is to substitute an LED instead of or inline with the battle system IR LED.