LED Flash and DBC question
 

Sorry if this is long winded, but I have a couple of questions:

1. I am using DBC RC2HL boards, and am experiencing a weird issue with the flash. Everything is fine until I try and attach a flash LED. If I install the LED, the first time I fire the gun, the tank fires the IR LED, Flash LED, and triggers the fire sound from the attached sound board. The next time I fire the gun, the tank recoils (recoil is disabled and only does this when the flash LED is installed) and the DBU IR sensor lights up solid. The DBU lights remain on and I can fire again but it still recoils but I have no other tank movement ability. It is like the RX18 shuts down. I have to turn the tank off and back on to restore functionality.

I currently have 2 tanks. On one, I have connected an LED Flash circuit built with a 555 timer that I found on another tank forum to the flash pin of the DBC, everything works ok, but on the other tank, the flash circuit causes the same issue. Regardless, I cannot put a flash LED on either tank. I am using the high intensity white LED's found at Radioshack (the cheaper ones).

Any ideas on what may be happening?

2. I have been reading some other topics about installing the flash LED behind the IR LED in the gun barrel. What flash LED's are used that will allow you to run the IR LED wires around the flash LED's? I was trying to put the flash LED behind the IR LED, but there is no way I can see to run the wires past the flash to the IR LED.

BTW, I have a Tiger1 and a Bulldog with a Panzer III on the way.

Thanks!

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

Make sure your battery is fully charged before doing any more trouble shooting. A low battery can do many weird things

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

Batteries are full, but power is the next thing I am going to be testing. What is strange is that I can hook up a logic probe to the board and the same thing still happens.

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

Try this

[link=http://battlearmorrc.weebly.com/brownouts-be-gone.html]Brown out trouble shooting[/link]

There is no way just a LED flash should do this, but you might have something else going on with you power demands. Are you running a recoil motor? Try a separate power source to the DBC, and see if that corrects the problem

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

That is my next step. No recoil motor, it just activates the stock RX18 fire recoil. It will be a few days before I get to do anything with it though. I wish I knew more about the RX18. I have found that when it fires, pin 2 of CN3 has a pulse when I put a logic probe on it. If I try to hook a transistor or IC up to it as a trigger for a flash LED, it does the same thing, so I am thinking the RX18 is the issue.

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

I would just use the Flash LED output on the DBC and do away with whatever else you have hooked up. Anything that triggers the Heng Long track recoil will cause an issue with the DBC unless you run a separate power supply to it. IF you run Lipos you will also be OK, because those batteries have the ability to supply amps when you need them. However that fact also means that if a short occurs, our your motors stall, those lipo batteries are quite happy to supply whatever amperage they can, and will smoke anything hooked up to them that can't

I am guessing whatever other mod you have done with respect to a flash and the RX18 is circumventing the logic on the DBC chip.

Go back to just the DBC2 and the RX18 without any other mod. Set the recoil to off when you configure the DBC prior to starting the tank and see what happens.

Now the Phil is gone, if you have any issues with this DBC2 you can send it back to me, and I can have a look at it. Note to everyone reading this though. Never use UPS to ship into Canada. They charge a $25 brokerage fee which is absolute BS. You can ship using USPS, it will get to my door quicker and way cheaper then most of the private couriers. USPS and Canada Post offer a very good painless cross border shipping experience for smaller packages.

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

That's the problem, using the flash output with an LED causes the problem. I am hoping it is a power issue. I won't be able to test until next week sometime though.

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

A LED draws little current. I doubt it would be just the flash LED causing it.

What else do yo have happening at the same time the flash goes off? Have you gun a gun recoil?

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

Just an A123 sound board attached with the fire key connected to the fire sound pad on the board. Problem occurs with and with out the sound board connected. When I attach an LED to the flash output, the problem occurs, if I remove the LED all is fine. This occurs with both DBC boards. In my other tank, I can use the flash output as a trigger for my 555 timer flash circuit but not with an LED. That is what is making this strange. I will figure this out.

Are the flash led outputs tied directly to the PIC chip, or are they switched by the transistors on the board. I have not tried to analyze the circuit of the DBC board yet. If the LED is being driven by an output of the PIC chip, I wonder if I somehow damaged the chip during installation.

At this point I think it is either a power issue or an RX18 issue.

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

The power for the Flash and The IR Led are fed by separate transistors. What has me concerned is this 555 timer flash circuit you mention. If you were using the DBC to engage this you might have cooked a transistor on the DBC.

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

I wondered about the transistors. Without reviewing the circuit, I did not know how the transistors were being used. The only reason I question the transistor is that everything works the first time you fire the gun. When the gun is fired, the IR LED and flash led will fire. After that, when the gun is fired again, that is when it stops working correctly. I may replace the transistor on one to see if that is the issue. The flash circuit was used after I had the issue. I couldn't get the boards to work with the Flash LED, so I tried finding another way to add flash, but still, that could have messed up the transistor. Like I said earlier, I have one tank working fine with the flash circuit because it will not work with the LED. May be 2 different issues at this time. At least transistors are easy to test.;)

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

I believe Ace built the timer circuit after the LED flash would not work. So when that failed then built the 555 to trigger a flash LED.

RE: LED Flash and DBC question
 

I got a chance to trace the circuit. The transistor could be the issue.