TBS Mini capabilities
 

Ok so i know that the TBS Mini is a great sound card. But I also know that it can be used for more than just sound. What i would like to do is also use it to add servo rotation and turret elevation. I am using the BARC4 board in conjuction with it. The BARC4 already has servo recoil. I am not interested in buying another board. for this project. If I can't then so be it.

So my question to the master of the uses of the TBS Mini is can i use it to add Servo rotaion and servo elevations?

Thanks in advance for your replys.

equipment being used.
BARC4
TBS Mini
RX 18

I second the motion. A quick rundown of these boards capabilities in one place, would be very helpful for us new tankers.

All the information you require is here http://www.benedini.de/Home_D/Sound_...nd___rauch.htm

Yo Badass, servo rotation can be done right from your receiver by taking the connection off the barc4 and and running continous rotation servo to receiver. Servo elevation is harder to manage with servo recoil if you use them both on the elevation stick. I am about to play with this issue on a barc4 any day when it arrives. I will probably use 5 channels and split fire/recoil and elevation. We'll see.

Bill, for elevation you can use a servo from the TBS/BARC4 but you have to have a digital TX to adjust endpoints or mixing I believe. Dan will probably jump in and tell us more. The simple way is to just get a servo Y harness and come out of your RX on the elevation channel one to the servo and the other end to the BARC4. That's how I'm doing elevation in the Luchs, work fine. Also if yor using a TX with self centering sticks you'll need a servo hold which will
keep the servo movement in place and not return to neutral when you let go of the stick controlling the elevation servo. Just a plug and play in-line with the servo.
http://dionysusdesign.com/product_in...fabaf3ab69fdf1

I am using a centering stick and a continous rotation servo for my elevation. Im just slowing it down with a chip. Go watch the video posted in my m4a1 build thread.

For elevation and turret control you basically just use the receiver and a servo. The TBS can then be configured to play a sound when those servos are activated by the use of a Y cable.

With the BARC 3 or 4 you can do this. My tanks all have independent control of the elevation with the appropriate sound.

The TBS can be programmed to move two servos in different ways. Every time an event plays the servo will step ahead a certain amount, or it can be programmed to move to its full extension. This can be useful for manual control of a switch or some other device. It also can be used to trigger and supply power to electric motors. Ie if you had a ship model and wanted radar to rotate and be control via remote.

You can also have brake lights come on, beacons or other things. Up to your imagination really. The TBS besides being a sound card is also a digital switch machine that can be used in other RC models besides tanks


To explain the current BARC. It converts RX18's into hobby grade tank controllers with a Tamiya compatible battle system, that blocks the HL recoil, adds momentum as well as a digital decoder to unlock the full potential of a TBS without having to do all those Transmitter conversions that are demonstrated on the Benedini Page. The BARC/TBS is plug and play( no soldering required if you can live with the rotating elevation cam of a Heng long tank), with good instructions and support. It is fairly simple and the stick commands are intuitive for operating a tank. I have yet to hear a sound card that does engine transition smoother and more believable then a TBS. No other card is as easy to build sound files for either if you go down that road.

The BARC4/TBS can also control volume

I am surprised this package hasn't shown up. Keep me posted as this was mailed awhile ago..

Dan,

Mine hasn't shown up either :( Been stuck in Chicago ISC for the last 10 days. You would think mailing something from Alberta, Canada to Seattle, WA wouldn't take this long. Oh well, That's the USPS for you.

Thanks Dan. It arrived today.

Just so you guys know, any international package that has to go through Chicago is gonna take forever. I've had stuff sit there for 10 or 12 days before they let it go, and then it took another two days just to get out of Illinois. And there's nothing we can do about it. Try to contact customs and you'll have more gray hair than you know what to do with, and they're perfectly within their legal guidelines. I think it's 45 days they're allowed to hold stuff! Just because they feel like it!! And they wonder why guys "go postal".

Alberta to Washington state., Who would ever of thought it would go through Chicago

Typically these take less then 6 business days, but as Gary mentions, if customs decides this is the package they are going to open today, then I am guessing that adds to it.. Also I have no idea the route some of these packages go to get to their final destination. How this is figured out is baffling to me. You think it would have something to do with geographic location, but it doesn't

Keep me posted.

I do have to say the combination of Canada Post/USPS has proven to be very reliable and usually timely. I have shipped a lot of stuff this way, and the amount of times where stuff has been delayed I could count on one hand,. These last couple though are unusual as they are happening so close together.

I generally get stuff from Australia, Asia and Europe quicker than Canada. It's only gotten worse over the years when distribution centers have been cut back.

The dreaded 'sortation facility' is the black hole of postal movement.

I had a Trump T-34 kit sit in one for the better part of a month once. I expected it to be built by the time I got it. ;)

Dan's right that the USPS and Canada post are usually pretty good, and the only place I've really had trouble with is Chicago. If it comes though L.A. or New York it goes pretty quick, but for some reason Chicago lags way behind. Maybe it's all that wind.

All the packages I have got from Dan took two weeks. I expected this one to be about the same and it was.

YEah i think it mine took about 3 weeks from Canada to NC. It went through Chicago. Ohh well at least it got here and I have it. Now if i can just get this !@#$ recoil to fit I'll be almost done. It has nothing to do with Dan's stuff and everything to do with stuff from another vendor.

Servo Hack to make it continuous and other servo hacks .
http://www.instructables.com/id/HiTec-Servo-Hack/
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...rotation-Towe/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpO7XMXGzfw
http://www.philbot.com/projects/serv...servo_hack.htm
http://www.built-to-spec.com/blog/tag/servo-hacks/

Thanks
Jimmy

Ok another question for you TBS Mini Guru's. I was able to connect the stock HL high intensity shot into the TBS Mini. The down side is that the timing is off. I have the program cable and the TBS software. I think that i can change the timing of the sound to coenside with the flash. The downside is I'm not to sure what I need to do. I don't want to start messing around with all the different settings unless I know which one's I'm supposed to mess around with. The flash is activated by my sound 3, going to A11 set on flash. Any help on this would be much appreciated.

Bill

You can adjust the time of the flash, ie how long it is lit. Interesting to know this worked, I have a flash I might try this out myself.

It's not lit to long but I also didn't change the the flash duration on the TBS. The connection was pretty easy. I simply cut one of my male to male connectors that I had laying around. Stipped the wires on that and took out the three wires that the HL flash uses. I'm using a futaba connector so the hook went like this

Futaba connection
White= Signal
Red= POS
Black = NEG

HL Flash
Black= Signal
Red= POS
Blue= NEG

I hooked it up on A11 or third from the bottom.

BUt what time settings do I need to start messing with. I can figure out how to change the flash duration. But I don't know what I have to change to get the flash to sync with the sound. As it stands right now it goes after the sound.

Here is quick video to hopefully explain what the system is doing right now


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_e_eMe5-Cw&feature=youtu.be Bill

Ok i think i figured it out. Flask time on the software is not what I thought it meant. Or at least it doesn't work the same with the HL flash as it does with the LED coming off the BARC4. My initial setting on the TBS was 376 ms. I thought that this was the amount of time that the flash would stay on. and it very well might be. But with the HL Flash I think it was causing a delay in the firing since it really isn't anything more than a strobe. So to correct it I took my initial setting of Flash time from 376ms down to 76ms. That seems to have corrected the delay in the sound and the flash.

Dan, you being the resident expert in my eyes on the TBS I would love to hear your thoughts on this. was i just misinterpreting what flash time meant on the TBS software? Or did I actually just figure something out on this.

Yes the flash time is duration of the pulse. In this case I would have thought it would not have made a difference. I would have assumed as soon as that strobe received a pulse it would have fired, regardless of how long it was set.

You have done something I have never tried before. Good job.

Yes you can save the sound file and the parameter file. I suggest you do that before tweaking things,

Yeah I di figure that part out. I couldn't figure out how to change the Prop setting in the diagnose setting. But at any rate. it works. The flash duration itself didn't change at all. Which makes sense since it is just a stobe after all. In the end it works. and if I end up doing that to another tank with Benedini at least i know now what needs to be changed. i probably could tweak the time a little more but It's close enough that I won't worry about it.

Now if I can just figure out how to mount the servo in Bulldog turret for elevation.

Ok so I dug out my HL high intensity flash and followed your lead. Well that was easy. Honestly though I am not sure what advantage the flash has over a super bright LED. I was thinking of changing the LED to a Super bright amber LED and use them in combination for a better over all effect.

Thanks for the tip, and now I know what a simple process it is to use a HL High intensity flash with the TBS.