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TCB Dev / Re: Testing TCB Firmware with Stock Arduino Mega

« on: January 06, 2020, 11:18:33 AM »

After sitting on it for almost a year I have also finally sent my arduino mega open panzer tcb shield and received them today.
they are for the standard arduino mega instead of the mini which resulted in most ports being clustered in the middle.

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Open Panzer Help / Re: buying/getting the OP TCB advice

« on: March 02, 2019, 07:37:34 PM »

Thank you for the reply,

after some further considerations the self assembly option does sound to much hassle with a too high chance of failure.
I have looked at some Chinese companies who could do the whole thing and the per-unit price was predicted to be around 50~ euro except they only sold in quantities of five or more.

I have also taken a closer look at the TCB schematics and compared them with the Arduino mega and Rebus's proto-shield schematics, at first glance it would appear that making a shield would not be too difficult, most of the "modules" in your schematic look like the can be simply plugged onto a mega board without too much difficulty.

At least that looks what Rebus's board is doing, who chose to mostly give the motors and other extra functions outlet ports that could be connected to their own separate function boards.

I think that the main problem will be is determining whether a function (like integrated motor drivers) should be on the board or would better delegated to a separate module.

Would it be possible to reconfigure the output pin for some functions, specifically the machine gun output (and the recoil switch) to a different pin? currently the MG uses E2 when this port is not available on the arduino.

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Open Panzer Help / buying/getting the OP TCB advice

« on: March 01, 2019, 12:49:38 PM »

Considering that the complete TCB will probbably not be available for purchase for the coming time, I would like your advice on acquiring the TCB.

At this moment I have considered two options:

1. buying a unpopulated PCB(via OSH, china or a local company) and populating it myself. my main doubt is whenether i could propperly solder the IC components.

2. Using the ArduinoMega2560 as a base and using a shield to make it compatible with the OP firmware. I know that there is such a shield on the forum, however I do not (fully)know where the arduino sheld and the TCB differ and what capabilities are un-available on the shield option.

what is at the current moment the better option?