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Messages - LukeZ
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121
« on: August 25, 2021, 05:49:57 PM »
Good questions. Note that you can assign multiple functions to a single trigger. As I'm re-reading your post, it sounds like this is what you have done with the smoker and light. If they are not synchronized, maybe you want to use the "on" and "off" functions instead of the "toggle" functions. For example, set the light to turn "on" in position 1, and the smoker to be "enabled" in position 1. Then set the light to be "off" in position 2 and the smoker to be "disabled" in position 2. This should ensure that both are on or off at the same time. You can also use the turret stick as a 9-position switch, similar to the way stock Heng Long and Taigen tanks work. For example you could assign the second machine gun function to "Turret Stick - Top Left." I won't lie, I don't like using this as much as a dedicated switch because it reduces the sensitivity of turret movements, but it does give you a lot more switches to play with. There is a page in the Wiki that describes this feature, click here. Finally note that you can also install a physical switch in your tank and connect it to one of the General Purpose Inputs A or B. This can then be assigned to any function in OP Config. Yes it's true, you won't be controlling that function from your transmitter, you will instead have to physically flick the switch on your model. But for some functions that may suffice - maybe you could use that switch to enable/disable the smoker. It's not ideal but it frees up a switch on your transmitter that you could use for something more important. Short of changing transmitters, those are the options I can think of...
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« on: August 16, 2021, 02:31:36 PM »
Thanks for posting your findings, maybe it will help someone else in the future! I'm glad you figured it out but I certainly know how frustrating this sort of troubleshooting can be...
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« on: August 05, 2021, 05:37:28 PM »
You've been busy Jurgen! It's nice to see someone having success with the DIY board.
124
« on: August 02, 2021, 06:58:51 PM »
Yeah the channels go quick on a full-featured model, that's for sure! But your project is a great example of exactly why I wanted to create this board and have it accept up to 16 channels.
You should be able to get sound for your second machine gun, put the sound file in position 11 of the 1st coder column in Benedini's TBS Flash, and then use the "2nd Machine Gun" functions in OP Config. It doesn't have to be the same sound file as you use for the first MG (which goes in position 4 of 1st coder).
125
« on: August 02, 2021, 01:58:23 PM »
Wow, super cool video. I am not sure if you are the absolute first, but you are at least the first that I'm aware of to fully utilize the TCB in a 1/6 scale tank. It is very gratifying to see it work so well. You were even brave enough to try track recoil! You may find it enjoyable to experiment with the different turning modes as well as acceleration and deceleration constraints. If you are using the FlySky FS-i6 transmitter I like to put the three turn modes on one of the three position switches, and acceleration and deceleration adjustments assigned to the two knobs. This way you can adjust everything while driving (rather than setting it to some fixed thing in OP Config), and it lets you really see what difference each of the settings make. I can also see your smoker working once you get moving. The smoke looks pretty much the same as the traditional oil-based smokers which is nice, but it doesn't seem to do much at idle. If you wanted to improve that, there are two approaches you could take, but both of which would require modifying your smoker so you have separate wiring to your fan and heating element, whereas now I believe they are connected together inside the smoker unit. The first approach would be as Osikia described in your smoker thread. Leave your OP Config setup the same as now (where Smoker Type is set to "Combined Heat & Fan" in OP Config). Plug the fan into the SMOKER output on the TCB. Then you will need a 5 volt relay unit to turn on/off the heating element (the 5 volts is to turn on/off the relay, but the relay itself can control something at higher voltages, in this case your 12 volt heating element). Connect the relay unit to either the General Purpose A or B outputs and assign it to a switch on your transmitter. You could assign it to the same switch you use to turn on/off the engine so it comes on automatically when you start the engine and turns off when you turn off the engine. Now whenever the engine is on your heating element will always be on full power no matter what your speed, but your fan will continue to vary with engine speed as it should. This should give you more smoke at idle. The second approach is more fancy but may not result in any better of an effect in the end. Here we select "Separate Heat & Fan Controls" as the Smoker Type in OP Config, and this time instead of the fan, plug the heating element into the SMOKER output on the TCB. Typically then we would connect the fan to the Aux output, but your fan I believe is 12 volts and the Aux output on the TCB is only 5 volts. But what you can do is a get a cheap small brushed ESC for the fan. Your fan draws hardly any current so the ESC doesn't need to be anything special but it does need to be able to handle 12 volts since that's what you're using in your tank. Because you are using the Sabertooth for the drive motors, you have RC Output 1 and 2 both free for other uses. Connect your fan ESC to one of those RC Outputs then on the Functions tab select the "RC Output - Pass-through" function and assign it to the "Engine Speed" trigger. The only difference here from the first approach is that instead of your heating element always being on 100%, you can adjust the amount of current that goes to the heating element (under the Smoker section of the Motors tab of OP Config). You could even set it so the heating element has less power at full speed than it does at idle. But whether this will really make any noticeable difference is hard to say. These heating elements don't change temperature very quickly, and the visible effect is mostly dictated by the fan speed. However I'm just putting out all the options in case you like to tinker. 
126
« on: August 02, 2021, 10:46:06 AM »
That's pretty impressive! The sound of the clacking metal tracks is quite realistic. I see it tears up your grass in a realistic manner too. Joe, there's a video on his Flickr if you go there. I'd be interested to see how the water-based smoker turned out.
127
« on: July 29, 2021, 01:20:22 PM »
Yeah it's the same layout for both, but there are extra limitations on the PM side of things.
128
« on: July 28, 2021, 09:13:54 PM »
Yeah, sorry for the slow reply, but that is not a feature of this forum software, nor do I think I've seen it on any other forum either, as it would raise all sorts of security issues.
I would suggest that if you are in contact with another user and want to send them a file, just exchange email addresses and then carry on the conversation that way.
129
« on: July 08, 2021, 06:48:47 PM »
Well I am sure it will work from a technical point of view. Whether it generates as much smoke as you hope, you will have to let us know!
130
« on: July 07, 2021, 04:36:26 PM »
Hi Minimivic and welcome to the forum,
I checked out the rcsmokers.com webpage which appears simply to be his eBay store. I didn't see anything listed with regards to current draw and that would be interesting to know, for both the fan and heating element. The SMOKER output on the TCB can supply up to 3 amps (at whatever battery voltage you provide the board). This limit is actually only the limit for the JST connector on the board, the MOSFET can handle more current. Assuming his combined fan/heating element current doesn't exceed 3 amps, or doesn't by much, you will be fine without a separate ESC.
Since the TCB can't operate beyond 15 volts, I would recommend you feed it 12 volts and go with the 12 volt smoker attached to the SMOKER output on the board.
In the Smoker section of OP Config (on the Motors tab) use the following settings:
Control - "Auto (with engine speed)"
Type - "Combined Heat & Fan"
131
« on: July 05, 2021, 10:52:33 AM »
Hi Chi-el, here is a resistor array available at Farnell in the UK that should work: Panasonic EXB-S8V151J
132
« on: July 04, 2021, 09:28:02 PM »
Curious was it hard to figure out and execute? Seems like it would be. It took a little effort but by process of elimination I finally discovered the issue. As you noticed, the problem was that in some cases the squeaks were not turning on when the vehicle reached the minimum speed. The simple way of turning on the squeaks would be something like this: IF vehicle speed > minimum speed THEN turn on squeaks This would work but is not what I had done, because it would turn on the squeaks every single time through the main loop as long as the speed exceeded the minimum. That doesn't hurt anything but it's unnecessary work since once the squeaks are on we don't need to turn them on again, unless we later drop below the minimum speed. I try to avoid this kind of activity because even though in this single case it doesn't really take much time, if I have hundreds of things that run like that it all ads up and we take time away from other tasks. Instead what I had originally was something like this: IF squeaks = off AND IF vehicle speed > minimum speed AND IF prior speed < minimum speed THEN turn on squeaks This is a better approach because we only turn on the squeaks once when we need to, the rest of the time we skip this step. (There was a similar command in reverse for turning off the squeaks.) The problem was that sometimes the prior speed was not getting updated correctly, or anyway, unusual states could be created when changing between forward and reverse quickly, for complicated reasons. The prior speed is only used in a few situations and back when I included it I didn't think through every situation since it was only important at certain times, and I made sure it worked at those times. Later I added the squeaks and just assumed I could always count on them to behave as I wanted for this purpose too. Most of the time that assumption was correct, which is why I never noticed a problem, but you found the case where it wasn't. This is a very typical example of the kinds of issues that arise over time when new features are added. With 30,000 lines of code I can't remember everything so I often make assumptions about what ancient Luke did in the past. However that assumes ancient Luke was as smart as present Luke, or that ancient Luke thought ahead to what present Luke might wish he had done in the past, and that usually ends badly. 
133
« on: July 03, 2021, 11:03:36 PM »
Here is some information on creating an installation package. First, you will need the InnoSetup program. I am using version 6.0.2 and they have a more recent version now, but I assume it will still work. Then download this Zip file. It is too big to attach to this post so you will have to right-click on this link and select "Save link as" to save it to your computer: OPConfig_InstallPackage.zipWhen you unzip the file you will see has two subfolders and an ".iss" file: - Sub folder "InnoExtraFiles": this has some images used for the installation program, you don't need to change anything.
- Sub folder "install_files_QT54": this has all the necessary files from the OP Config that will become part of the installation package. When you compile a new version from the Qt IDE, you will need to find the build directory that Qt creates (you can find the path in the Projects section of the Qt IDE, see attached picture). In this directory look for the "release" folder and find the file called "OPConfig.exe". Now you want to copy that exe file to "..\OPConfig_InstallPackage\install_files_QT54\install_files_QT54\" folder (and overwrite the old OPConfig.exe that is in there already). If you have updated the help files, you will also need to put a copy of the new ".qch" and ".qhc" files in the "...\OPConfig_InstallPackage\install_files_QT54\assistant\help_files\" folder, you can do this manually or the batch file I mentioned a few days ago will do it for you if you have set the correct paths. All the other files in "install_files_QT54\" you can leave as they are.
- Ok, now you are ready to create the installation package. Open the "OPConfig_QT54.iss" file with InnoSetup (you can just double-click on it). You will see that it is a script file. You don't need to do much with it, except look at the #define statements at the top. You will want to change the MyAppVersion to match the version you have set in Qt (in the "version.h" file). You will also want to adjust the two paths called "SourceFiles" and "FinalOutputDir" but you will only have to do this once.
- Now click the Compile button and the Inno script will run for a few minutes. When it is done a file called "OPConfig_Setup.exe" should appear in whatever folder you specified for "FinalOutputDir." This is the installation package that will allow you or anyone else to install OP Config on their computer.
I know the information I have given you so far has not been very detailed and there are a lot of things you have had to learn on your own. So don't hesitate to let me know if you have more questions. When I was teaching myself all this Qt stuff it was like learning a foreign language. But you are learning this foreign language in a foreign language! Honestly I am amazed at how far you have come.
134
« on: July 03, 2021, 10:18:04 PM »
LukeZ! You drive me into paint and I am terribly ashamed! Please don't be! I am happy to help, only sometimes I am slower than others! I have already translated the program by 90% (I also need to translate the pictures), now I am looking for all msgBox for their translation, and I cannot understand where they are such variables \ labels:
1. Not connected
2. Connected to COM3 (115200) TCB Firmware 0.93.74
3. When there is a call to the function of resetting the entered settings in the program to default values - I can not understand where the data for translating the Yes \ No buttons is located
- See function "MainWindow::MainWindow(QWidget *parent)" and "MainWindow::SerialStatus_SetNotConnected()" in file "mainwindow.cpp"
- See function "MainWindow::SerialStatus_displayHardware(uint8_t hardware)" in file "mainwindow.cpp"
- The values like "Yes", "No", "Ok" are actually created by Qt so that is why you don't see them in the code. It appears it is possible to change them but as with everything related to Qt, it does not look very simple. I did a little bit of Googling and decided I will let you pursue it. But here is a Google search with lots of potentially useful results, and here is some Qt Internationalization documentation (it's for Qt 4.8 but might still be applicable).
4. I also probably found a bug in Qt. More details:
I installed hot keys on the program menu functions, as it is very convenient when configuring the board - load with two buttons - read the settings from the board, save to the OPZ file.
On the menu function "Import settings" I have set the group of buttons Ctrl + I. In the mainwindow.ui file open in the development environment, I see with my own eyes that the group of buttons is set to Ctrl + I.
But when I build the project and run it from the relase folder, I get the result as in the picture. The hotkeys for this item are set to Ctrl + O.
In principle, I can ignore it, but my inner perfectionist gnaws at my heels.
Most likely your settings in mainwindow.ui are getting over-written by the code because I set these shortcuts in the actual code. See the function "MainWindow::initActionsConnections()" in the file "mainwindow.cpp" For example, you will want to change: ui->actionOpenFile->setShortcut(QKeySequence(Qt::CTRL + Qt::Key_O));to ui->actionOpenFile->setShortcut(QKeySequence(Qt::CTRL + Qt::Key_I));Also need to study Github, and here is this point with tracking changes. I suspected there were features like comparing versions and showing changes. I guess that Github is most likely arranged like a Wiki, most likely it is impossible to break-harm, but I don't want to disgrace myself ^ _ ^ Well you can't break anything on the Open Panzer GitHub so feel free to look at it as much as you want. But you will probably want to create your own GitHub repository and it will certainly be possible to break your own! But you have a backup on your computer until you figure out how it all works. Ok! I will write another post shortly with information about InnoSetup.
135
« on: July 01, 2021, 11:07:23 PM »
Hi NS, I just wanted to let you know I have seen your posts and I think I can help you with all the questions so far. I don't have very much time right now but I will write you a better response this weekend. I will also give you my Inno Setup files which should make it easier for you to create an installation package.
However I can answer your last question about the navigation menu in the help assistant - you can find that in the "\help_files\opconfighelp.qhp" file. It has a "qhp" extension but it is just a standard XML file so you can edit it with Notepad or whatever. The table of contents text is at the top within the <toc> ... </toc> tags. You just need to change the "title" attributes.
When you are done run the batch file that I talked about earlier and that will update your changes.
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