1

Open Panzer Help / Re: Trouble binding FrSKY X8R ACCST

« on: February 06, 2026, 06:02:05 PM »

Hi Tom,

If you have any trouble getting your X8R downgraded to the v1 firmware, please feel free to reach out to me.

I work for FrSky in the US office, you can find me on Facebook also under "FrSky Ben", or feel free to message me directly here.

As others have mentioned, your radio is likely on older v1 firmware, and any receivers you buy new will be shipping on V2 firmware.

Be sure to flash your X8R with the "FCC" version since you are in USA you are likely on FCC version radio also.

And yes, X4R have been discontinued for a long time, so pretty much only way to find them would be second-hand market.

Lastly, if you buy any of the newer 'ARCHER Plus' receivers, they -will- work with your radio, but they only support v2 firmware, so you'd have to update your radio to v2 as well as all your older\existing receivers that you have (and rebind them)

Just let me know if you need any extra help with it.

2

TCB Dev / Re: Pick and Place (centroid) file for PCB production

« on: January 30, 2026, 09:31:25 PM »

Hi Luke,

I received an update from PCBWay to verify the orientation of the soldered components for the boards I ordered.

Do you have the original version of the "top-down" picture of the TCB board as shown on the board layout in the wiki , but without the overlaid text and changes to brightness\opacity ?

https://openpanzer.org/wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=wiki:boardlayout.jpg

Attached is a picture of the initial board sample they have prepared and from what I can tell everything looks to be assembled correctly but I just want to verify against the known boards

Thanks!

3

Open Source Sound Dev / Re: Open Source Sound using Teensy 3.2 and PJRC Audio Library

« on: January 17, 2026, 03:59:53 PM »

Yup I saw that thread and am following it intently, really looking forward to an affordable sound card option!

I saw there were some TBS mini on ali-express but a lot of the reviews say they can't be programmed (probably because they are clones), so I don't wanna go down that route...

I've also been looking at another open-source "audio and light" module (this one : https://github.com/TheDIYGuy999/Rc_Engine_Sound_ESP32) to see if it's somehow possible to integrate it with OP TCB.. Of course it would take a bit of work to the code but I don't see why it couldn't be possible to add in the serial communication triggers from OP TCB to trigger the various sounds.

It wouldn't be as easily configurable though as the sound files have to be encoded into the compile routine. It is a pretty cheap option though. I did a PCBWay run of 5 boards which cost around $60 and for the ESP32 and other parts maybe another $35 in components for the 5 units, which breaks down to around $20/unit. It does require quite a lot of soldering assembly for all the connectors though. There's also a "mini" version for semi trailers which seems like it would be a good option but I had already ordered the full-size version.

Anyway just exploring some potential alternatives to find the cheapest and\or easiest option (I think it's worth paying a little more if the components are more readily available and easier assembly)

4

Open Source Sound Dev / Re: Open Source Sound using Teensy 3.2 and PJRC Audio Library

« on: January 16, 2026, 02:55:05 PM »

Thank you!

Yea I saw someone posted on the PJRC forums they had some available, but their asking price is a bit steep so I think I will have to find another solution.

I'd love to see this board\project updated to work on Teensy 4.0 which is currently available, or even better, to work on ESP32 which are widely available at very affordable price.

I downloaded the code from GitHub but it wasn't as easy as just "compiling" for the Teensy4.0 board, there were a lot of errors thrown that are beyond my ability to debug

5

Open Source Sound Dev / Re: Open Source Sound using Teensy 3.2 and PJRC Audio Library

« on: January 15, 2026, 08:35:56 PM »

Hi Luke , would it be possible to get the centroid file for the OP Soundcard here ? I'm looking into doing a small run through PCBway for these also.

Thanks!

6

TCB Dev / Re: Pick and Place (centroid) file for PCB production

« on: January 02, 2026, 03:11:43 PM »

Thank you!

7

TCB Dev / Pick and Place (centroid) file for PCB production

« on: January 01, 2026, 08:49:37 PM »

Hello,
I'm trying to order a few boards through PCBWay production service and they asked for a "pick and place" (centroid) file

I do not see anything like this available on the downloads page, is it possible you can provide it here ?

Thanks!

8

Other Open Source Projects / Re: Standalone Tank IR

« on: December 23, 2025, 08:48:20 PM »

WOW!! OK I've figured out the problem....

It looks like the IR LED for my Battle system was wired up polarity REVERSED

Here's what I did to test...

First, I tested a TSAL6200 with a 3V CR2032 cell battery to verify the "long lead" was anode\+ and short was cathode\- and I could see the TSAL6200 IR LED with the camera on my phone.

Next I unplugged the Tamiya Battle System IR LED from the MFU and shoved a couple wire jumpers into the connector. The IR LED connector wires were Red on Left and White on Right respectively.

> (Stock) Red on Left White on Right_s.jpg
> MFU Connector Red Left White Right_s.jpg
> IR LED with Jumpers_s.jpg

Using the 3V CR2032 cell battery, I was able to verify the IR LED still worked with Red (Left) being anode\+, and White (Right) being cathode\-.

> IR LED CR2032 Red Positive White Ground_s.jpg
> IR LED CR2032 Red Positive White Ground Jumpers_s.jpg

I had downloaded a wiring reference diagram for the MFU previously and referencing it showed that the "Right pin is +" for the IR LED connector on CN2

> Tamiya MFU wiring.jpg

So this was the first indication that something was wired up wrong!

I plugged the Tamiya IR LED back into the CN2 socket and then just jammed the TSAL6200 legs into the molex connector of the TBS IR LED, with anode\+ on the RIGHT as per the wiring diagram. Sure enough, when I pressed the cannon button, I could see the TSAL6200 light up on my phone camera!!

Only thing left to do was to swap the Red\White cable of the molex connector for the Tamiya IR LED and test it with the TankIR.

It worked! When I pressed the cannon button on my radio, I could see the Tamiya IR LED light up on my phone camera and when I tested it against the TankIR on Arduino pro mini (compiled from 2.3.7 with low memory warning etc etc) it registered the hit from my tank first try.

I think it's pretty crazy that this IR LED was wired up wrong but all evidence points to it having been reversed.

It's also kind of odd because the color coding of the cables is inconsistent, for example the cable for the lighting system in CN5 has a Blue\White cable, where White is on the Right (+) and it works fine. However the MG in CN3 has White\Orange with White on the left and Orange going to +.

Triple checking with the product page on the Tamiya website the photo of the product shows as the correct wiring with Red toward what would be the Right of the connector when plugged in looking from the front of the MFU, so it would appear that mine is soldered correctly to the legs of the IR LED but just was assembled incorrectly into the molex

https://www.tamiyausa.com/shop/116-tank/rc-116-tank-led-battle-system/

9

Other Open Source Projects / Re: Standalone Tank IR

« on: December 23, 2025, 01:27:32 PM »

Hi Luke thanks so much for the quick replies and I apologize, I should have included this additional information in my last post.

I'm using the Arduino Pro Mini 5V/16MHz, it's just a clone board from ebay but when the board is plugged in by USB (using FTDI),  I tested the VCC with multimeter and it's outputting 4.9V, so I'm fairly confident it is a true 5V board.

I do also have Arduino Nano and I ran all the same tests with IRTank sketch and ReceiveDump on the Nano with the exact same results.

With both the Pro Mini and the Arduino Nano, I used a Sony remote control (for an A/V unit) and fired it at the IR decoder. ReceiveDump received around 32bits on each "shot" and correctly identified the protocol as being from "Sony". In fact, in TankIR sketch, when I also "shoot" the IR decoder, it also sees the IR and identifies it as "Sony" protocol.

I have an Arduino UNO R4 , but I did not test it with that yet but will probably do that next.

Unfortunately I don't have another Tamiya tank at the moment to test my Sherman with, that's why I was wanting to build a little tester.

The Sherman is "brand new" and I just got it a couple months ago and built it, but one other strange thing I noticed is usually with the "IR LEDS" like on the Sony A/V remote, I can point it at the camera of my phone and see the IR beam being transmitted when I push a button. With my Tamiya Sherman, when I point my phone camera at the IR LED of the Battle system and press the Fire Cannon, I don't see the IR beam like I do with just any regular remote control..

I have some extra TSAL6200 IR LEDS do you think these will work with the Tamiya DMD\MF ? If so, maybe I will try wiring one up with a connector and plug it in and see if I have a different result using a different IR LED. I really hope the IR LED from my Tamiya battle system is not dead because it will be a pain to switch it out of the tank at this point

10

Other Open Source Projects / Re: Standalone Tank IR

« on: December 21, 2025, 02:56:20 PM »

Hi all, sorry to post on such an old topic but I've been trying to get this working and having a bit of trouble ...

I am trying to build just a small testing unit for my Tamiya M4 Sherman tank (with DMD\MF and Tamiya Battle System) to verify the working condition of the tank (and possibly make the TankIR arduino project build a standalone "artillery gun" like on WibblyWobbly's thread.

I'm using Arduino Pro Mini, TSAL6200 IR LED and have tried a few different IR Receivers such as TL1838, HS0038B and TSOP4838

So far, the "Fire cannon" switch works perfectly, and my Sherman registers the hits as expected.

However, I cannot get the Arduino to recognize and register hits from my tank cannon fire (attached is some of the serial monitor output, with these lines from Tank.cpp uncommented \ modified as such :

Code: [Select]

            Serial.println(F("IR Detected"));
            // For testing
                //IR_Decoder.decode(BattleSettings.IR_FireProtocol);
                IR_Decoder.decode();
                Serial.print(F("Decoded: ")); Serial.print(ptrIRName(IR_Decoder.decode_type)); Serial.print(F(" Value: ")); Serial.println(IR_Decoder.value);
                IR_Decoder.DumpResults();
I also tested with the "ReceiveDump" sketch of library IRRemote, and it sees some IR being detected when I fire the cannon, but it also seems like it's only detecting 1 bit.

I am compiling the TankIR sketch using Arduino IDE 2.3.7 and AVR Boards 1.8.3 and get the "Low memory available warning"

Low memory available, stability problems may occur.
Sketch uses 25064 bytes (81%) of program storage space. Maximum is 30720 bytes.
Global variables use 1852 bytes (90%) of dynamic memory, leaving 196 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 2048 bytes.

However, I also installed Arduino IDE 1.8.5 and AVR Boards 1.6.20 and while the low memory warning goes away, it still does not register the hits from my tank (same unknown/1bit output detected)

I really appreciate any suggestions or help troubleshooting this, I know it's a pretty old project so I understand if that's not really possible.