[Rad_Schuhart]

Hi Luke, in the OP Config, I think it would be great if we had the posibility of editing the functions and triggers.

I mean, for example, imagine I programed everything from channel 1 to 16, and then suddenly I notice I did a mistake in lets say channel 7. So far the only way is to remove it and introduce it again, but then this number 7 will be at the end of all what I have done. When programming a lot sounds and functions its easier for me to be able to have them in order. (For exampple makes sense to have all the weapons sound together, the custom sounds in other group and so on) Also when experimenting, saves a lot of time just to be able to edit the function itself. So, I dont know, IMHO the way to go would be to select the programmed function, and then to click in a "Edit function" button or something like that.

Also Id apreciate a lot if you add a pop up confirmation window for uploading and downloading the config to the board. I screwed it several times when pressing the wrong button.



EDIT: Also it wont be a bad idea to be able to move the functions with a mouse!
For example, again, I programmed everything for the 16 channels, and the channel 7 is the one that plays a long custom sound. Then I notice I forgot to add the stop sound option! So after adding it to the list, it would be great if I could drag between aux 7 and 8 instead of being next to the 16th.


I guess I am, very organized, sorry. Say thanks to my mom and her slippers, lol.

[LukeZ]

Hi Luke, in the OP Config, I think it would be great if we had the posibility of editing the functions and triggers.

I will consider this, I agree it would be useful. The question is how practical it will be to program, for that I will need some time to experiment.

Also Id apreciate a lot if you add a pop up confirmation window for uploading and downloading the config to the board. I screwed it several times when pressing the wrong button.

I am not excited about this suggestion. In my long experience with software interfaces, pop-up confirmations are useful in the early stages of learning a new program, but become impediments once you have it figured out. You will quickly memorize which button is which and after that the pop-up message would be entirely unnecessary, in fact it will become a bitter annoyance to dispense with every single time you want to read or write. Already if you hover your mouse over the read/write buttons a tool-tip message will appear to remind you what the function is.

However I may be able to add another message in the status area (bottom of the screen) on mouse-hover of these buttons, which might also help.

EDIT: Also it wont be a bad idea to be able to move the functions with a mouse!

Are you aware that the items in the list can be sorted just by clicking the header row (click Function or Trigger to sort by those columns, keep clicking to switch between ascending or descending). I don't know if it will be possible to re-arrange the items manually but I think sorting will address some of your frustrations and is an easy way to see if you have missed some assignments/have illogical combinations/etc...

[Rad_Schuhart]

Hi there. My confirming pop up window request comes because I screwed it several times. I know when hovering the mouse over the arrow it says what is going to do and I already know what those buttons do... But you know, shit happens, lol. If a pop up window is annoying for somebody, I guess you can always add a small button with "Ok, dont ask me again" or something like that...


Regarding the header row... I had no idea! One problem less!

[Ncartmell]

Hello Luke,
Could I make a suggestion for Op Config.

Could you add another button on the left after Firmware called "Test".
After selecting, this would for example, give the user buttons to test all outputs of the TCB. Discretes On/Off, Fwd, Rev, Left, etc. This would need a test config to be downloaded into the TCB, via another button.

This would enable the user to test a TCB without using  Tx/Rx, it would thereby eleminate a faulty radio and user programming errors. Useful for existing installations and new TCBs.

A test page for the Scout and Op Sound would also be useful, again this would need a test setup for Op Sound.

Just a suggestion ☺

Best Regards

Neil

[LukeZ]

Hi Neil, this is indeed a good idea and one which I have thought of myself, but it didn't occur to me until a few years into the project (this has been in development since 2011). Unfortunately the way the TCB firmware was organized from the beginning makes this essentially impossible at the present moment without a major overhaul, or as you suggest some kind of custom firmware to be used only during testing, which however poses its own set of problems and complexities.

Accomplishing something like this for the Scout or sound card would not be as bad since they are by design expecting to receive commands from the serial port anyway. However since neither of those products is even available the benefit/cost ratio of that time investment is not presently very high.

Anyway I'm agreeing with you about the desirability of this feature, especially for the TCB. No one has spent more time testing this thing than myself and I often wished I had thought ahead to incorporate this ability! I've added your suggestion to the public To-Do list but to be honest that list is more a wish-list of things which are not likely to ever get done unless the project attracts further developers.

Relatively straightforward features and bugs never make it to that list, I work on them right away and they get included in routine firmware updates. The To-Do list is stuff that would be nice to have but would take more time than I have available to me.

[Rad_Schuhart]

Hi, this is not an idea but a (hopefully) very easy request.

In the open config I would like to be able to select a 12 pos switch too.

Yes, I know I will be the only soul in the earth using it, but it is very handy for me, for triggering the user sounds.

I programmed the radio in a way that having a 6 pos switch, with some software tweaking it feels and behaves like an 12 pos switch.

So with the rotating switch I select the desired user sound, and with some logic switches and  programming, when flicking another switch or pressing a push button I trigger it.

This is the same system I am using for triggering the user sounds in the Benedini´s Mini and Micro.



Another idea, (not request but an idea)
It would be nice to have two different "Max turret toration speed" one with the motor on, and another with the motor off. This has some sense, and means hand cranking the turret makes it turn slower than with the motor.

And that's it for now.

[LukeZ]

Hi, this is not an idea but a (hopefully) very easy request.

In the open config I would like to be able to select a 12 pos switch too.

Yes, I know I will be the only soul in the earth using it, but it is very handy for me, for triggering the user sounds.

I programmed the radio in a way that having a 6 pos switch, with some software tweaking it feels and behaves like an 12 pos switch.

So with the rotating switch I select the desired user sound, and with some logic switches and  programming, when flicking another switch or pressing a push button I trigger it.

This is the same system I am using for triggering the user sounds in the Benedini´s Mini and Micro.

Well as you know I don't accept all feature requests but this one seems reasonable as the number of functions has increased and people with advanced radios can now create these kinds of multi-position switches. I've added support for all positions up to 12 positions, but I have not tested it! It should work fine since we are just increasing certain parameters rather than creating new functionality but let me know how it works for you. (You will need to upgrade to v0.93.63 for both OP Config and your TCB firmware.)

Another idea, (not request but an idea)
It would be nice to have two different "Max turret toration speed" one with the motor on, and another with the motor off. This has some sense, and means hand cranking the turret makes it turn slower than with the motor.

That is an interesting idea, which I personally would file under the "more complication than is warranted" category. The same effect can be created with your thumb! It is not a bad idea but complication has a cost even for good ideas and I try to only add complication when there is a compelling need.

[Rad_Schuhart]

Thanks! I will try to test the 12 positions this weekend. It is indeed very usefull, and lets me use 12 user sounds in only one channel.

I will make a video showing how to trigger all the user sounds with the logical switches and the new 12 positions feature at some point in the future.

I think it brings a lot of new posibilities and also will make everything easier. Now is easier than before to give orders to the rest of the platoon! As I said many times I don't battle, but for those who do it, it can be super cool to be the platoon commander giving the instructions to the others. I do it with my children and is super fun. Everybody should try it!

Also as you point, day by day better and newer radios are popping out. Have you seen the new Jumper T16? Looks like an amazing piece of technology, and has 6 push buttons in the front, so they can be used for triggering those user sounds. If for some disaster my 9xtreme radio dies, that will be my replacement.

-

Regarding the turret rotation speed, well, to be honest my (freak obsesive) idea was even a bit more deep than I stated.
If I had the knowledge and the skills, what I would do is a proportional turret sound, so the more further you move the stick, the faster the turret sound loops. It has some sense, in real life the faster you hand crank the turret, the faster it will turn. And yep, being able to limit the manual turret speed is also cool. For me, the more features and customization, the better!

But as you point, it might be too much work, and thanks anyway for your time and effort!
But if you implement the feature we all will be happier and I will love you even more, and my love is priceless, lol.

[Rad_Schuhart]

Ok, I could not wait to test the new 12pos switch.

I flashed the newest firmware, and then flashed my model settings in the TCB.

Then, in the radio menu, AUX 5/order9/digital switch/12

Then functiion menu: Select function/user sound 1 play once
                               Select trigger source/Aux 5
                               Select trigger action/  ---------- Here comes the problem, there is nothing I can select.

IF in the in the radio menu, instead of AUX 5/order9/digital switch/12   I put 6, I can select the 6 positions. So I guess I have found a bug...

I tested the aux 5 from 7 to 12, and when doing that, there is no way to select the trigger action.

[LukeZ]

Ok thanks, I knew I would miss something without testing. That is an easy fix and there are a few other changes I need to make anyway so I will release another update to OP Config in the next couple days. Thanks for letting me know.

[LukeZ]

Ok, as I've delved further into this I realized that exceeding 9 positions will be problematic, because I didn't reserve more than 1 digit for them back in the early days when I started writing the firmware. It is possible to expand them but it would be more work than I have time for now. But up to 9 positions should now work and you can test that if you like.

Also as you point, day by day better and newer radios are popping out. Have you seen the new Jumper T16? Looks like an amazing piece of technology, and has 6 push buttons in the front, so they can be used for triggering those user sounds. If for some disaster my 9xtreme radio dies, that will be my replacement.

I saw the T16 earlier this year and was initially quite interested, but my enthusiasm was tempered when I discovered that Jumper is not using the official OpenTX firmware but their own fork of it, which we can assume will not be updated as often or maintained as rigorously. Even worse, the er9x developers have decided not to work with them at all, and that is actually the transmitter firmware I prefer (this was several months ago and things could have changed since, but I don't think so).

It is kind of pathetic, but after almost 15 years a modded 9x transmitter remains the best tank radio in my opinion; unfortunately the best upgrade for it (the 9XTreme board) is no longer available. You'd think some manufacturer would make a suitable replacement for it but while there are new transmitters released all the time, nothing has quite come close to replacing it for the value and features in my view.

Regarding the turret rotation speed, well, to be honest my (freak obsesive) idea was even a bit more deep than I stated.
If I had the knowledge and the skills, what I would do is a proportional turret sound, so the more further you move the stick, the faster the turret sound loops. It has some sense, in real life the faster you hand crank the turret, the faster it will turn. And yep, being able to limit the manual turret speed is also cool. For me, the more features and customization, the better!

Proportional turret sound would be nice, but as you know the Open Panzer sound card doesn't have the ability to change sound pitch or speed, so what we'd have to do is create something like what we do for drive sounds, where we end up with something like 10 turret samples, each one played at a different speed of rotation. So now the burden is on the sound designer to find multiple turret sound samples which I imagine would be difficult, and it's hard to say how good the transitions between each one would sound.

Everything has a cost in time and effort and even when those are reasonable every new addition adds complexity and setup work for the end user. I was told many times by people that they thought the Open Panzer project looked interesting but "too complicated" and they didn't have the time to figure it all out. On the other hand, others want more and more features, options, tabs in the setup program, pages in the Wiki, things to remember, etc, etc... So it is impossible to please everyone.

As a designer I have increasingly become convinced of the need to keep things as simple as possible for a multitude of reasons, but of course the perspective is often the opposite for the client.

The hope really was that developers would be attracted to the project and invest time in creating some of these new features, for that matter much like Jumper did it is entirely possible for anyone to fork the TCB code and take the project in a whole new direction. But it would seem that software developers are as rare as hens teeth in the RC tank modeling community.

Anyway, those are my random thoughts. For now I'm going to leave the turret sounds as they are.

[Rad_Schuhart]

Yes, IMHO nothing can beat my radio with 9xtreme. I think I have the honour of having the most modded 9x radio, because I did basically every mod showed in the openrcforum and some more. The only and last part that will finish the radio, is the 7 pos encoder, which I think you already have. I will try to install it at christmas but I am really scared of damaging something. If I blew the 9xtreme I hang myself somewhere.

I dont see any 9xtreme or similar board coming at any moment in the future. 9x radios time seems to be gone, and now there are a lot of alternatives selling cheap radios with most of the mods any mortal would need, already done (I still cant believe I got a turnigy 9xr pro for 25 dollars at hobbyking!)

I also do preffer erskyTX way more than opentx, but it seems the erskytx guys are porting it to the jumper T16. The only thing is  they will not support the frsky protocol. Copy and paste from the forum:

"by MikeB » Sun Aug 18, 2019 10:52 pm

I have a version of erskyTx that runs OK on the T16, although I haven't published it yet. I may do so very soon. Note that, as with the 9XR-PRO when it first came out, the use of FrSky 'X' and FrSky 'D' protocols is disabled on the T16 until Jumper reach an agreement with FrSky to allow their use (which HK did for the 'PRO)."

Anyway, plan is to stick with my 9xtreme radio, unless some disaster happens. Include me and my radio in your nocturne prayers, lol.


About the 9pos, thanks for implementing them, it is better than 6!. If you have time in the future it would be great to include the 12, specially for those who have the benedini mini. No rush, I dont have soundcard and it will take me two months to replace it.

And about the turret sound, yes, it might be complicated for some users. Anyway if you implement it, let me know and I will make the turret sounds for the existent sound sets. It should not be toooo complicated.

[Rongyos]

Hi Luke!

I have an idea for the boards (and software) new features. I know there is a hardware solution for 360° turret rotation with sling connectors but I do not trust them at all.
Do you ever consider a "software" 360 rotation which is based on a reed relay case count can be set by the user?

I mean: if I set the turret rotation max count to 3, the PCB will read the cases when the magnet passes 2 times and stop the turning at 3rd case. After that, only changed polarity (stick to other side, opposite direction) triggers the rotation to the opposite side.

Problems in my idea:
1. only the first count should be the user setting, after changing direction the counting should consider the remaining possible turns (if after the first start you turned the turret twice, the max value to the other side should be 5)
2. board must store the actual position and can keep in the memory after battery removal (for defending the cables)
3. users should consider what type of cable are they using and how long are they for set the correct value and not damage their cables, hardwares/hardwires

what do you think of that? Difficult, not user friendly, considerable, wtf??

Thanks
Rongyos

ps.: sorry if my post is in the wrong topic, did not find better

[LukeZ]

Hi Rongyos, first I have to say I admire your creative thinking. I am always impressed with the clever ideas that people come up with.

I understand what you're proposing and I think it could theoretically be possible. From my experience with electronics, I think there are some challenges. One is that turrets move very slowly and electrical switches do not provide what we call "clean" signals to a processor who will be reading them several hundred times a second. So I think the software can easily become confused when the turret passes over the switch. Also a single switch will probably not be enough. If it touches the switch at the limit, it can say "ok, you have to move the other direction now." But how long does it need to move the other direction before it will allow the switch to be hit again? When the switch is touched again, is it because we just moved a little way away and then came back (which we do not want to allow), or did we go all the way around and hit it from the other side (which is ok)? Two switches at least would be required, but even then I think it will be possible to confuse the software if we really try. Three switches would be better, but that gets to be too much for the user to setup.

A rotary encoder would be best. These are like little knobs that can be turned and they count up or down as they rotate one way or the other. However the rotary encoder would need to be geared to the turret ring somehow, we would probably need to design a 3D printed gear. And then also the user would have to know how many revolutions of the encoder equals one revolution of the turret. So some kind of setup routine would need to be run to calculate this. That would be a lot of coding and it would be kind of a pain for the user the first time, but after the setup I think it would work well.

It would work, that is - until they remove the hatch for maintenance on their tank, and now the count is no longer valid! So then we have to provide a way to tell the TCB to reset the count to Zero. In the end I am not sure we have saved the user any work!

I like the general idea and I am of the same opinion as you about the small 360 sliprings, I think they are not great. The wires are very small and do not allow a lot of current, and they are well known to cause problems with sending and receiving IR.

However I think for this to be an idea worth investing time in, it would have to be possible to do it in a much more simple way. Right now I can't think of a very simple and fool-proof approach. It is a clever idea but I think it needs one or two more clever ideas to go with it to really make it effective in practice. Maybe someone will come up with these other ideas in time? I will keep thinking about it.

[Rongyos]

Hi Luke,

First of all, please don't laugh at me because my programming skills are very basic

I have a Beier board and I very like the headlight flickering effect on it but it has some flaws. I generated a basic flickering function which can be (I think) put in LIGHTS.ino

Code: [Select]

// Duration of the flickering effect in milliseconds
const unsigned long flickerDuration = 5000; //no idea where to put this - that should be cool if the user can set this in the OPCONFIG


void EstartFlickering {
  // Check if the flicker duration has elapsed
  if (millis() >= flickerDuration) {
    // Turn off the LED and exit the loop
    digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
    return;
  }

  // Generate a random dimming value (0-255)
  int dimValue = random(256);
;
}

This function can be put in DRIVING.ino where engine starts (at there there is also a

Code: [Select]

// Play the engine start sound
                TankSound->StartEngine();
there. The duration time should be set by user (easiest way). The beier reads the sound wave signals and flicker the LEDs following the wave spikes which is not realistic when the tank engine finally on and has a revving sound in the "enginestart" sound. In that phase the alternator can put voltage IRL and the headlights are even, but beier lower the dim according to the sound volume, thats what I dont like. The duration should be the time while the tank starting up, ignition or how can I say that in English, hope its understandable .
Can you somehow put this function in the codes? (I think mine wont work if i put it with force )