[Tom]

Hi Luke,

Everything is finally set up except barrel elevation not working?
Turret works on Built in driver A. But elevation not on driver B?
The turret motor does work when connected to A but it seems no power coming
out of B. Turret also not working on B. Again maybe I have missed something though
it seems all set up right. Radio controls read okay.

Maybe you see something here? Was thinking if for some reason B not getting a signal or power.
Would it be possible to use the servo output for Servo pan effect on Aux 4 to power the elevation motor?

Thanks!
Tom

[LukeZ]

If as a test you connect the barrel elevation motor to Motor Driver A, does the barrel elevation motor move? If so you could rule out a problem with the barrel elevation motor. And if the motor is fine, then the only thing I can surmise is that Driver B must be defective on your TCB board. I have never heard of this happening before, and the same chip produces the output for Drivers A & B, so it would be rather unusual that A works but B doesn't. Nevertheless that's all I can think of. I see nothing unusual with your OPZ file.

If you are able to control the barrel elevation with a servo, then you certainly can use the Servo Pan Effect on RC 4.

[Tom]

Yes the elevation motor works on A just not B. Darn..

So no way to hook up the barrel elevation to the one that would drive a servo motor to the Taigen barrel elevation motor?

[Tom]

I do have another board that is driving the recoil and elevation via servo so I can switch the boards. Though I did ask Torro to send a new board as per your point, that for some reason Driver B is not working. If for some crazy reason the other board is not working on B it must be in the settings but it doesn't seem to be the case?

[Tom]

I just thought on my other board I am using B with servo setting to control servo pan effect. So I assume on this board B won't control a servo either?


 So I can use Pan servo on RC 4 bypassing B and also run the Taigen elevation motor on the same RC 4?

Trying to see if I can use the other board for this non servo elevation and the defective board to control the elevation servo?

[LukeZ]

Sorry Tom, but your posts are not entirely clear.

But trying to read between the lines, yes, if you have a second TCB it would certainly be a good idea to see if the barrel elevation motor driver is working on that second TCB.

The servo outputs are completely different things than the turret/barrel motor driver. Servo outputs are just that, RC signals. The motor drivers actually create voltages to drive a motor. If your motor driver is toast for whatever reason, that doesn't mean your RC outputs will not work. But all of this you can test for yourself! Then you will know what works and doesn't.

[Tom]

Sorry, I guess the short question was if there was another way to drive the non servo elevation motor without B working to supply voltage. Thanks!

[Tom]

So I am thinking on this defective board I can use servo output 4 to drive the servo barrel elevation on my other tank and use the other fully working board to drive the taigen barrel elevation on serial motor output B on this tank.

[LukeZ]

So I am thinking on this defective board I can use servo output 4 to drive the servo barrel elevation on my other tank and use the other fully working board to drive the taigen barrel elevation on serial motor output B on this tank.

Yes, I think you should try that.

[Tom]

Hey Luke,

Fixed it and wanted to share what the issue was.

I swapped TCB boards and the same thing was happening. As you pointed out it would be odd for a TCB board to work on A but not B as it is the same chip.
So it was impossible both boards to have the same issue.

After trying everything over and over... for the heck of if... I attached a spare light for barrel flash to the B port and the barrel elevation stick on the radio
lit the bulb dim to bright so there was some power coming out of that terminal, but it seems not enough to drive the motor. I had a voltage meter on the terminals
but not set to read that low.

So. The radio was working along with the turret motor. Battery was charged. So my only thought it had to be some setting.
Finally it hit me that when I transferred my OPZ file from the first tank using Servos, the maximum elevation was set to 50%
That was it! All I had to do was bump it up to 100% and now it works

Thanks,
Tom


 

[LukeZ]

Good news. That outcome makes a lot more sense than that the motor driver chip would have been bad, but it took some troubleshooting on your part to figure it out. Glad to hear it's all working now.

[Tom]

Thanks! One small and not important one; On first cannon trigger the sound and flash trigger but no recoil. Upon the second time and after that the recoil activates and syncs with the sound and flash?

[LukeZ]

Hi Tom, I believe you're using a Taigen mechanical recoil unit. Did you modify it according to the Wiki instructions?

[Tom]

Yes re-wired and it works. Just odd that on the first toggle the flash and sound happen but no recoil. On the second toggle and after that, all operates properly.
It's just on start-up, for the first one it doesn't recoil. Not really a big deal just curious why that may happen

[LukeZ]

What you describe is certainly unusual and I will continue to ponder it, but so far I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't recoil correctly from the first try, or why if it doesn't on the first try it should then fix itself on the subsequent tries. In the order of operation in the code, voltage to the mechanical recoil motor is the step that occurs right before the flash and sound, so if the flash and sound occur by definition the motor should be moving. So I really can't think of why it is not working in your case, unless the mechanism itself is bound up to such an extent that the motor can't overcome the friction. But if that were the case one would think it would fail more frequently than just the first time.

So anyway I am stumped to explain what you're seeing, and it may be a quirk that you just have to live with.