[Billhelm]

I'm working on a project to control a 1:16 Heng Long tank with a PWM RC receiver. The goal is to operate the tank FPV from a rudimentary tank cockpit. My preference is to give the tank Bobcat style stick controls, such that centering both sticks would be stopped, both forward would be straight forward, both back would be straight back, and steering would be accomplished by pushing or pulling one of the sticks farther than the other. To do this, I think I'd have to assign one motor to channel 1 and the other to channel 2 (or something along those lines). Is this steering scheme possible with Open Panzer?

[LukeZ]

Hi Bill, yes, you could set up this kind of steering arrangement with the TCB, in a kind of round-about way. You'd just have to select "Car" as the Vehicle Type on the Motors tab of OP Config, and then use the drive motor ESC for one track, and the "Steering" motor ESC for the other track. Yes, OP Config is going to call it "Steering" but it doesn't matter what you attach it to, the important thing is that under the "Car" type there is no mixing between the two (as there would be with Tank or Halftrack vehicle types), so that lets you control each track manually with the sticks.

However, if that's all you wanted to do, you don't need the TCB at all, just connect your two speed controls directly to your receiver.

Also, it's important to keep in mind that if all you have is a PWM receiver, that won't work with the TCB - it only works with receivers that can output PPM, iBus, or SBus.

[Billhelm]

Thank you for the detailed response. I'd like to see if I can get ELRS working. If I'm understanding correctly, here are the configurations for my use case:

A PWM receiver (RadioMaster ER3C-i) + speed controllers: I could drive the tank, but the receiver would not be able to control anything other than the drive motors.
An SBus receiver (RadioMaster RP3-H) + TCB + speed controllers: All tank functions would be controlled by the TCB via SBus from the receiver.
A PWM + SBus receiver (RadioMaster ER8) + TCB + speed controllers: A hybrid approach. I could control the motors via the TCB or directly on the receiver. This would be determined by whether the speed controllers were plugged into the receiver or the TCB. PWM compatible devices could be plugged directly into the receiver and everything else would be controlled by the TCB. I would handle channel deconfliction by remapping channels on the receiver as needed.

[LukeZ]

Yes, your description sounds correct to me.

[Billhelm]

Fantastic. Thanks so much for the help. I'll report back with a status update once I've tried ELRS. Is there any specific data that would be helpful for me to capture for the Receiver Selection Guide of the Wiki?

[LukeZ]

I'm not sure I would be inclined to update the guide for these receivers specifically, the guide hasn't been updated in years and if I add one new radio system then it opens the door to adding all new systems, of which there are now countless.

But certainly if you find that some receiver which should work, does not, then let us know that here so we can troubleshoot.