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Found 6 results

  1. OK - here's another crazy project I "started" last week. Well, I say started, I actually started cutting code on it over 3 years ago, but had some problems, but it was based on code that I wrote well over 4 years ago for a big rig MFU. The main plan back then was to have full customisable sounds as well as lights, cruise control and inertia settings, but that proved a step too far for my brain and possibly for the processor on the Arduino Mega2560. Anyway, I was supposed to be in the workshop last Friday but I was having some trouble with parts in stock, so I ended up sneaking into the studio and digging out the old big rig MFU code. It took me a few hours but eventually I had it all stripped down to the very basics, and hooked up to a spare ESC and servo sitting on my workbench. So, what is it? Well, it's an Arduino Mega2560 microcontroller, which is about the size of a shorty 2S LiPo and can be bought for under £20. It's not going to scare a gaming rig, in fact its clock speed is about a thousand times slower than a Raspberry Pi, but it's more than powerful enough to make a simple MFU. OK, but what does it do? It acts as an interpreter between a radio receiver and the ESC, servos and lights of an RC hillwalking rig. I've set the receiver up to work in PPM mode - this is where all the receiver channels are sent down a single wire, so I'm only taking up one pin on the Mega. Reading the PPM pin requires the use of an interrupt, which for the non-nerds among us, means we don't have to waste processing time on the Arduino board waiting for the radio to do stuff - the Arduino can happily run its code and the radio tells it when it's sending a new signal. This all happens many times per second. Well, yes, but what does it actually do? It allows me (and, ultimately, you) to have various clever functions on our hillwalking rigs. OK, I called it the ScalerController, but it is more geared towards hillwalking. It might also work nice on a big rig layout, although I stripped out some of the rig-specific functionality because it was way too cumbersome. Right, OK, I've read a lot of words, but I still don't know what it does. Yes, sorry about that, it's like being in a work meeting. So, right now, as it stands, it has the following functionality: Reverse lockout / selectable reverse This is one of my favourite functions on the Beier truck units, but I implemented it on my big rig controller before I got a Beier. Basically, pushing forward on the left stick makes the rig go forward, but pulling back makes the brakes come on. Actually, officially, the ESC is a Hobbywing 1080 with a 100% drag brake, so what it really does is outputs a centre signal, so the truck stops. Pulling back on the right stick and release to engage reverse. Then push forward on the left stick to go backwards. Pull back to brake. This functionality probably isn't great on a technical crawler course but IME it makes regular driving much more intuitive. Inertia Independently configurable throttle / brake / deceleration inertia in both forward and reverse gears. Give it full throttle and it'll take a while to get there. Let go of the throttle and it'll coast to a stop. Pull back on the stick and it'll stop quicker. Pull full back on the stick to brake hard (output signal goes to centre, so the drag brake comes on). Inertia values are all configurable and probably need tweaking, but right now the concept works. I tested this on a layout with my Drag King truck back in the beforetimes and it made for some very smooth driving on the layouts. I'm looking forward to feeling how it goes on the trails. Using a 100% drag brake on my hillwalking rigs has been awkward, as we're usually moving at a brisk walking pace and letting go the stick causes the truck to jerk to a sudden stop. Some trucks will even roll forwards. Not great for the drivetrain. But a 100% drag brake is nice, because it stops the truck rolling away on hills. Cruise Control Push full forward and release on the right stick to engage cruise. Push forward on the left stick to increase speed, pull back to reduce it. Inertia rules apply here too, along with the selectable reverse. This should mean I can tweak the truck's speed to my current walking pace, which varies depending on fatigue, terrain, weather and inclination. Brake and Reverse Lights Pull back on the left stick and the brake lights come on. Engage reverse and the reverse lights come on. TBH that's all there is to it - I consider it a minor bug that if you pull back on the left stick when cruise control is on then the brake lights show, which probably shouldn't happen unless the stick is pulled more than half-way, but it's not an easy fix so I'll leave it for later. Plus - there is more planned for the future: Full lighting options - off / sidelights / dipped beams / roof lights / full beams. Ultimately the plan here is to have a powerful set of LEDs donated from a hiking head torch mounted on the roof of my Scania, which I can use to light my way when I'm walking. However, just like a head torch, it will be bright enough to dazzle other walkers, so I need to be able to turn it / down off from the transmitter. Rear floodlight - another torch light mounted on the back of the truck so I can see where my feet are going. Winch controllers - stick the MFU in winch mode and the right vertical axis becomes the winch controller. Although I may have to think about how to select reverse when the winches are in use..? Pass-thru switch - have a problem out on the trails? Buggy code making it impossible to drive? Flip the switch and it will revert to pass-thru mode. All the lights and winches will go off, no selectable cruise or reverse or inertia, just plain forward / back / left / right. OK, I've heard enough, where can I get it? Well, I don't have full installation instructions ready yet (and likely won't for a very long time) but if you know your way around an Arduino and you're happy to wire it all up yourself, you can find the code here: https://github.com/Mad-Ax/ScalerController It's still pretty messy as there's loads of stuff commented out from the old big rig controller, which will be tidied up as I finish various areas. Pull requests are accepted if you spot any bugs or have any ideas. It would be nice to know if this can be made to work on a Nano board, which is way smaller and cheaper, but I'm not sure it has enough interrupts. I tried to make it work on a Uno a few years back with no success.
  2. Following on from this thread, I think I'm now ready to start on the long and crazy path down building my own custom MFU using an Arduino Mega and some additional bits and bobs. Big shouts must go to @Ray_ve and @Nobbi1977 for their quick advice and useful info, without which I might have lost faith in the project and let it stall. So, what have I got planned, and will it all get done? Well, who knows for sure? This will be a fairly open-ended project and could keep me busy for a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years. I'm not 100% sure if and when I'll hit the limits of the Arduino Mega. I'm hoping I won't overflow the number of available inputs and outputs (the Mega has more than the Uno but I haven't done a complete count of my function list against the available ports yet), and I'm hoping I'll be able to buy a budget multi-channel handset that has the right number of the right type of switches (I have planned on using a lot of 3-way switches but my 6-channel Turnigy handset only has one 3-way switch, the rest are 2-way or dials). I don't know how easy it might be to swap out 2-way switches for 3-way switches on a budget radio - I'm guessing 'not easy'. So there may be quite a lot of re-thinking my inputs to get the functionality I want. Anyhoo, what does the project involve, and what am I hoping to achieve? Phase 1: Full lights - headlights, tail lights, brake lights, turn signals, fog lights, reversing lights. Driving modes - Off, Drive, Park. In Off mode, lighting will continue to work but no motor or steering input or other functionality will work. The throttle will be at the neutral position and ESC will have a drag brake, so the truck will not move. In Drive mode, the motor will drive the wheels and steering input will operate the steering servo. Park Mode will be much like Off mode and will not be used until a later phase. Gear select: I don't intend to use the Tamiya 3-speed gearbox. Instead I'll have a fixed ratio. Hopefully I can find a transmission that will do this so I can save some space under the cab, otherwise I'll fix the Tamiya transmission into 1st gear. Gear select will be a toggle switch so select Fwd/Rev (or Fwd/Neutral/Rev depending on handset functionality). In Neutral mode, the truck will not move when the throttle is applied. In Fwd, the motor will turn in a forward direction when up stick is applied. In Rev, the motor will turn in a backwards direction when up stick is applied. In both modes, the ESC will go into drag brake mode when the stick is pulled back. I may use a 'cruise control' throttle system here depending on how it feels on the layout. Phase 2: Engine sounds will be added. Other incidental sounds (such as brakes, compressor, etc) may also be added at this stage depending on how difficult it is to perform multi-channel audio operations. In Neutral mode, the throttle lever will cause the engine sound to rev but the motor will not turn and the drag brake will remain on. Phase 3: Additional functionality such as operating another servo for trailer legs, tipper, ramp, etc. will be added to the steering channel. This can be accessed by putting the truck into Park mode. Full additional sounds. There's lots of scope for additional stuff here too but I'll get to that later. I'll probably use a Hobbywing 1080 Crawler ESC. It's not the cheapest option but it can be configured with a strong drag brake and simple Fwd/Rev functionality. I didn't want to have to program around the awkward sometimes brake/sometimes reverse functionality on most ESCs and I hate that when in reverse, most ESCs don't have a brake, they just shoot forward. Using code I can make sure that pulling back will always stop the truck. I can also add some throttle profiling so it's not possible to go into full-speed fwd or rev to avoid any panic-inputs causing lots of damage on the layout. I may even alter the Park mode above so that the motor will continue to operate but at very reduced throttle and with the drag brake always on neutral. Obviously an ESC with an always-on drag brake isn't going to be easy to drive on the layout, so I'll add some throttle-off profiling to ramp the speed down gradually, or use a cruise control feature to keep the throttle in the last position until the stick is pulled back. Of course all this functionality needs a rig to power it, so I'll be building a King Hauler day cab from an NIB kit using Globe Liner chassis rails and a cut down cab. Truck build thread to follow once I've acquired some more parts and cleared up the workshop a bit Stay tuned - I'll be ordering some parts in the next few days and will start cutting code soon after that.
  3. Hello, I am a long time modeller, although not very skilled. I have constructed a few Tamiya 1\16th tanks, but fancied something else, so got the Tamiya Grand Hauler with MFC. Of course I wanted to have the MFC working and still have the cab intact with the driver. I found it easier than you might think as it all fitted into the sleeper section at the back. I simply put the MFC up on its edge and made a small slim extension for it to rest on, although not really required if you used a few strips of velcro on the back of the speaker. Make holes in the cross sections of the frame to run cables neatly otherwise you get massive unsightly mass from back to front. I also wanted more of the lights to work instead of leaving them blank as your only meant to use certain lights dependant on if you use MFC 1 or 3, i think. I simply wired up extra leds to the working ones. I also added extra head lights. Anyway, its all pretty simple, apart from the spraying which I i found difficult to do in a non dust free environment, however a little wet and dry fine sand paper on some rough areas and a respray and it came out ok. I used TS-13 laquer on top. No probs. Watch for runs. Enjoy the pics - hope they help someone, Cheers Russ
  4. Ever been bothered by the fact that there's no sensible mounting point for the MFC switch box on a Globe Liner? It always seemed that the fuel tank was the perfect place for this. It's just about the right size and is otherwise wasted space. So, with a spare lunchbreak, I went down the one-way path of hacking my Globe Liner fuel tank apart with a variety of tools and came up with the following method. Here's the lower half of the tank. The first thing I did was hack out the middle rib with a Dremel. I used a sawtooth wheel to start with but found it a bit easy to start cutting the main body of the tank if I wasn't careful, so I switched to a grinding stone. This eats through Tamiya plastic like it's made of cheese. It makes a mess but leaves a nice tidy finish once you flake off the melty bits. Next thing was to hack into the screw tubes - I figure the tank can be glued without any trouble, so the screw tubes aren't entirely necessary. I kept half of them in place to secure the switch box and stop it moving around too much. After a bit of hackery - shown side-by-side with the top tank half for comparison Similar treatment given to bottom tank half. Note also that I had to cut into the end ribs a little to make space for the switch box. Just a few nicks works well. I tried various tools for this - Dremel, coping saw, junior hacksaw, and settled on a needle file. The plastic is soft enough that the file goes through easily, makes minimal mess and is easy to control. Junior hacksaw was good for getting through bigger sections quicker but runs the risk of cutting into other bits. Dremel was just too unwieldy and likely to do serious damage.
  5. Has anyone used the OB1 wireless trailer light kit with Tamiya motorised support legs? I see the OB1 transmitter has a connection to J9 on the MFC for support legs, but I can't tell what this actually means on the OB1 receiver - is there an option for output to the support leg motor directly from the OB1 receiver, or is it just for lighting functionality? My custom race trailer build has stalled because I don't know if I need to fit the rather ugly bulky mechanical switch box to the kingpin to operate the motorised support legs as per a normal installation, or if I can control the legs electronically from the OB1. If I can go wireless then that's totes awesome, all I need to do is mount legs and motor. If I have to fit the switch mechanism then I'll have to royally hack the front end of my trailer apart to make it fit. I ordered an OB1 wireless kit a few weeks back but there's been a delay in getting stock so I can't progress with my project - could still be a week or two before I get my hands on an OB1 and I'm struggling to find a full manual online...
  6. Back Story I've always been impressed by Tamiya tractor trucks, but to be honest, I've never had much interest in them. The first one I saw in the flesh was a few years ago, when a mate's wife brought her custom-painted King Hauler along to a local bash and ran it around carefully on the tarmac. I didn't really see the point: it couldn't go fast, it was too delicate to do anything serious with, and it wasn't the same scale as the 1:10 cars we were running at the time, so it looked out of place and oddly small (despite being rather big, with its chromed tanker trailer following it along). Trucks have always been a niche interest in Tamiya's line-up so they don't really get seen much at all, but I had a proper intro to them when I went to a local model expo and saw the South West RC Truckers club with their fancy rigs and their portable layout and their 1:14 scale fuel station. Pretty neat, I thought, if a little geeky. But that was some time ago, and an RC truck was always somewhere between unattainable nirvana and pointless money pit. Until the end of last year, when I started to think about my collection and my future in RC, and what I'd really like to build before a family comes along and takes away all my spare time and cash. I figured I'd justify a big sum on something really special. I didn't want a tank, I considered a full-option F350 High Lift with the MFC-02, but then realised I already have too many scale crawler projects and the Tamiya won't crawl anything like as well as the SCX-10 that gets all the trail-bound runtime. I looked at a high-spec buggy (another pointless shelf queen, or wasted bashing around the local gravel patch), a high-spec touring chassis (which would be hidden under yet another Japanese body badly-painted in street colours), or even something wild and fun and indestructible from Traxxas - which would be like all my runners: fun once, then boring, until I can get myself to another bash a million miles from home just so I can play with other people. I had a look at what the local driving options were for a tractor truck, and noticed the South West RC Truckers club meets less than an hour's drive from my place, every month, almost without fail. They're a long-standing club with a solid member base and aren't about to disappear any time soon, unlike little casual groups that tend to come and go with the seasons, can't play in bad weather, and spend half the day looking for an empty car park to play in. So that settled it! I wasn't going to rush out and buy anything there and then, but I was going to keep my eye open for the right truck at the right price. If one came up, I'd jump on it. To be continued...
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