Transmitter and receiver choice

[Busdriver 6209]

There is a Tamiya Finespec system dedicated to tanks and trucks. Only available in Japan but turn up on all sorts of sites.  Can’t remember the model number but a little bit of detective googling should find it! It has dedicated buttons for all the actions so you don’t have to go through a sequential set of trim/ stick movements to make them work. I have one on my Sheridan and although the instructions are in Japanese the lcd screen is in English, it’s a doddle to program. I’ll look for the model number when I get home if I’m not to late!!’

[Durahl 1]

The choice for a Tamiya Suitable Transmitter and Receiver is fairly simple and difficult at the same time because of how their Tanks and Trucks operate...

The basic issue is the following:
Tamiya Tanks use the Stick Trimmers to go beyond 100% to trigger what I call the Secondary Functions ( firing the Cannon / MG, toggling the Lights, changing Modes, toggling Engine ON/OFF, etc... ).

• To raise the Cannon, you move the Cannon Stick to between +1-100% of its Travel resulting in a 1-100% Value.
  Unless you've somehow managed to screw up the Teaching of the DMD this should result in only performing the Primary Function = Raising the Cannon.
• To fire the Cannon, you move the Trimmer belonging to the Cannon Stick to its MAX position ( raising the Base Level by like 20% ) and then immediately flick the Cannon Stick to MAX as well resulting in a 120% Value.
  This overshoot beyond 100% will trigger the Secondary Action = Cannon Fire.

And here's the problem with modern Transmitters - You usually can neither do the Trimmer + Stick Combo fast enough nor can you go beyond 100% ( at least I can't with mine running EdgeTX ).

BUT! You don't have to if you dissect the problem for the need to differentiate between Primary and Secondary Function Values because luckily for us Tamiya implemented the Teaching Functionality into their DMDs that would have you teach the DMD what 100% looks like for it to recognize that anything beyond that is a Secondary Function which means if you teach it that 85% is 100% ( by limiting your Stick Travel during the Teaching of the DMD ) then while in Normal Operation any Stick Travel beyond 85% will be recognized as 100%+ resulting in a Secondary Function getting triggered.

This essentially means every Transmitter should technically be usable for a Tamiya Model - For as long as the accompanying Receiver has 4x PWM Outputs the DMD can connect to as Tamiya does not support single Connector Protocols like SBUS.
( you CAN use a Receiver outputting SBUS but you then HAVE to pass it through an SBUS to PWM Converter Board with again at least 4x PWM Outputs )

The problem with that is it being kinda cumbersome ensuring you're NOT moving the Sticks past 85% thus constantly triggering something which is where Programmable Transmitters ( like any Transmitter running EdgeTX ) with Dual Rates come into play.

They'll allow you to setup a Profile for when you Program a DMD and one for when you run the Model normally where the respective Sticks are limited to only be outputting 85% even if moved all the way but can momentarily be overwritten to have that Channel output at 100% for the Secondary Function to be triggered. They'll also allow you to bind the Secondary Functions to Switches which I find even neater! Here's a Video explaining it with 80% instead of 85%.

There IS the option of buying a Tamiya FineSpec 2.4G that will save you the hassle of all the above but then you're still limited to only 4 Channels preventing you from say installing a 5-8 ( or more ) Channel Receiver into a Model to enable MODs requiring those additional Channels like my Tamiya Leopard 2A7+ requiring 4 additional Channels for a top mounted Remote Weapons Station and the 2-Axis Stabilizer ( one for ON/OFF and one for on the fly Sensitivity ). And going with a FineSpec will definitely make it impossible to run entirely custom models like my E-100 should you prefer to only be owning a single Transmitter for all of your Models - I for one don't fancy having one remote for each model.