Steering on Panzer IV.

[Kevin Tomkinson]

Hi all,
If you will allow me to pick your brains yet again I have a small problem with my P4. I have installed all new Armortek electronics in this tank run by a Futaba T8J transmitter. Everything works well except that the left hand track is weak on steering. Right track no problem at all, left track will not turn the tank when on grass. The tank is single stick steering. I seem to remember someone wrote about this and there was something that was done with the transmitter but I can't find it. I think the power was boosted up to 130 or something like that and being a dunce with these things I don't want to mess around at random. If anyone out there could help I would really appreciate it.
All the best
Kevin.

[Adrian Harris]

On the Spektrum, using the standard mix for single stick steering means that you only get 75% of full travel when moving forwards, but it goes up to 100% when turning. If you up the servo travel setting on the transmitter, you can get full speed forward but no extra speed when turning.

I don't know if the Futaba has the same setting but it doesn't sound like that is you problem.

Does it turn OK if you use twin stick steering ?

Adrian.

[Mark Heaps]

If it runs fine in a straight line then the electronics and motors in the model would seem to be fine and the problem would likely be in the transmitter.

May be a problem with the servo mixing settings but could be a problem with the left-right operation of the stick on the transmitter. Switching to twin-stick steering will not detect this and may confuse the fault-finding. I would suggest trying another transmitter if possible.
Should that be not possible, then try switching left-right on that stick to control the turret traverse and compare the turret rotation speed when going left and right. If they are not roughly equal, then I would suspect the settings for that channel or the stick itself.

[Kevin Tomkinson]

Hi all,
Thanks for your replies to my call for help. I have swapped the motor wires so right runs left etc. The result is that the right hand goes weak telling me that the problem is probably in the transmitter although I suppose it could be in the module.
I will try 2 stick running tomorrow to eliminate the module after that I guess it is back to Futaba to see what they say.
All the best
Kevin.

[Stephen White]

Kevin, a further thing to try. Check the trims and sub trims for any imbalance. Stephen

[Adrian Harris]

Now that you know the motor is OK, you could try swapping the receiver connections over for the two tracks and seeing if the fault moves.

If it does, then it's the transmitter/receiver. If it doesn't, then it's the motion control module.

Adrian.

[Armortek]

Hi Kevin

Have you checked the current limit setting on the motion controller. It sounds to me like you have it set on 5amps. The manual explains the setting of the DIP switches that set this limit.

Mark

[Kevin Tomkinson]

Hi all,
Many thanks to Mark for cracking the problem. I was definitely at sea with this and as it turns out I was on completely the wrong track.
Thanks Mark.
All the best
Kevin.