Barrel Stabilization

[Vince Cutajar]

Great news.

Vince

[Youngjae Bae]

Great news.

Vince

Vince, it's so nice to finish 5 years of backlog of homework. It can also be applied to Leopard and Chieftain or Tiger tanks during World War II.

^0^

[Youngjae Bae]

While waiting for the newly ordered servo motor and servo programmer, I will write about the progress and process of my experiments.
Vince started this thread in 2020, and at that time, GSUs from SGS Electronics were available.
Gerhard, on February 10, 2020, shared pictures of a 1/4 scale Leopard 2 tank weighing over 400KG, equipped with GSUs, illustrating the application.
However, what I had been contemplating and wanting to solve from that time until now was not the horizontal control of the turret but the vertical control of the main gun mounted on the turret.
Back then and even now, horizontal control using DC motors poses no difficulty.
However, what I struggled with and wanted to resolve was the vertical control of the main gun on the turret.
At that time, there was no powerful RC servo to control the vertical main gun.
So, I attempted to develop a system using a linear actuator with a PWM signal applied through an Arduino.
During the tests, it showed reasonable performance at high speeds.
However, during slow tank movements, specifically when processing signals from a 6-axis or 9-axis sensor (e.g., BNO055) in Arduino circuits, signal loss occurred.

The problem was identified when adjusting the position of the main gun in automatic mode after user intervention.
The challenge was fixing the adjusted position as a new reference point for automatic vertical control.
While using standard RC servos or suitable industrial servos for vertical control, there would have been no significant issue.
However, compatibility with the desired scale tank posed a separate challenge.
Over the years, technology has advanced, and now servos with a torque of over 60kg.cm and high-voltage servos with 12V or more are available.
With the use of UBEC, even high-voltage servos can easily apply vertical stabilization.

However, using the small controller from the 35RCTANK poses a problem.
In the process of reviewing GSUs for large tanks, I focused on CLARK MODEL's TK80 series and SGS Electronics' TVC-GSU-12.
Based on personal preference and needs, I decided on SGS's TVC-GSU-12 as the optimal system.

I have experienced the principles of balancing the center of gravity using weights, allowing precise control of the main gun of a large tank in the scale of 1/5 to 1/6, much like a puppet.
Therefore, I set up a separate circuit to test the configuration of SGS Electronics' GSU and achieved positive results (refer to the test video uploaded last time).
In this test, I used two standard servos to ensure directional consistency.
One servo was directly connected, while the other had a servo reverse switch installed between the Y-connector and the servo connector to match the operating direction.
During the test, I removed the HITEC D845WP servo from the 1/5 scale BLACK PHANTHER tank I was building, installed two DSSERVO from AliExpress, and faced issues during operation.
The problem arose when combining the reverse switch with DSSERVO.
To identify the issue, I installed a Y-connector directly from the GSU's vertical signal channel and tested with one side using DSSERVO and the other side using servo reverse + DSSERVO, which worked well.
Even with only one DSSERVO connected directly to the GSU, it worked well.
However, when combining DSSERVO + servo reverse switch and connecting it to the GSU, it did not work.
Testing with a different brand of servo reverse switch also resulted in the same issue.
As a result, I concluded that when combining a reverse switch with DSSERVO, the signal from the GSU is lost.
Therefore, unless using a dedicated programmer for DSSERVO that reverses one servo's direction at the source, this combination cannot be used.

In a hurry, I connected the existing HITEC D845WP servo directly to the GSU to check if the control of the GSU works with one servo in my 1/5 scale BLACK PHANTHER tank.
When controlling the altitude of the gun in manual mode, this servo showed a discontinuous movement like a pulse.
It continued to work in automatic mode.
Connecting a DSSERVO, which has superior specifications according to the catalog, to the GSU for manual mode control of the elevation of the main gun resulted in smoother operation compared to the HITEC D845WP servo.
It worked smoothly even in automatic mode.
Therefore, I installed one DSSERVO in my 1/5 scale K2 tank and tested it.
However, due to the lack of catalog specifications in automatic mode, the elevation of the gun was not accurately fixed, so I halted the test.
Subsequently, I purchased two new servos with a torque of over 100 kg.cm and the servo programmer, eagerly awaiting their arrival while introducing the test results.

Thank you for reading this tedious and lengthy text.

Youngjae

[Robert Reid]

I still have the 1/6 scale beer mug here to be awarded to the first successful barrel stabilization!!!

You can do your own Bundswehr barrel beer mug video!

Amazing work everyone who is involved in this!

Cheers,

RPR

[Youngjae Bae]

I still have the 1/6 scale beer mug here to be awarded to the first successful barrel stabilization!!!

You can do your own Bundswehr barrel beer mug video!

Amazing work everyone who is involved in this!

Cheers,

RPR

I'm currently testing this feature on a 1/5 scale K2 MBT and I have a hunch that it will definitely succeed.
If I succeed, I ask you to make a separate 1/5 scale beer mug.

After that, I'll make sure to make it a success by renovating the interior of the 1/6 scale Chieftain that I have.
Yes, maybe the Leopard, which is released this time and starts shipping, can apply GSU in a similar way.

Youngjae

[Robert Reid]

I fortunately have 2 pint beer mugs!

1 is an American pint.
1 is an English Pint.

A british pint is 20 percent larger than an American Pint. so 1/5th to 1/6th.

So the English pint will work out fine as 1/5th scale on one tank

The American Pint will work out fine as 1/6th scale on the other.

I'm always thinking ahead

Again amazing work! Pierce

[Youngjae Bae]

I share how to install GSU using linear actuator rather than servo.
So far, I've illustrated this method based on how to combine linear actuator installed on my Chieftain with GSU to be added in the future.
If you want to apply it to leopard, please refer to it.

Regards,
Youngjae

[Vince Cutajar]

Can't wait to see it in action.

Vince

[Youngjae Bae]

Can't wait to see it in action.

Vince

Yes, I will upload it by next Sunday (2024.03.24).

Youngjae

[Youngjae Bae]

I didn't like the specifications of the servo I ordered, so I returned and re-ordered the arrived product 2 times.
As a result, it is expected that the completion of the product will be delayed.
Finally, I ordered two X150 servos again and am waiting.

yipinservo and GXservo use the same platform and the same servo programmer, but the power connection method is different. yipinservo has to connect four separately from the power line and the signal line, and GXservo has three strands in the traditional servo method. So, I ordered the X150 of GXservo again today, and I am trying to return the X120 of yipinservo as soon as it arrives.

[Youngjae Bae]

First of all, I am very happy to report to you that the final test results show that GSU works very well even in large tanks.
I'll upload a video in a short time.

Youngjae