One FrSky way of braking the UC

[Adrian Harris]

I don't know when I'm going to be getting the motion pack installed but I thought I'd have a go at getting the programming for the X9D sorted for the servos. Only one stick movement and it does take two channels, but there are eight to play with on this receiver so I don't think I'm going to go short. Should be possible to add the wonky track steering to the same control as well.



Adrian.

[Stephen White]

Way to go Adrian. Looks great. I'm convinced about software defined radios but I suspect a lot of us will be put off, as I was initially, by the apparent complexity of OpenTx. Just as I thought I'd mastered it, I decided on a new radio for flying and have just bought the FrSky Horus X10S Express. It's had very good reviews. Joshua Bardwell reckons it's the best radio available at the moment after the next model up, the Horus X12S flopped. The Horus X10S Express comes with FrSky's own OS. It provides almost all the functionality of OpenTx (except at the moment LUA Scripts) but is a menu driven OS which is far more intuitive than OpenTx. FrOS has all the logic structure of OpenTx but is much better packaged. So maybe, just maybe, it's more accessible to anyone who doesn't want to sit with the OpenTX manual of an evening. I'll report back once I've had some experience with it.

I should also mention that one of the three rotary switches is a six position encoder so could be used for some of the Special Sounds on the Armortek sound module. You could easily chain that to a momentary switch for activation and to a two or three way switch to give twice the number of positions, more than enough for the Special Sounds available currently on most models. That's the power of a software defined radio.

[Dennis Jones]

I am experimenting with braking at the moment. I ran the tank and tried the wonky track system and it still ran in a straight line.

Dennis.

[Gian Marco Menozzi]

Hi Stephen,
I have been thinking for some time to buy a remote control with more than 8 channels, now I have a DX8 Spektrum with the encoder for the Benedini, in that remote control can you mount the Benedini Encoder?
how complicated is it to program them?
Kind regards
Marco

[Adrian Harris]

I've fitted the encoder into the X9D and the QX7 without any problems, so I don't see why you couldn't fit one to the Horus.

Adrian.

[John Clarke]

I cannot under stand why two servo's are needed on the UC braking system? both brakes working together accidentally could have a disastrous stalling effect the main drive.
Why not use just one servo with a simple slide. The only torque required is from one servo, All it needs to do is to over come the springs or to dislodge the interference brake pad from the disk. You'd also have a easy to setup neutral position and a easy to setup bendy track setup with brake and bendy servos working in tandem.
Forgive the crude drawing

uc brake.jpg (85.54 KiB) Viewed 4826 times

[Stephen White]

Gian Marco - how difficult is it to programme them? We're all different. I can only give you my experience. I found OpenTx daunting like any new software. The key to being comfortable with it is to understand the logic. Once you grasp how it is structured, the actual programming is logical and relatively easy.

This is the key to understanding OpenTx:

There is a very good simulator, called OpenTx Companion, which allows you to see if your programming does what you want it to without risking the model. When you're happy, you transfer the setup to the radio and should then be confident it'll all work as advertised. The only bit which Companion can't really simulate would be the Bendini Sound Card but the signal outputs from the radio will be and everything should then work fine. The best way to learn software is to play with it and the Companion allows you to do that without any consequence.

There is plenty of reference material. The OpenTx website has an excellent "university", an online resource, a combination of manual and teaching aid.
There is a good commercial manual available and plenty of videos, although I've not yet found any relating to tanks. You would have to take the relevant bits from the RC aircraft and drone communities and adapt.

I suppose a Knowledge Base topic and YouTube video would do the trick but it's a lot of work, as ever.

Once you get used to OpenTx, it's really powerful and you start to see how you might do things which would otherwise be impossible. It that sense, it's fun, once you get over the pain of learning.

[Gian Marco Menozzi]

Adrian and Stephen, thanks for the answers
regards
Marco