Mato tanks with Faulty IR emitters

[tank_me]

I typically solder everything I can. I use a .6mm 60-40 Tin Lead Rosin Core Solder with a non-corrosive liquid flux for soldering. Then I used some heat shrink tubing to cover it. I have tons of different sizes of that from .6mm up to say 6mm, but I think up to 2-3mm would suffice for most people. I have larger scale tanks using 8 gauge wire in some cases. Those little sockets can be a pain, but don't pull from the cable or you will pull the wires out of the connector. Twisting a small flat blade screw driver can be used on the lip of the connector to pop it out.

[glocke12]

I typically solder everything I can. I use a .6mm 60-40 Tin Lead Rosin Core Solder with a non-corrosive liquid flux for soldering. Then I used some heat shrink tubing to cover it. I have tons of different sizes of that from .6mm up to say 6mm, but I think up to 2-3mm would suffice for most people. I have larger scale tanks using 8 gauge wire in some cases. Those little sockets can be a pain, but don't pull from the cable or you will pull the wires out of the connector. Twisting a small flat blade screw driver can be used on the lip of the connector to pop it out.

Ok thanks..I actually did end up having some solder I can use for this.

Still no joy.

The connectors with wiring attached arrived from Amazon yesterday, and since it's been awhile since I've soldered anything I did some practicing for a bit on some pieces of similar gauge wire and than felt confident enough to solder the new IR emitter to the wire connector. I didn't route any wiring, I just held the emitter and pointed it towards a nearby tank that I know has a functional emitter and receiver and fired the cannon.

the receiving tank recorded ONE single hit and thats it. Subsequent shots from the Stug III with the swapped out emitter did not send any hits to an opposing tank. I even tried a different opposing tank and nothing worked.

Once wired to a different connector without doing any soldering, just twisting the wires together the second emitter they sent worked fine for multiple cannon shots, (at least 5).

I guess the first emitter was just faulty, but it is odd it fired one shot and than quit.


Ordered a bunch more emitters from digitech just in case.

[tank_me]

Seems strange to me. Do you have a volt meter? If so, you can set it on the diode setting. Measuring it one way it should show as "open". Reversing the leads should show some resistance. In the case of a normal LED, it will actually light up slightly as the voltmeter is sending current to the LED. If you set up your phone to watch the IR LED, it should light up on one direction using the voltmeter. If both directions measure "open" then the LED is bad. If you blow and LED, you will typically hear it pop and smell it as they smell bad. Usually the only way to blow an LED it by overvolting it, but the Clark board LED ports are typically less than 5V and don't require current limiting resisters. I've never installed a resistor on an IR LED on a Clark board and I have at least 10 of them.

[glocke12]

Seems strange to me. Do you have a volt meter? If so, you can set it on the diode setting. Measuring it one way it should show as "open". Reversing the leads should show some resistance. In the case of a normal LED, it will actually light up slightly as the voltmeter is sending current to the LED. If you set up your phone to watch the IR LED, it should light up on one direction using the voltmeter. If both directions measure "open" then the LED is bad. If you blow and LED, you will typically hear it pop and smell it as they smell bad. Usually the only way to blow an LED it by overvolting it, but the Clark board LED ports are typically less than 5V and don't require current limiting resisters. I've never installed a resistor on an IR LED on a Clark board and I have at least 10 of them.

My voltmeter isn't working, but I have a power supply here. When I connected the Mato IR emitter to that there was no visible signal on my phone camera, whereas a new IR emitter delivered by Amazon this afternoon clearly showed a signal so I guess Mato just sent me a bad emitter..It's still strange that it worked once but whatever.

I guess I have some work to do..I really didn't want this to turn into a project ( which is why I bought a RTR tank ) but whatever. I'm sure this won't be the only issue I run into now that I've developed an interest in RC tanks.

I've got 28 gauge wire ordered, heat shrink ordered, new IR emitters on the way, and just for the heck of it I bought crimping supplies/tools for the JST connectors.

Now I just need to take that thing apart and figure out where the heck they mounted the IR emitter in the factory. It almost looks like it's in the cannon.

[glocke12]

Okey dokey...first, thanks again for all the replies...

So it turns out a previous poster was correct on the location of the IR emitter on the Stugg III. It is located in that dimple above the cannon on the mantlet and Mato did indeed paint over it. When I initially looked at that and did a little paint scraping it seemed like metal underneath so I stopped but this has been driving me nuts so I did some more aggressive scraping and lo and behold there was the IR emitter bulb. It's working better now, with my range indoors probably about 15-20 feet. That still seems kind of limited but at least I now know where it is located.

On the M4 Sherman, I am pretty sure the wiring from the IR emitter leads to the cannon, see the photo I've posted below. This tank has a limited range (2-3 feet max) and when I tape over the cannon barrel opposing tanks receive no hits, remove the tape, and an opposing tank will receive a hit from the M4 Sherman.

I am pretty sure the M36 destroyer also has this same setup. The wires from the J1 socket seem to disappear into the cannon barrel, and an iPhone video shows the cannon flash LED followed by another brief flash that I am thinking is the IR signal. This tank has the best IR range, and can score hits on opposing tanks at a distance of at least 30-40 feet.

Is it possible they jammed 2 LEDs into the barrel of the Sherman and the M36, or is this an LED that has dual wavelengths in the IR range and visible spectrum ?

M4 Sherman wiring



link to video of M36 cannon firing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RhiSFZms4RzqtJPg5TORjzGIcBwkOF8j/view?usp=sharing

[tank_me]

Never seen an LED with a visible and IR combination. An RGB (red, green, blue) LED has more than just two legs on it. There is a positive leg for each color and a common ground leg. In order to do a multiple LED package with visible and IR, I would assume it would have to be the same and would have 3 legs, one for the visible +, one for the IR +, and a ground leg.

I have on occasion jammed two LEDs in a barrel if the bore of the barrel is large enough like on my SU-152 or my Kranvagn.

[glocke12]

Never seen an LED with a visible and IR combination. An RGB (red, green, blue) LED has more than just two legs on it. There is a positive leg for each color and a common ground leg. In order to do a multiple LED package with visible and IR, I would assume it would have to be the same and would have 3 legs, one for the visible +, one for the IR +, and a ground leg.

I have on occasion jammed two LEDs in a barrel if the bore of the barrel is large enough like on my SU-152 or my Kranvagn.

Did you place the LEDs on top of one another or one behind the other ? In the Sherman I have it almost looks like they are behind one another.

In any case, I've got the Stug III figured out, fixed and working in a manner I find to be acceptable.

So, not only was the IR emitter painted over, it was very, very weak...Once I got the paint scraped off it had a maximum range of 2-3 feet at best. That could be because I scratched the face of the emitter while trying to get the paint off/. I tried going lightly to prevent that, but whatever...

I really wasn't wanting to take this apart, since I have no experience in working on models l like this or electronics, nor did I have the interest in getting into all that and looked around locally for some assistance, found none and last night when I was laying there sleepless in bed I said screw it...Im digging into it and if I " effff" it up so be it. I documented everything with photos and videos and managed to get access to the mantlet, remove the old IR emitter and put in one of the new IR emitters from Amazon that I soldered new wiring and a connector to yesterday morning ( the better ones from digikey and a Torro emitter I ordered are not yet here).

I got everything back together again with no issues, and tested it against another tank. Max distance indoors I can test is ~22-25 feet and the Stug III successfully sent hits to the opposing Sherman time after time. Once I get some space cleared out in basement and garage I can test these down there up to around 50 feet.

Testing outdoors would be best, but its constant rain here and everything around me is a swamp so that won't happen anytime soon.


The Sherman is next to address, and I am sure that emitter is in the barrel but im going to see about moving it somewhere else.

Thanks for all the assistance and putting up with my newbie questions...all this was very new to me.