More Mato IR Emitter Issues

[glocke12]

This is getting kind of nuts. I have a Mato Stug III and M36 Jackson I have not used since before the New Year.

I charged them up and was running them around the house and noticed ranging issues with these, meaning they didn't register hits on one another unless they were within a few feet of one another. This was not the case when I used this in December.

For the M36 Jackson, I was thinking since it was fairly easy to swap out the IR emitter on the M4 Sherman I have, this would be an equally simple task. Wrong. I started that last night and found that disassembly of that proved to be more complex than the M4 Sherman, and not only could I not get the IR emitter and flash emitter removed the cannon barrel, they also had ended up splicing the positive wires of those two emitters together prior to shoving them down the cannon barrel ( not that big of a deal but I find it kind of odd ). I am thinking once I get the cannon barrel out using either a heat gun to melt the adhesive or pouring some rubbing alcohol down there will loosen things up.

As a side note, after starting, and than stopping and putting it back together last night I noticed that the IR emitter seemed to have some kind of haze on it so put some rubbing alcohol on a Q-Tip and was able to get the haze removed and the emitter seemed to function better last night but when I just tried it now it was not so it definitely needs to be replaced.

My question(s) on this is, how often have people noticed IR emitters failing ? This is the third tank I've had this happen on from them in the space of a year and these things do not get run that often. Second question is, has anyone here dissembled a Mato M36 Jackson ?

Now, for the Stug III, this had no issues the last time I used this in December ( except for arriving to me with the IR emitter painted over by Mato ), but this one also had ranging issues. Hits on opposing tanks only registered when the other tank was a few feet away whereas in December hits were registered from up to 30-40 feet away. When I looked at the emitter on this tank with my iPhone camera, it pretty much appeared to be in an " always on " state, meaning the purple light from the emitter was apparent as soon as the tank was turned on and did not change in intensity when the cannon was fired, although hits on opposing tanks were only registered when the cannon was fired. Does anyone have any idea what would cause the emitter to appear to be in an " always on " state ? I am still learning about this stuff so I have no clue if thats some kind of failure in the emitter, a possible issue with the clark board, or is just the nature of some of these emitters.

Cross posted this on RCtankwarfare also, and will be checking both sites for replies so no need to reply to the threads in both locations.

ETA: Gets more weird. I tried using both a Heng Long tank and a Torro tank as the target tanks for these two Mato tanks. Hits on the HL tank were registered when the Mato tanks were up to 30 feet away. Hits on the Torro tank were one registered when the Mato tanks were within 3 feet, the same as when both Mato tanks were firing on each other. I guess it's possible that the receiver on the HL tanks is powerful enough to detect weak IR emissions and the receivers on the Torro and Mato tanks are unable to do so.

[tank_me]

Does your M36 have a Clark board in it and if it does, is the IR LED plugged into port J1 or J3? It's supposed to go in port J1 (pink arrow) and it should be the only device connected to that port. It should be on it's own circuit with both the positive and negative feed coming from J1. If I get what you are saying, your IR LED is sharing power with another LED? If so, that may be the issue. The IR LED is typically overvolted when it's fired in order to get more range. At least that's how the Tamiya standard works. If you use your phone you can point it at the IR LED and see it firing. If the flash is very brief, it may be connected to the cannon flash circuit. The IR LED should "pulse" and not just flash. When I say pulse I mean it should come on and stay on for like 1.5 seconds. That pulse time is what ensures it makes a solid hit on another tank. If there is no pulse it won't register hits. I ran into a situation like this with the Open Panzer TCB and troubleshot it with the designer of that board, Luke.

[glocke12]

thanks...

Ugh. lol.

So ended up getting the IR emitter sorted out, and after getting everything put back together ended up having issues with the cannon recoil. It basically ended up in a " loop " , retracting back and forth. Nothing I was doing fixed it and I should have stopped and took a break but didn't.

Gist of it is I thought a reset of the fleshy 10 channel controller might help so thats what I did, followed by rebinding to the receiver in the tank.

Now nothing works. The tank is bound to the receiver but once I turn the tank on all it does is go through and play the sound effects, and once ended up moving on its on.

I am guessing I need to go through a re-programming process of the controller or something ????

Moral here is stop working when you are getting tired and frustrated.


ETA: I got all this straightened out, channels on controller needed to be reassigned.

[SoCalBobS]

I tried a TK board once and had the same frustrations as you. Now I'm a Heng Long fanboy. Easy to work with, unless you want something it doesn't do like tank specific sounds.

[glocke12]

I tried a TK board once and had the same frustrations as you. Now I'm a Heng Long fanboy. Easy to work with, unless you want something it doesn't do like tank specific sounds.

hmmmmm....

Theres definitely a learning curve here. My hopes of this being a plug and play hobby are dashed forever.

In any case, I got the controller figured out as I stated above ( channels simply needed to be reassigned), but there are still issues with the cannon.

When it pivots upwards and that plastic arm rotates down, the cannon barrel will start moving back and forth and for the life of me I can't figure out why. There isn't any wiring that I can see jammed up that would cause this and the servo thats causing that movement is the cannon recoil servo, not the horizontal/vertical servo.

here is a video:

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0d4ia4cY0EsYdwjAzNQU6mUOA

[Tang - RC.Senshado]

It's got a steep curve and you have to be very good about following the steps and knowing how each item and programming works or you're in for a bad time. Probably one of the most difficult systems to include for someone to try and diagnose it if they bought it in RTR form. Gotta start from the beginning first before you can start fiddling with the settings.

- First, do you know what Clark board it has? You mentioned you have a 10 channel setup which would change the setup process because the submenus are different.
- And do you own a universal sony remote of the type needed to access the Clark programming?
- And to what level did you "reset" the system. Did you clear out the functions on your radio or did you do a factory reset on the board itself?

[quitcherbitchen]

When it pivots upwards and that plastic arm rotates down, the cannon barrel will start moving back and forth and for the life of me I can't figure out why. There isn't any wiring that I can see jammed up that would cause this and the servo thats causing that movement is the cannon recoil servo, not the horizontal/vertical servo.

here is a video:

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0d4i...YdwjAzNQU6mUOA

I suspect your programming issue is with how the clark board needs to go to page two "-/--" of the programming chart to change the elevation servo to servo pwm not ESC.Press the button one "1" twice Carefully read the clark programming chart on how to get to page two and then cycle thru the settings to land on the one you want. Clark boards need to cycle to make sure they settle on the one you want. In other words, go past the one you want until you land on it again then stop and unplug. Then wait 10 seconds to plug the power back on without the programming pin in. I have lots of experience with clark boards and have experienced what your board is doing. You can burn out the servos in ESC setting if you play with it too much in that mode. Take the servo elevation off when programming. Plug it in once you think you have it correct. Remember negative wire to the outside of the board when putting it back in. TK 22 and TK 40 boards are junk compared to the TK 50. I have never had a problem with a tk 50, 60 or 80.

[tank_me]

TK 22 and TK 40 boards are junk compared to the TK 50. I have never had a problem with a tk 50, 60 or 80.

I wish my luck was as good as yours. I have two TK50s with no sound. Used to have sound...now no sound. Swap a new board into the tank...has sound. Need to send them in for repair one of these days.

[glocke12]

It's got a steep curve and you have to be very good about following the steps and knowing how each item and programming works or you're in for a bad time. Probably one of the most difficult systems to include for someone to try and diagnose it if they bought it in RTR form. Gotta start from the beginning first before you can start fiddling with the settings.

- First, do you know what Clark board it has? You mentioned you have a 10 channel setup which would change the setup process because the submenus are different.
- And do you own a universal sony remote of the type needed to access the Clark programming?
- And to what level did you "reset" the system. Did you clear out the functions on your radio or did you do a factory reset on the board itself?

It has a TK50S board.

I do not have the remote, I don't think I need it now but will order, I am just not sure what cable I need for it.

The reset was only done on the flysky controller, that turns out to have been an easy fix. I only had to reassign the channels on the controller so now that part of this is mess back to normal.




" Probably one of the most difficult systems to include for someone to try and diagnose it if they bought it in RTR form"

I may just use that as a signature line on this site lol.

It's ironic that I bought these in RTR form because I really don't care for tinkering or putting things like models together. It's not that I can't do those things, I just prefer not to unless I absolutely have to but now it appears I need to learn all I can about these because no one is coming to my rescue on this lol.

[glocke12]

I suspect your programming issue is with how the clark board needs to go to page two "-/--" of the programming chart to change the elevation servo to servo pwm not ESC.Press the button one "1" twice Carefully read the clark programming chart on how to get to page two and then cycle thru the settings to land on the one you want. Clark boards need to cycle to make sure they settle on the one you want. In other words, go past the one you want until you land on it again then stop and unplug. Then wait 10 seconds to plug the power back on without the programming pin in. I have lots of experience with clark boards and have experienced what your board is doing. You can burn out the servos in ESC setting if you play with it too much in that mode. Take the servo elevation off when programming. Plug it in once you think you have it correct. Remember negative wire to the outside of the board when putting it back in. TK 22 and TK 40 boards are junk compared to the TK 50. I have never had a problem with a tk 50, 60 or 80.

I honestly don't think it's a programming issue because it turns out the only thing I affected with the reset was the flysky controller which I resolved. I don't have the IR programming remote anyway so theres no way I could messed up the board thankfully.

I think the issue is with that plastic servo arm and metal linker. They either need to be aligned in a certain way that I haven't figured out, or there is something else going on with them I don't understand or notice ( its possible that metal linker arm may have lost a bend but I am not 100% on that ).

[Tang - RC.Senshado]

I honestly don't think it's a programming issue because it turns out the only thing I affected with the reset was the flysky controller which I resolved. I don't have the IR programming remote anyway so theres no way I could messed up the board thankfully.

I think the issue is with that plastic servo arm and metal linker. They either need to be aligned in a certain way that I haven't figured out, or there is something else going on with them I don't understand or notice ( its possible that metal linker arm may have lost a bend but I am not 100% on that ).

They occasionally can glitch out and some settings revert or change to other settings, not by your doing. Don't rule out that the board could have defaulted to another setting on its own, even without you touching it. This is why I asked. It's a thing that can happen with these. Very rarely but I've had it happen and then I've had to factory reset the board and then change the settings to what I need, otherwise I would be inducing more problems trying to change settings over and over. It's commonly advised to reset it if you have the slightest suspicion for the best experience, and I can say this is true. I own I think a dozen tanks with them and have experience on the TK22/TK40/TK50/TK60 in addition to other systems. They just aren't bullet proof.

The elevation may have been kicked over to another mode instead of servo mode as others have mentioned. It's not a bullet proof system and you shouldn't own the Clark board without the remote to program it. If you took the linkage off the servo, you might have to double check the timing (position) of the servo horn it the rested/neutral position and adjust from there.

[glocke12]

They occasionally can glitch out and some settings revert or change to other settings, not by your doing. Don't rule out that the board could have defaulted to another setting on its own, even without you touching it. This is why I asked. It's a thing that can happen with these. Very rarely but I've had it happen and then I've had to factory reset the board and then change the settings to what I need, otherwise I would be inducing more problems trying to change settings over and over. It's commonly advised to reset it if you have the slightest suspicion for the best experience, and I can say this is true. I own I think a dozen tanks with them and have experience on the TK22/TK40/TK50/TK60 in addition to other systems. They just aren't bullet proof.

The elevation may have been kicked over to another mode instead of servo mode as others have mentioned. It's not a bullet proof system and you shouldn't own the Clark board without the remote to program it. If you took the linkage off the servo, you might have to double check the timing (position) of the servo horn it the rested/neutral position and adjust from there.

I just ordered the programming remote and infrared programming cable from DAKRC. Hopefully it is just glitchy.

I don't think I ever took the linkage off of the servo, but honestly I had this thing pulled apart so many times this weekend I just didn't remember if I did or not. Unfortunately there are no index markings on the servo/servo arm so I have no clue what the neutral position of the servo arm should be. I assume that upon startup the servo goes to its rested position and the arm should be extending out straight/perpendicular from there. Thats what looks like what is happening on an unmolested tank I have here anyway. I ended up popping the servo arm off, giving power to the servo to get it into the neutral position than put the arm back on so it was perpendicular to the horizontal axis of the servo unit.

After doing that and putting everything back together, things were still glitchy but less so...The cannon still reciprocates once the elevation servo reaches the upwards or downwards limits. It is bizarre because like I said earlier, it will do that when only the elevation servo is plugged in. Without the recoil servo plugged in I'd think there would be no way for that servo to move at all.

In any case, we'll see what happens when the remote gets here. If that doesn't end up fixing this issue than I am just at a total loss as to what to do with this.

To make all this even better I also ended up having an extra screw left over after getting it back together. No clue where that came from because all the locations that required a machine screw have them in there.

[quitcherbitchen]

After doing that and putting everything back together, things were still glitchy but less so...The cannon still reciprocates once the elevation servo reaches the upwards or downwards limits. It is bizarre because like I said earlier, it will do that when only the elevation servo is plugged in.

I

Like I mentioned before and Tang has supported.. It sounds like a classic case of the Board program going into a default setting of the elevation servo circuit going back to ESC mode and not PWM. I have had servos just glitch back and forth or cycle till they overheat and burn out because the board defaulted to ESC which in electronic terms means it is just a power supply which no longer transmits signal to the servo. Just powers it. Yours is slightly unusual in that it only happens when the servo reaches it's limits but it wont hurt to get a programmer remote and try to set the correct settings. The TK boards are Hobby level controllers. The Heng Long 7.1 units are really good and more plug and play without much to be done. As your tank is already set up for Clark you would have to rewire a lot of things to make the Heng long unit fit. I would say try and learn the Clark and once fixed you can hang that diploma on your wall even though you never signed up for the course LOL.

Also, ask Bob about the extra screw LOL

[Tang - RC.Senshado]

If you don't have anything to test the servo with (I have a cheapo tester I got off amazon to diagnose trouble servos), you could disconnect the servo horn first, and then plug it into the board if it's setup for servo mode. It will always default to the neutral position on these. Some other boards allow you to manipulate the timing/default positions so my comment about default/neutral on power up should not be taken as a blanket statement for all boards. The heng long 7.1 doesn't have any functions or complicated setup, plug it in and then confirm the direction and then go. The Clarks have to be told to be in Servo mode and then told with the remote what direction you want, in addition to how it recoils. If you have an airsoft cannon obviously the servo recoil function would not translate over. quitcherbitchen pointed out that you can easily kill a servo by getting the timing wrong by plugging it in with the horn being timed to the wrong position. The servo motors have a built in stall and when it encounters resistance it will keep fighting the wrong positioning to try and do it's job and then work itself to death. Sort of like trying to drive a car with the wrong alignment, your tires will wear out, only it will happen very rapidly because the heat buildup as mentioned. When you supply power to the servo it'll stiffen up, indicating its getting voltage and doing its job. When there is no power or the servo has failed, when plugged in the servo won't go to default position and has no resistance to it. If you're not sure you took the horn off, make double sure, or else you'll be out a servo. Also if you get a cheap servo in your setup, you could just as easily fry it by driving the barrel into obstacles and forcing the servo to try and counter the impact. I guess that adds another layer to this situation, is, could the servo be going out? That you'll have to determine as well.

[glocke12]

If you don't have anything to test the servo with (I have a cheapo tester I got off amazon to diagnose trouble servos), you could disconnect the servo horn first, and then plug it into the board if it's setup for servo mode. It will always default to the neutral position on these. Some other boards allow you to manipulate the timing/default positions so my comment about default/neutral on power up should not be taken as a blanket statement for all boards. The heng long 7.1 doesn't have any functions or complicated setup, plug it in and then confirm the direction and then go. The Clarks have to be told to be in Servo mode and then told with the remote what direction you want, in addition to how it recoils. If you have an airsoft cannon obviously the servo recoil function would not translate over. quitcherbitchen pointed out that you can easily kill a servo by getting the timing wrong by plugging it in with the horn being timed to the wrong position. The servo motors have a built in stall and when it encounters resistance it will keep fighting the wrong positioning to try and do its job and then work itself to death. Sort of like trying to drive a car with the wrong alignment, your tires will wear out, only it will happen very rapidly because the heat buildup as mentioned. When you supply power to the servo it'll stiffen up, indicating it's getting voltage and doing its job. When there is no power or the servo has failed, when plugged in the servo won't go to default position and has no resistance to it. If you're not sure you took the horn off, make double sure, or else you'll be out a servo. Also if you get a cheap servo in your setup, you could just as easily fry it by driving the barrel into obstacles and forcing the servo to try and counter the impact. I guess that adds another layer to this situation, is, could the servo be going out? That you'll have to determine as well.

Thanks. I actually did that test that you are speaking of.

I honestly don't recall if I had ended up taking the servo horn off prior to doing that test, I didn't think I did but I was getting pretty frustrated/exasperated and should have stopped but didn't and lost track of what I exactly I did and did not do. In any case, with the servo horn off it powered up and went into what I assumed was the neutral position and like I said, I repositioned the horn so that it was perpendicular to the horizontal axis.

At this point I may as well wait to do anything else till the remote and infrared cable come in and figure that part out and see if I can come up with an answer that way.

It's also possible the servo could be on its way out, though I've not used this tank often since receiving it back in June of last year so I'd be surprised if that were the case. I will probably go ahead and order a new one anyway just to have it on hand.


" The servo motors have a built in stall and when it encounters resistance it will keep fighting the wrong positioning to try and do its job and then work itself to death. "

This is the part thats baffling to me...If the servo that controls the cannon elevation is hitting a stop it isn't expecting it to, why would the cannon barrel itself start reciprocating ? It is clearly the servo that controls recoil that is moving because I can see the mechanism for that function working and it is entirely separate from the servo system that controls that elevation. The crazy thing is that recoil servo is unplugged when it is moving. ( I don't really expect an answer to that, it's just weird because they are two separate systems).

[Tang - RC.Senshado]

Video of it would help. But yeah probably they are set to the wrong modes is my best guess at this point, other than the recoil arm and elevation arm making contact somehow. Anywho, my explanations might be a bit in layman terms cause I myself am a layman so please forgive me

[quitcherbitchen]

Servos can get jittery just before going out. There are people that break their servos in by moving them on a servo tester for a set amount of time. Sounds too anal retentive for tanks, but some servos are definitely made better then others. Just make sure you get metal geared D-90 class servos.

[Tang - RC.Senshado]

Servos can get jittery just before going out. There are people that break their servos in by moving them on a servo tester for a set amount of time. Sounds too anal retentive for tanks, but some servos are definitely made better then others. Just make sure you get metal geared D-90 class servos.

Also adding my experience, most turrets and recoil "kits" come with servos that are barely sufficient for the job but I always upgrade them for something more heavy duty. Gives more room for error after you smack them and helps move the longer barrels with more authority. The servos that come in stock the Tongdes and Coolbanks I bought are inadequate and fail early. My philosophy: upgraded servo being underworked > stock servo being overworked

[glocke12]

Video of it would help. But yeah probably they are set to the wrong modes is my best guess at this point, other than the recoil arm and elevation arm making contact somehow. Anywho, my explanations might be a bit in layman terms cause I myself am a layman so please forgive me

there is a video in post #5 above.

I am starting to think it could be going bad. When I was testing it without the servo horn attached and I used the controller to move the servo to what would be the lower limit, I could feel the servo working..it felt " jittery ". Both the cannon recoil system and the elevation system both use the same type of servo, so I may just end up swapping them around and seeing what happens.



Appreciate all the help.

[glocke12]

Okey dokey...

I think I have successfully got all of this figured out amazingly enough. This has actually been keeping me up at night to some extent if you can believe that. Mainly because these things aren't cheap, and the overall lack of support available on these is non-existent. I never thought buying one of these would lead to having to take a crash course in electronics diagnostics and repair lol...

It was the servo that controls the cannon barrel elevation. It's possible it failed on its own, and it's also possible I caused it to fail but improperly connecting the metal linker that runs from the cannon chassis to the servo horn.
In any case I swapped the elevator servo for the recoil servo and the glitchiness is resolved. The faulty servo seems content performing the cannon recoil function, for now anyway. I will swap that out at some point.

Now for more questions. Someone mentioned a servo tester to check the servo, is this what I want: https://www.amazon.com/Controller-Fu...%2C354&sr=8-17

What exactly will that tell me about the servo ?

Also, the servos I ordered were the ones that were originally supplied with the tank. They are EMAX ESOMAII Analog servos. Is there are better one out there or are these the better ones ?

Lastly, when the servo I am using for the cannon elevator reaches the extremes of its end points, I can tell it is still " working ", for now I am just not pushing it to those endpoints, I tried using the controller to set them to go no more than 20% ( default was 100% ) but that doesn't seem to do anything. Will the remote I am waiting on that adjusts the clark board allow me to tell the board where these endpoints are ? Or is that something I need to go back and tweak further by doing some more adjustments on the servo horn.

Also, thanks again for ALL the feedback and tips. Without this forum ( as well as RCtankwarfare) I would have been at a loss as to what to do.