RC Tanks Australia Forum

I have purchased from RCTanks Australia a Turnigy 9x with tank firmware and a HL interface unit. Will the unit come with instructions on how to operate with HL unit, and if so which switches toggles etc mimmick the original HL transmitter. I am new to this 2.4ghz type radio control, but I would like ONE transmitter to be able to operate all of my tanks instead of having SEVEN different controllers which the 9x seems to fit the bill.

Hi Lonewolf

Moving up for the Heng Long system into the world of 2.4ghz can be a big step. True hobby grade radio systems have a standard system that is meant to control a wide variety of brands, products and vehicles.

The Heng Long system is a dedicated sytem so the controllers have buttons designed to do certain things for the RX-18. When you upgrade to a true radio system, RC2HL, El Mod, Tamiya or SGS what you can do and how you can do it is limited by what your radio can do and how well you can operate your radio.

For example to make full use of the potential of an EL Mod Eco unit your radio should have a 3 position toggle switch for turning on/off the unit. So unless you have such a switch that can be assigned to Channel 5 on your radio transmitter you can not make use of this function.

Fortunately, you have made a very wise decision getting a 9X/RC2HL combo from RCTA. The tankER9X firmware installed on the radio allows you to assign practically any function to any of the switches, pots and levers. The tankER9X version that will come on your radio will have full RC2HL support. The first model slot will be pre-loaded to control your RC2HL and should you ever accidentally erase this model the settings can be re-loaded from the Templates menu. All that you will have to do is plug the unit in correctly and play.

Also you should be aware that the 8 channel receiver that comes standard with the Turnigy 9X does NOT work with the RC2HL (This information is on the site) Again, you will not need to worry about this as you will receiver a HK-T6A V2 instead. This receiver will be bound to your 9X prior to shipping.

I very very STRONGLY suggest that you read the ER9X user manual while your 9X in enroute. You can download it from here.



Videos on the 9X and RC2HL are on the to do list for this weekend. But in summary you will not get any written material as everything will be available online.

The 9X/RC2HL works like this:

Right Stick - normal forward reverse and steering.
Left Stick - Up - cannon fire
Left Stick - Down (Slight) - gun elevation
Left Stick - Down (Full) - machine gun fire
Left Stick - Left/right - turret rotation
3 psn Switch - Up - Tank ON/Off
3 psn Switch - Down (Tank Volume MUTE - PotHead Required)
THR Switch - Machine gun fire
TRN Switch - Cannon fire - Servo recoil support for Channel 5
Pot2 - Volume control (Ch6 - PotHead required)

When the revised edition of the RC2HL guide is finished (also by this weekend) you will get an email.
Rest assured that as much of the setup will be done and tested before your unit is shipped so that the upgrade will be as quick and as easy as possible.

Cheers
Kevin G

_________________

rctanksaustralia.com

thank you for the update, I look forward to using my new setup and entering the world of 2.4 hobby radio.

I have recieved my 9x with rc2hl converter, everything works as the old HL transmitter did.
I have seen backlight kits for sale and wondered how hard it is to fit one, so i took the transmmiter apart and as far as I can see there is a backlight unit already fitted, but it does not work, unless there is a special way to switch it on. I have seen a Utube video about fitting one involving fitting a transistor to the connector unit and soldering a lead to the corner of the main chip. But this seems to already have been done.
Excuse the pun, but could you shed some light on the situation please.
I have tried to use the usb link to the pc to have a go at using the EEPEE software, but it keeps saying there is no device fitted to the USB or it tries to read the memory but cannot do anything. The green LED on the smart board is on, do I have to disconnect the battery or switch the radio on to do this, I thought I would ask as I don't want to blow it up, It costs a fortune to send stuff from ENGLAND to AUSTRALIA.
I cannot wait to program the channels to do different things especially when I will have FOUR channels to play with, I have ordered a TURNIGY Speed control unit that splits the feed to 3 other servos but slows them down, which would open the front hatches on my Tiger1. And I can use relays to light up different LED's when I fire the machine gun.
This opens up a whole new dimension to my hobby, as long as I can get it to work properly.
Thank you, and all the others that have been able to design these great pieces of equipment to play around with and expand my hobby.

Just took the plunge and had a look at what the programmed steps are on the radio, when scrolling through the menus saw a light on one, set it to ELE and low and behold when I flick the ELEVATOR switch the backlight comes on. One of my problems solved.
I am totally new to this PROPER RC stuff, only ever had Heng Long. Did not want to play around with settings too much in case I screwed it up and could no longer use it, hence I wanted to copy the firnware and settings in EEPEE so that I could undo it if I completely crashed it.I have taken up Tanking as a hobby to help fill my time and keep the old grey matter active now that I have retired, I know you younger guys might have been doing this sort of thing for years and find it easy, but at my age (60) it takes a bit longer to get your head around modern technology.
Thanks for your help and support so far.

the reason windows cannot see the USBAP card is because it does not have a driver, it tries to install it but fails because it cannot install a valid driver. Do you know where I can download a seperate driver to install on windows that is compatible with the USB interface board supplied with the radio please. The USB port I am using allows my Camera,Flash drive and phone to operate from it so it is not that.
I just don't know what the problem is, does the USB interface board have a driver pre-installed on it and if so is it compatible to Windows 7.

Hi I read on a USBAP website about downloading a driver for windows7 and then go into control panel then device manager.Click on USB devices, then double click that and try the update driver bit, when it asks for the location, click on "I will do it manually", locate the driver you have down loaded and windows will stop and say it is not a signed driver, click carry on anyway. When you plug your interface board in it will not show as a device on "my computer" like a flash drive etc, but if you open EEPEE it will see it and you can read and write to it.
It's called USBasp-win-driver-x86-x64-ia64-v1.2.4. if it's zipped then unzip and install.
I think it might be bundled with the download from the EEPEE website, not sure, done that much searching and downloading got a headache, NEED A BEER!!!!!!!!!

Hi Lonewolf

Yes I installed a backlight for you because I knew that you would of wanted one and sending back to Australia would of been silly.

The backlight installation is not the same as a normal one. The backlight circuit board needs to be modified so that you can control the on/off with the software.

Yep the trickiest thing is those darn Windows 7 drivers. But they do work. There is extensive help and documentation on the ER9X site:



There was no real need for you to have bought a Turingy Speed controller as:
1. It will interfere with the RC2HL operation if you put it on any of the first 4 channels and
2. There is speed up and speed down control right there in your 9X

In the RC2HL program I have made Channel 5 is set aside to control a recoil servo. If you connect a normal servo to Channel 5 you will see how it works. Fire the gun and the servo will 'snap' back. The 9X then tells the servo to return to the starting position at a slower rate. If you look at the MIX settings for Channel 5 as you scroll down you will see settings for "Speed Up" and "Speed Down". These settings can also be used to impart a bit of momentum to your tank. I have also done this for you already.

I'm very glad that you seem excited about your new system. Once you have the drivers installed for yor USB interface and your 9X and computer can "talk" to each other then you will see just how good the system can be.

Cheers
Kevin G

_________________

rctanksaustralia.com

Just a reminder that if you scroll through the radio setup on your 9X you will come to the info screen which will lok abit like the one below



The WEB refers to where all the files for tankER9X are available for download. IF you type:

bit.ly/tanker9x

into your browser you wil go to where the lastest version of tankER9x is posted as well as the drivers for the USP programmer.

Cheers

_________________

rctanksaustralia.com

I was thinking of using the splitter/slow down Turnigy unit on one of the extra channels (ch6), I would not dare to mess with the first four channels in case I messed things up for the basic operation of the tank. Which is the best to switch on first the radio or the tank as I have noticed the servo's I have fitted to test the function of the remaining channels jitter about quite a bit on firing things up, if you have connected things to them you will have to allow for over travel on start up. It would be good if you could get the 8channel reciever to work with the RC2HL unit,boy would I have fun designing things to operate on my tanks, if the first 4 channels operate the RC2HL interface how come the rest of the channels don't work on the reciever, or is that due to some weird and wonderful electronics interface thing.
Still thanks for all the help and advice, this is really keeping me busy, my son keeps telling me that doing this much thinking at my age is no good for me, but I have to disagree it's keeping my brain from turning like a cabbage................