RC Tanks Australia Forum

Hey All

Hard to believe that that the old MAKO2 design lasted for a whole year. I guess the move to a majority of SMD components was well overdue but it's finally here. The MAKO2 board has been redesigned for 2014 using SMD components thus decreasing the overall footprint of the board. The basic layout is still similar to the very first MAKO ever with the 5-pin input on the left and 5-pin output on the top right.

There have been a few other changes with the board no longer featuring an 'on board' LED and support for the WSN protocol has been dropped. This has allowed for the introduction of a Battle Unit Tactical Identification Number (BUTIN) to the MAKO operating system. More on BUTIN later.

IMPORTANT: Everyone should be aware that the MAKO2 SMD board is primarily only a cosmetic change. The new functions such as BUTIN exist in the program running on the MAKO chip and hence ALL previous MAKO2 designs can be updated to run the new program with BUTIN. The old design is NOT outdated. To update to the new IR battle system current MAKO2 users can order an updated MAKO2 chip or buy a MAKO Update Cable and reflash their current MAKO2.

The videos below provide a quick look at MAKO2 SMD showing the various connections, how to assign a BUTIN and the BUTIN in action.