hi all, im, still in the early stages of this hobby but im planning on building a Richelieu with all turrets/cannons armed and im wondering if this is the best way of using channels: forward cannons: fire (switch channel), rotate (right stick, left and right), so one proportional channel depress (right stick up down), this will also depress the rear cannons aswell, second proportional channel rudder: (left stick right left) third proportional throttle: (left stick up down) fourth proportional rear cannons: fire top and left(switch) fire top and right(switch) rotate (left, right) some other proportional channel depress( linked with foward cannons on the right stick, up down). now, i do realise that the cannons can be depressed using a switch channel but i wanted variable range for the richelieu's cannons. and that i dont need all the cannons armed but for now lets just concider the how. Ooo and also one other switch channel for the pump, or just have it on all the time saving a channel. so... thats 5 proportional channels and 3 switch channels or 4 switch channels if you include the pump, so does anyone know of a radio that has 9 channels with 5 being proportional channels? or a better way to achive the same result?
Usual practice here in Oz is to just leave the pump running. Slave your front and rear rotation onto one channel. All guns left, all guns right. Your main guns will rotate a fair way aft, so there's no real need to have your stern guns rotating far enough to interfere with each other. Just have Fire Mains, Fire Secondaries. Much simpler.
Have you looked at using a microcontroller? It takes a bit more effort to write your own program, but then you're not worried about channels, just outputs on the reciever's side. James
nup.. havent looked into useing a microcontroller, what is a microcontoller? also, if a link up my rear and front cannons i would only be able to rotate them full left or right like you said, but i really want the rears on a seperate proportional channel so i can concentrate fire, what im going to do is remove all the springs that centre the radios sticks so that they just stay where i put them. so what i would do is on the left stick just pick a heading then i would be able to operate both front and rear cannons without fumbling around trying to kept the ship going were i want it to. that sounds like it would work.
Hmmmm - idi not see you having a fire switch for yhr mains.... If you have 6 proportional channels available, a potential layout is: A channel for rudder A channel for throttle A channel for depression - all guns A channel for forward gun rotation A channel for fire forward/fire aft. You can use your rudder channel for the stern guns (and rotate them opposite to the direction fo the rudder to brting them on target quickly). You can also mechanically decouple the foring of the stern gun whhich cannot come to bear. This leaves you with a channel for the pump or another feature on a radio with 6 proportional channels like the $33 Hobby King.(OJ, about $38 with progrramming cable, and another $20 if you want express shipping).m However, check out the rthread on this radio - you will need to download the software to program it, and it comes with -0- instructions. It is not difficult, but perhaps not for the newb who is afraid to get into the radio and hack it for switches, etc. For microcontroller experiments, I would suggest starting with a Picaxe 3 servo controller, especially if you are new. It is inexpensive, is designed to control servos, and the programming interface is free (and is a relatively high-level, easy to use, form of BASIC). The AXE-024 (I believe that is the part number) available from Advanced Micricircuits, Sparkfun, and others, is what I use for my Fire Control Assistant that I have been experimenting with. It reads copntrol signals from 3 channels and contols one based on the combined settings. If you will go to the Picaxe.com home page, find the manual, and go to the first section, it will give you a good explanation of what microcontrollers do. Cheers,
cheers for claifiying what a micro controller is, if my idea doesnt work ill have to use one of these but to my delight i think i found a solution to the problem of the rear cannons, i emailed futaba about their 10CG radio, click the linky,link for a pic of it: or if that doesnt work copy paste into your browser http://www.sussex-model-centre.co.u...a-10CG.jpg and.... see those 3 silver dial knobs in the middle of the sticks, the guy said you can assign any channel from 5 through to channel 8 to one of those knobs, so hay presto, three proportional channels for the rear cannons and the best bit is they are set up in a way that is all most the same as they a set up on the ship and, yes it gets better, this eliminates the need for a complex pulley/slipper pulley setup to get the rear cannons pionting where you want them, woo whooo! (does happy dance around the room) now i know this radio is a tad more expencive then $38, but if you go on alibaba.com, a whole saling web site or, of course ebay, you can get them for $200US.
Hmmm - cheapest I have seen for that one is a tad over $400 for that particular model with RX (the RX is over $100 alone). That is 10x the price of the Hobby King, and I would be a tad nervous about modding it (no issues with modding one of my HIKs - they are almost a disposable commodity at under $50 each - I order in multiples). But, each to their own. The stern guns do not require anything particularly difficult. Yos you can use pulleys and springs. Or you can use asymetrial levers/camwheel (I have seen this done for the triple rudders on a Roma - no springs, no clutches). Many people do this accidentally when setting up their rudder, and get much more throw in one direction than another. One thing to sconsider - the more controls you have, the more complex the ship is to operate. This makes you take your head out of the battle to look at/tend the radio. That is why I worked on the FCA (Fire Control Assistant) - to offload operator tasks. You might want to start with the stern guns jut fixed directly astern and aim them with the ship. This is very easy and requires no additional channels. Then determine if you want/need/can handle the additional complexity. I have stern turrets for my Dunkerque, but have not even installed them (yet). No real need. She is plenty deadly as is, and can fire over her shoulder if needed. Eventually, who knows? One last thing. If the ship is not pretty far along, you might want to hold off on the radio. I recommend the Radio as the last major purchase. The reason is that, due to advances, the market changes wildly - the radio you want now may be cheaper or outdated by the time you get the ship on the water. And Strike may have their ship controller system (more channels and an integrated fire control system) on the market by then. Cheers,
yeah, tell me about it.... but if im going to build a ship with 5 turrets it was always going to be an expencive build. however, i found a guy on alibaba.com, a whole saling site that wants $110 AU, for each but the minimum order is 5 radios, so either way its still expencive but when you look at car radios that only have four channels they can be even more expencive, depending on what brand you buy, for example my LHS wants $700 for a 4ch futaba car radio and thats without servos.
woop, just read the rest of your post, yeah, that cam idea seems like it will work, have to look int that one, and yes i will be buying the radio last like you said, that is a very smart sugestion. i will most likley have all the rear turrets fixed straight back wile i work on geting them to all rotate with the fewest posible channels. although this is off topic form the electrical and radio section, i didnt know that the dunkerque could be fully armed, is that for fast gun or big gun? becasue in big gun the rear turret calibour is to small to be armed, dont know that for sure though, i could be wrong, it might just be the AUSBG rule set. the dunkerque was my first choice, when i first found the link to a pic of it i was like 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20!!!! daaauuum 20 cannons?!?!?! gotta get me one of those! i can see your concerns about having to many controls for the ship, but with that type of radio all the channels from 5 through to channel 10 can be assigned to any of the swtiches or the knobs, so ill try to explane in words what i intend to do if i go down that path, firstly ill have three channels assigned to the three knobs for the rear cannons, now to make things less fiddly, what i want to do is either put a servo horn on the top each knob or what i really want, a tiny scale turret on each to repesent the rear turrets of the ship, that way were ever the turrets/horns on the radio are pionting that will be were the turrets on the ship are pionting, hence i dont have to look at the radio to see what knob i have to turn, i cant just feel with my hand/fingers. as for firing the rear cannons, ill have a switch on the left of the radio that will fire both the top and left turrets, and on the right switch, yep you guessed it, it will fire the right and top turrets, to get this to work i just use a y harness off two channels to get four servos, simple. and remember if i have the springs removed from the sticks ive got both hands to work the cannons. although ill need a neck strap for all this to work....
The stern guns on the Dunk are 120mm, which is more than 3", the minimum allowable for arming in Big Gun. Small/Fast Gund generally do not allow arming secondaries, from what I understand. However, there are issues. Barrel spacing under Big Gun rules, at least in NTXBG, prevents fitting all 4 barrels in the turret. On the other hand, you can put two armed barrels in and two dummy barrels in each turret, and double the rate of fire under NTXBG rules - your club may divver. This would beive me 6 BB guns off the stern that would have a 1 sec effective ROF. Cool. However, I still have not armed them. Although I do have 3 twin BB caliber turrets lined up for the task. Strike Models carries a Dunkerque hull that I understand ifs very nice, b the way. I have often thought about reworking mine into a new Strike hull. Cheers,
yay! i can put 20 cannons on my ship. yeah my club doesnt allow anything smaller then 3/16'' which is 3.00'' to 10.99'' in their rule set, not srre on the spacing thing, is that a set in stone rule for all big gun or is it a club type thing? but i think ill make that my third build after the Richilieu
Most Big Gun clubs have a similar spacing rule, from what I can tell. What club are you in? If 3/16" is representing 3" guns, sounds like AUSBG?
Ok. Per AUSBG rules "2.1.8. The minimum spacing between cannon barrels must be the width of the outside dimension of an adjacent cannon barrel, or scale spacing, whichever is greater." You are talking a 3/16" ID barrel. So, depending on the barrel thickness, the outside dimension of the barrel would be about 1/4" ritght? Thus, they would need to be about 1/4" apart? So, the outer edge of barrel 1 to far edge of barrel 4 would be a nimimum of barrel 4 would be about 7/4" or 1.75" - a bit wide to fit in those turrets a scale, though perhaps possible. I would have to measure my plans. Do keep in mind that more guns armed = more complexity. Not only in operation, but in maintenance and failure points. My observation is that a more reliable, but inferiorly armed ship, when captained by a good captain, usually trumps a ship with somewhat superior armament but which is lesss reliable. Of course, that is just my .02, ymmb. Cheers,
cheers for the info on those rules wrenow will keep that in mind, about the more guns = more complexity part
Yep, as already recommended - with one of the French Richelieu or Dunkerque classes, get the ship solid and reliable with the mains before even considering the secondaries. You may find you do not want/need them. If you do decide to add them, you are adding to an already stable and deadly ship that you already know how to fight. On the Richelieu we have in our club, I find I frequently need to remind the captain to use his stern guns on me. ;- ) Cheers,
ill most defently want them on the ship rather then need them, i just cant see myself having fake balsa turrets on the back and knowing that they could have been be real ones. btw when you say 'remind', does that involve sneeking up on him from behind(if thats even posible in combat) or just shooting him in general?
for anyone interested, i found a wholesale suppler (on alibaba.com) thats can ship one unit of the futaba 10cg 2.4ghz heli mode 2 tranny only, for US$175 and $30 shiping cost to australia, if you want one or want to find out the shipping cost of the radio to were ever you are heres the web site http://www.alibaba.com/product/sg11...Radio.html to leave a message you may have to create an account with the website, but dont worry its free now if you go to the site it will say airplane radio, not heli, but i emailed him and when you get it it will be in heli mode, but its got 4 diferent modes for heli and plane so it doesnt really matter what mode it is becasue you can change it
Remind: I was vulnerable (an unarmed freighter who had become mossed or something, don't recall, but was unable to move). He pulled up and sarted to blast me with his 8 1/4" mains. I told him "Wait!" and he stopped and looked at me quizically. I asked him "don't you want to use the sterns on this shot?" An "Aha!" moment crossed his face. He replied, "Good plan." He then turned and peppered me a couple of times with the stern guns. I think that was his first kill with them. Cheers,
