H*E*A*T Forums

On Feb 10, 2008, at 3:30 PM, Dana Lowell wrote:

Hi Rich, in addition to your list of ideas for new RC tanks, can you
also make a suggestion about an upgrade in the Tamiya Battle System?
Many of us over the years have chatted about how they could improved the system to make it more competative and realistic.

Some ideas for a "TBS 2.0" might include:
-Changes in the 45 degree defense
-Changes in the IR pulse time
-The ability to receive hits on the deck of hull & turret
-Adding IR receivers to the hull
-Correcting the "spontaneous reset" quirks
-Coding the IR signals so games can be scored on a computer.

The last idea is my pet dream for a new system! I think it would be
so cool to have streaming telemetry on a laptop that charts "who shot who". I understand that the RC aircraft guys can score dogfights...so the technology exists.

So if you could inquire about electronics with Tamiya, that would be great. Frankly, I suspect that the reason hobby shops are having trouble stocking the TBUs recently is that Tamiya might be trying to run out the overstock before introducing something new!...so maybe they are already thinking about it.

What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks, Dana
heatarmor.com

Reply from Rich Upton:
-----------------------------

Dana,

We can speculate til the cows come home, of course. I don't have a
spy in Japan nor have any more insight into them then the average
person. Anyone who thinks they have a good notion of what is going
on can comment here.

A more sophisticated system would be appreciated, I'm sure, and maybe
someday that will happen. It may be asking too much to include this
with the survey, although. I have too much to do as it is. But, at
some point we could prepare a letter about all the ideas you have and
give it a shot. Kevin and I did so about mechanical issues, and had
it acknowledged, but nothing came of it that I could tell. Bottom
line: it doesn't hurt to pass on our desires. Perhaps you can
compose a letter spelling out what you want in more detail but
without getting too verbose, because they have to work a bit at
reading the English .

For the most part even if Tamiya was preparing something new with the
battle system along those lines you mention -- a long shot -- they
wouldn't want to let that out until just before they were going to
sell it.

Your conclusion that that is why it is so hard to get the TBU is
wishful thinking I think. I'm with you on it, but the tanks are
already too expensive, they may not want to up the ante. In fact,
they are under attack from all the Chinese manufacturers and this has
got to hurt in some regard, but then, again those of us who want to
run with Tamiya Electronics in the Hen-long or Trumpeter tanks and so
sometimes buy a whole Tamiya tank to do so...well, that has to be
healthy for their bottom line. So it is hard for us to know if it's a
wash or not for them without some feedback from an industry insider.

For me, I am impacted by the recession we are in now, and I think
that a year or two from now it may be a more difficult environment
for manufacturers who aren't doing their manufacturing in China to
justify great expenditures on new products. Then, again, competition
can bring about some surprising things. I wouldn't underestimate the
need for survival for any of these companies in that they may feel
compelled to really offer up new products. It could lead to a whole
new battle system. Another long shot, for sure.

If we should export our recession to the rest of the world it would
be unfortunate. Our falling dollar will hurt us first as we begin
to really pay for our deficit style government and society in
general. Then later as we buy less it will impact more and more of
the world since we are, in fact, in a global economy.

Rich

Update from Rich Upton:
-----------------------------


Dana,

One of our BAT guys, Rob Penman, found this new product at the Tank Zone in G.B.:

http://www.tankzone.co.uk/cart/hl_egs.htm

The size of this EGS -- "Electronic GunSimulation System" is small
enough to put into just about anything. Although it states
"Compatible with Tamiya Battle System" one has to wonder what is not included such as sound for one.

Although this isn't what you were looking for it is still pretty cool
to see that perhaps Tamiya's strangle hold on the expensive Battle System may be broken. This will open up the hobby to a whole new tier of guys as it makes the hobby of tank combat much, much more affordable.

At a model Expo yesterday I had to break the hearts of some 8-10 year olds after demonstrating our combat tanks when I told them the cost. Maybe now I can give them -- and their dads -- some good news!

Perhaps there are some tank brothers in G.B who could supply more info on this pretty interesting item!

Rich

Reply:

Thanks for the link Rich. Hopefully all the new tank electronics
competition coming from China, England and even the garage tinkerers
here in America will coax Tamiya to come out with his own TBS upgrade
soon. Hey, wishful thinking ain't always a bad thing!
Thanks, Dana

Randy, I still think we need a new add-on to the Tamiya system that tabulates "who hits who". Because the current system really only gives an indication of who might get awarded the "kill", (and even that is debated sometimes). In other words, Doug might put 8 hits on an opponent, but I come in at the end for the 9th hit and get awarded the kill. He should be recognized for his "RBIs" here. So rather than putting so much emphasis on "scores" and "wins", this device would be able to show us who valiantly "gave his life" for the team, by telling us who took a pounding by whom early in the game.

The system would need to generate a unique coded IR wave from each emitter. Then each receiver would have to be able read the codes. Then we would need rapid imput into someone's laptop so we could tabulate a running scoreboard.

I know we have daydreamed about this in the past, but is a drop-in component practical, and relatively inexpensive, for us to attempt? I'm getting impatient waiting for Tamiya to come up with this kind of thing!

Dana,
Technically, very feasible. One issue is how to read-out the information. I have concerns about how practical it would be to have everyone drive their tanks to someone and wait in line while we download some info, especially as their batteries slowly die out. What happens when someone shuts off their tank or it resets? There is also an issue with this system recording a hit, but the Tamiya one not doing so (or if there is a reset). It is not clear when to reset the custom counters. Those some of the technical/practical issues, but there are two issues that have really kept me from doing this:

(1) This only works if everyone gets one and installs it properly. We have enough problems with tanks not working properly (electrical issues) to begin with and this mod would have to intercept both the firing LED (which is a major electrical pain) and the receiving. I just don't think everyone will get one and I don't want to spend 1/2 a battleday trying to put one in someone's tank.

(2) We do not have large enough numbers to offset the non-recurring engineering (NRE) costs and still keep the price down. A really nice system that would include zigbee networking and remote device control would probably run $100/unit + $3000 in NRE.

The idea of a new electronics set has been rehashed a number of times, and sure, it can be done, but is it really worth it so we can keep more accurate "score" (remember a competition battle is not always about who gets the most hits, Bret single handedly won a competition battle the other day by stepping up and taking a beating to save his team)?

Tamiya will never do what you want here, don't bother waiting for it. They make toys, not sports equipment. If you are really looking for competition, then I suggest a very different approach: we build a set of competition tanks with full custom circuits, identical motors, tank models, etc and use them for competition.

Hey guys, look at this website about laser tag scoring technology:

http://www.lasertagparts.com/ltto.htm

Hello guys,
Have not been here in a long while but finally had to re-register!
Anyways, Have you seen some of the electronics coming from Impact. Some really interesting stuff going on there. the mini ACT is of particular interest. I imagine that Impact will be coming out with an advanced battle system before Tamiya will.
Anyway, just my thoughts on it, the only potential drawback is the price.

Will

Here is a video of the Impact electronics that kill any tank in two hits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o07tetMpFg8