IBC help

[blazerbotics]

I would say that they both are very similar, but with the Vantec you have the option to alter the ramps/curves ect (although all ours are running on the factory defaults).

http://www.blazerbotics.co.ukwww.blazerbotics.co.uk

[geoff]

Ian,
I havent used an IBC in Scorpion Jr. yet, but I have used both in Pillow Torque. As for which is better, my personal view is there is very little difference in overall quality of control. Although as Alan says, you do have the option of changing the ramps and curves on the Vantec, I have also found the default setting (fast ramps & expo. steer) is about as good as you will ever need.
The IBC is a true linear mix (equal throttle and steer curves and wickedly fast ramps) which is VERY precise. In a 4WD machine such as Pillow Torque the IBC gives very good results, but the linear mix and very fast ramps can make the throttle feel slightly twitchy and the steering feel a little clinical but you do get used to it very quickly. The Vantec on the other hand with its expo. steering curves and slightly slower ramps does have a softer feel. (You can program the Vantec with a true linear mix if you prefer it). The IBC does have the advantage of an onboard BEC to run your RX and a flip function that reverses the throttle input if you machine can run either way up and you also get 2 switched outputs for weapon control. You dont get any of those on the Vantec. I have found that the fail safe software on the IBC is VERY sensitive (no bad thing) so you do need a good radio set up and well suppressed motors or the IBC can fail safe without warning. The Vantec is a little more forgiving of the odd bad radio signal but is still more than good enough to pass any tech check.
Hope this is of some help.

Geoff.

The IBC is a lot easier to use if your using a old 2ch style radio with one stick for throttle and one for steering. Quite a few guys over here are using wheel radios and they seem to have brilliant controll over those using single stick controlls.

[glen]

ah yes i am one of those people with the wheel radio

just being able to control each axis seperately means awesome control over the twitchy single sticks.

but i think your better off buying a radio that can adjust the things like dead rates, epa, exponential and you can set up most things to drive however you like.

but i do agree with the IBCs failsafe twitchyness. but opto-isolating the servo leads works a treat for fixing that.

but surely the thing about the old or steering wheel radio applies to both? i dont really understand what you mean, are you on about the mixer?

I found the failsfaes on the IBC were very twitchy, i had to put an external arial on Alpha. But with the vantec ive ran with a 6inch bit of wire inside the robot, and its worked fine!

Ive thought about using a wheel transmitter on Alpha, but it could be very wierd driving upside down. Also wheel Txs would be difficult to activate a weapon as well. I suppose it depends what people can use best.

[ewan]

Ive had the failsafing IBC problems too, it seems they set the failsafing values a little to tightly, I think that even a 0.9-2.1ms acceptance range could be suitable for figting robots. On the new controller Im making Im setting the values at 0.95-2.05ms, this should hopefully have the best of both worlds.

[knightrous]

The IBC just has the standard OSMC fail safeing code in it. Weve minimised the fail safe issues by tuning our aerials and shielding the RX as much as possible, now we rarely have problems, only now and again when something unusual happens we pick some up.

@Alan: I was referring to the way the stick configurations can affect driving. With a single stick does everything setup, if you want to go forward sometimes you get a little bit of left/right movement from teh stick as well depending how good you are, which may cause the bot to drive to either side a bit. With the seperate stick for throttle and steering, you can negate this issue. We found with one of our robots, it was very twitch in turning, so we used lower steering rates on our radio and it fixed the problem brilliantly!

[blazerbotics]

I see what your saying, but ive never had a problem with that. You could just alter the springs in the back of the TX so that it requires more force to move the stick off centre, and that doesnt limit anything.

I have found people who drive single stick tend to be alot smoother then people who dont, something to do with the way the brain works (or doesnt in most of our cases :P).

BTW the only bad thing i have to say about the Vantec is the connector block, nothing that a cable tie cant fix tho!

[psychostorm]

Glen, you mentioned opto-isolating the servo leads.
Any circuit diagrams for this? as I am not the best at it.*cough*