1/6th RC Stuart drive electronics figured out

["Flier" <flier-at-sbcglobal.net>]

FYI, spent an hour or so this evening and figured out the Stuart drive
electronics.  There's a 22 pin IC on the main board labeled 8A991AP that's
apparently an RF decoder.  I was able to probe out the pins that enable the
right forward, right backward, turret left, turret right, MG & cannon
'fire', etc., etc.  This'll save a lot of time interfacing a standard RC
system to the tank as all the drive electronics can stay stock and you still
get the sound effects.

Pull the pin(s) positive (high) and you get the resulting movement together
with sound effects.  It'll be pretty simple to interface to
servos/microswitches.  I'm gonna play around with some logic to see if I can
figure out a joystick mixer.  If not I'll resort to 4 small SPDT relays and
a diode/relay mixer.  I might even incorporate a little RC switch circuit
and 555 timer to toggle the cannon 'fire' sound and resulting brief recoil
(drive motors kick back a little) AFTER the paintball marker fires.

Anyway, ends up being pretty simple.  I'll post out on my website when it's
complete.

Regards,

Ted   www.foxflier.com