Stuart electronics upgrade for the stock radio

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

Hi All,

Past few weeks I've been foolin' around with an idea 
for a cheap & relatively simple upgrade for the 
existing radio in the Ultimate Soldier Stuart to 
interface a couple of servos for elevation and fire 
control.  Well, I'm almost there.

In brief, the modification would be to add a an 
additional pushbutton switch to the transmitter and  
a few wires between the decoder on the Stuart's 
receiver and a programmed PIC 16f84a or 16f628 
microcontroller.  The microcontroller cycles servos 
to fire the marker and raises and lowers the barrel 
by pressing the MG button or the added-on button 
respectively.

I just finished doing a little breadboard testing on 
my code and I shocked even myself -- it seems to 
work!  I need to do some further testing on different 
servos and actually scab it into my tank but the 
prelim results look promising.  Doing it this way, 
not counting the cost of the tank itself, you're 
looking at less than $80 to outfit the tank with a 
complete marker setup.  My plan would be to offer the 
programmed PIC for a small fee to cover the device, 
programming, and postage.

I like having sticks to drive and to manipulate the 
marker so I'll probably go ahead with my 5ch Futaba 
integration since I have the radio laying around.  
This mod however would definately be an inexpensive 
way for someone who didn't already have a full blown 
RC system to get the Stuart running for combat.

I'll update my site with details and drop a note.

Regards,

Ted  
www.foxflier.com