HELP! hyperdyne labs rangefinder servo controller

This thread is a little old, so you may have got it working by now....

I just got my Servo Board and Receiver in yesterday and it works fine (I got the control board & receiver kit together to they are already wired to each other). But if I didn't have the instructions I'm sure I would have done something wrong. I've scanned the first few pages of the instructions and sent them to you via PM (didn't know if posting them here would violate any rules or such....). Hope they help you out. If I screwed up on the PM (which I prob did...), LMK and I can figure out how to make the scans clearer and easier to read.

Good luck!

Thanks man thats much appreciated! It is a lil old, but i STILL havent figured it out. I actually havent touched it since i posted this. Hyperdyne never got back to me.
The pics are too small to read though, but If you can e-mail em to me, that would be great! tk6908@gmail.com thanks again man! hopefully i can get this thing working!

Email incoming!
I'm not sure what could be causing the issue. Maybe how the servo is plugged in to the board (the instructions say to be sure to have the servo's black ground wire nearest tot he resistor by the edge of the board)? Or maybe a wire came loose in the receiver board?
Good luck & let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks man...well i know one issue is my servo doesn t have a "plug" its just 3 wires...so im going to get a new servo and try again. thanks for the help man..hoping i can get it working once i have a new servo!

Ok had this on hold for a second...i ordered a new servo, and got a shaft attachment for it as well. Gonna hit home depot next week and try to get some set screws. Then im gonna give this another shot. Thanks to TK1072 for the info..hopefully it will get this goin!

Servo and shaft arrived! I may try and mess with it this weekend. Got alot to get done though for other people! hoping to have all commissions done by the end of this month/beginning of next month...then i can really get into upgrading my stuff some more

Hey Darth!

I've got a Hyperdyne set up and it came pre-wired. Jim (at Hyperdyne) sent me a color install wiring diagram. If you would like a copy I can email it to you.

In regards to the shaft attachment, what exactly are you talking about? My lid is from Bobamaker and is totally awesome, but it's too thick at the ear cap for the bushing and I am having a hell of a time figuring out how to attach it to the shaft. The 77BB servo that came with the hyperdyne setup has enough torque to break the 5 minute epoxy bond I establish. The thickness of the lid is exactly 2 bushings so I'm trying to figure out how to make the drive shaft on the servo longer. Is this the attachment you are talking about? If so, are you using the same HiTech servo?

Here's the servo I'm working with...

HS-77BB - Hitec RCD

Thanks,

Douglas (Warpcell)

hey doug!

TK1072 sent me a copy of his, im going to guess its the same. but thank you!

Im using the same servo! Check out the stickied thread here:
http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f23/r...utorial-25704/

He shows a shaft that can be added to the shaft on the servo to extend it. he also shows a great way to secure the stalk to said shaft attachment. I bought some metal bits and a tap set to add a set screw to the stalk. excellent tutorial.

i bought the shaft attachment and the servo at servocity. heres the link to the shaft attachment:
Servo Shaft Attachment (.250")

Hey Darth,



I found a way to shoe horn the system into the bucket. The quality of Darren's build is awesome. Now all I have to do is get this extension and I'm in business.

Thanks again for that link! I hope you get the wiring figured out. I'd me happy to take pics of my boards if it will help you. I got the RF transmitter system with the key fob. Let me know if you want to pics. I haven't mounted it yet and can get them to you in a flash.

Thanks,

- Douglas

yea man id love that! you can send em to the e-mail i posted a couple of posts up. i have the key fob as well...havent even thought about how im gonna get that to work in a gauntlet yet lol

Here you go....

Beautiful...you are the man! Between the instruction sheet and your pics, i should be able to get this going! Wish i didnt have to go to work tomorrow or id stay up tonight haha. thanks again bud!

Here's pics from my other link about the key fob hotwire.

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No problem Darth!

Sorry I didn't see your post earlier. I'd love to see an shot of the inside of your bucket when you get all this stuff installed.

Good luck!

- Douglas

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Hi Warpcell,
Nice work on installing the key fob in the gauntlet!! I have wanted to do something like this since I got my control board installed but had no idea how to get it done. Thanks for posting the instructions to your mod!
Take care,
-Dave

Hi Darth,

If your remote has 2 buttons, one button sends the signal to lower the stalk and the other raises the stalk. If you have a switch on the smaller board (like in my photo) it allows the buttons to manually control the stalks motion, otherwise it is pre-programmed with a static 90 degree rotation.

On my gauntlet, the button closest to my wrist lowers the stalk and the other one raises it.

Rock on Bro!

- Doug

Originally Posted by Darth Voorhees

Awesome! thanks man! you rock!

My keyfob looks different, but im guessing the same method would apply. Mine looks like an old 90's square one lol.

Also do you need to use both buttons on your gaunt? Or can a button be pressed to drop the RF and then pressed again to raise it? I have ESB fett so im going to use my right gauntlet. I have one switch hooked up to the light though.

Hi TK1072,

Thanks for the props! I love tinkering around with stuff. Be careful when you solder the board, you don't want to cross a circuit. I didn't add any solder to the connections. Rather, I just let the iron heat up the original solder just enough to get a connection to the new wires. Once the original solder grabbed onto the new wire, I used hot glued to take the torque off of the connection. I also took great care in not striping the wire too far back so it wouldn't cause an arc and short out the transmitter.

Good luck Bro!

- Warpcell (Doug)

Originally Posted by TK1072

Hi Warpcell,
Nice work on installing the key fob in the gauntlet!! I have wanted to do something like this since I got my control board installed but had no idea how to get it done. Thanks for posting the instructions to your mod!
Take care,
-Dave

It works!!! it works!! thank both of you guys so much!! I havent tried the keyfob mod yet though..that one scares me a little lol. Once i get this mounted in the helmet and have everything workin, ill grow a set and try the fob mod.

Thanks again guys!

Originally Posted by Darth Voorhees

It works!!! it works!!

Awesome; congrats on getting it working!! It's definately a cool little add-on to have to your costume.
I'll be sure to have an extra beer tonight to drink to your success

Originally Posted by TK1072

Awesome; congrats on getting it working!! It's definately a cool little add-on to have to your costume.
I'll be sure to have an extra beer tonight to drink to your success

thanks again bro!

As will I!

Congrats Darth! My servo shaft shipped today, so I should have mine up by next week. Thanks again for the help, I would never have thought of that idea.

Cheers!

Douglas

No problem Doug!...we have to thank TD2253...i would never have thought about that shaft attachment either!

This is a very cool addition. Has anyone figured out a way to slow the servo down a bit? The video from the zip-zap tutorial looks pretty fast.

The servo i have with the hyperdyne boards goes at a pretty slow speed. like maybe 4 seconds to go all the way down.

Ahh, the board controls that speed then. I wonder if something like the speed controller linked below (depending on voltage) could be added to the zip-zap circuit to adjust the speed. Three or four seconds sounds about perfect to me.

Servo Slow Down Module, 3.5 to 5.5V from Hobby Lobby

That sounds like it could work..but then, im an electrical idiot and needed these 2 helpful gentleman to help me to get this thing working...so what do i know LOL!

Darth,

I finally got my servo mounted to the stalk with the hex set bolt we have been talking about and boy was that a pain in the a$$. First of all, Bobamaker's stalk isn't as thick as others and I had to resolve to a 4-40 3/16 hex set screw. I started with drilling a very small hole and graduated bits until I was able to use my 4-40 Tap. I figured I would tell you about it in the event you hadn't fastened it to the aluminum servo shaft yet. Also, be sure you are working with new 9v batteries. My batteries were running low with all the button pushing to get the stalk adjusted and things started to act weird. I was getting really ticked off because the servo started working intermittently and I thought the board was faulty. Turns out the battery level will cause the receiver to get picky with sensing the transmission from the remote when the 9v's are running low.

Anyway, figured I would drop some info on you in the event you weren't that far along yet.

Cheers,

Douglas

Thanks for the heads up man....sounds fun lol. I have a commando8 aluminum stalk, which is thicker than the BM stock one, so hopefully that will be ok. Eventually im going to put the GMH aluminum ears on the helmet (yes i know...molded in ears...a little mod action lol) so ill have to drill and tap again lol..but thats ok..this one will give me practice.

Yea i noticed that as well with the weak batteries, i guess ill always have fresh ones with me when i troop

Dude! You're braver than me. I don't think I could cut up my bucket for aluminum ears.

Originally Posted by Darth Voorhees

Thanks for the heads up man....sounds fun lol. I have a commando8 aluminum stalk, which is thicker than the BM stock one, so hopefully that will be ok. Eventually im going to put the GMH aluminum ears on the helmet (yes i know...molded in ears...a little mod action lol) so ill have to drill and tap again lol..but thats ok..this one will give me practice.

Yea i noticed that as well with the weak batteries, i guess ill always have fresh ones with me when i troop

haha..it shouldnt be too big a deal. Im just going to fill them from the inside with fiberglass resin and fiberglass and just level them out from the outside. Im pretty confident i can do it without even damaging the paint Worse case, ill need to touch up a little around the ear area.

That's a great idea! If I ever get brave enough I'll give it a go.



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Ha! Got the pics working again! If you can get a better focused shot of the circuit board patterns, I can get a better idea for another suggestion. It's all about completing the connection away from the actual plunger switches. If you notice, in my pic of my remote in the gauntlet, I removed the buttons in order to not accidentally send a signal. Here are pics from my install plus a notated pic of your board.

Let me know if this helps!

- Warp Douglas lol

Also, here's a vid of my servo working. Finally! lol

Fett Servo - YouTube

Hi Darth,

My servo speed was set before I got it. I think its on the main board chip. When I first got the board from Jim at Hyperdyne, the servo was off by 6 degrees on the 90 degree rotation, so I emailed him and he sent me another chip to replace the one on the board. If you email him, perhaps he can answer some of your questions. I bought my servo, voice modulator, and RF light chip from him and the service has been fantastic. I would recommend contacting him through his webpage.

Love the stalk and your bucket! I may have to upgrade to an aluminum stalk in the near future!

Cheers!

- Warp

I like the rate you have on the rotation DV, but what RF blink circuit is that? It seems too fast to me. Is there a trimpot (small adjustment knob) on the circuit board for it?

I mocked up a circuit that had a blink rate more in line with what is on the supertrooper video, then took really poor video of it! LOL! I would need to shrink it way down and put it on a tilt switch, but the idea is sound.



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Looking good warpcell!

I agree with Fettered. His rangefinder blink rate is closer to the one from the Supertrooper footage and it's around a half of a second for each LED.

Altough the RF servo is not an accurate part of the real helmet(s) and is more an optional eFX (very cool) feature, the team work in this thread is great and very helpful for those interested!

Thanks doug! i tried emailing him before through the site but i never got a reply. i think mine is slightly off by a couple of degrees as well, it doesnt go quite all the way down, but im ok with it for now.

The light board is a mrgr8ness one. I agree it blinks a bit too fast but theres nothing to adjust it.

yea Raf, i like accurate looking but i also like to go for realism with most of my suits. I always thought the servo was a cool touch. Once i get my DVH helmet painted i may do one as a screen accurate replica for display..down to the micro switch for the RF lights

I know this thread is a bit old, but useful for those of us that want to go that extra fett mile. I just bought a SK set and need some help with it, I know some electronic circuitry and not sure if my set works correctly. The hyperdyne set looks good and seems easier to install.