Peterbilt 6x6 Medium Hauler

[Tommy R]

Well, Cletus has gotten all gussied up so he can scour the truck stops for lot lizards!


I told him his toupe looks ridiculous.


Since I got rid of the raised transmission I decided to get a new floor section that wasn't cut up. I also painted and detailed the seats a bit.


Uh oh, the Lesu trans is also too tall.


A 2mm body lift under the cab and sleeper did the trick.


Barely noticeable.


Here you can also see the plates I put on the bumper and I also added some lenses to the Lesu headlights because they weren't included!


Speaking of the Lesu headlights, it's not going to be easy to wire these up cleanly!


Since I'm planning my trailer build, I also picked up some aluminum axles and some cheap wheels. For now I'll use the extra Lesu AT tires I had laying around, though I'm hoping to get some lower profile tires to fit underneath my trailer. Anyone wanna trade?




It's getting so close! Cletus had to jump in and make vroom vroom noises. By the way, it's not easy getting the body on with him in there! LOL

[egronvold]

Did you at one point think "Hey, I've finished my truck!", before you started the modification and upgrades?

[Tommy R]

Originally Posted by egronvold

Did you at one point think "Hey, I've finished my truck!", before you started the modification and upgrades?

No way! I've actually had a fairly clear vision for this truck once I got it. I know it's still got a way to go, but it's never been closer!

[Tommy R]

Uh oh! Looks like I've got a defective super single. I hate it when that happens.


Yep, I'm resurrecting my cut-n-shut days from 10+ years ago. I decided to remove one sliver of tread blocks to get the width I wanted.


I've got some more work to do on them, but I'm liking what I'm seeing so far.

[Tommy R]

All done. Incidentally, the Michelin on the right from rcbrmin.com is SUPER hard. It made the Lesu feel like a crawler tire. The RCW4WD Michelin that I narrowed, however, is very soft, but with the stock foams it looks like it'll support the weight of the truck nicely.


I may experiment with taller foams to see if I can get the profile of the tread a bit more rounded, but nonetheless, I'm quite pleased!

[skeeter]

I LOVE the idea of trimming some meat out of the center of them tires!

[Tommy R]

Trying a new servo that hopefully doesn't burn out like the Tower Pros have done.


Interior details.






Now Cletus is ready for some gear jammin'!


Anyone else tried TheDIYGuy999's homemade sound/light controller? I'm working on it now...

[jerry56]

Not yet ... kind of intimidating ....really want to see how this works out

[Tommy R]

Originally Posted by jerry56

Not yet ... kind of intimidating ....really want to see how this works out

Yeah, very intimidating for sure. I've done all the soldering now, but getting hung up on the software aspect of it. Hoping to get it resolved soon....

[Wombii]

It's a great soundkit. Using it in my firetruck. I'm using my own hardware and heavily modified an older version of the firmware though. Let me know if I can be of assistance.

This truck is so beautiful!

[Tommy R]

Originally Posted by Wombii

It's a great soundkit. Using it in my firetruck. I'm using my own hardware and heavily modified an older version of the firmware though. Let me know if I can be of assistance.

This truck is so beautiful!

Thank you very much! I'm really looking forward to getting the ESP32 unit working. Right now I'm researching SBUS/radio stuff. I use a Sanwa MT4-S radio setup and hoping I can make it work well enough. It's only 4 channels, though, so I'm prepared to get a Flysky Noble if I decide I want more channels.

FYI, I just ordered a Lesu locking front axle so coupled with the transmission shifter all 4 channels are used up, but maybe I can use the dual rate or something to operate lights and such? That's the kind of thing I need to determine.

[Wombii]

In theory it should be possible to add some code for that. I have used an arduino to control multiple things from a single channel in the past. But it won't be quick or easy and might not be user-friendly in use. I don't know if I can gather enough energy to dive into the soundkit code for a challenge like that right now, but I might take a look.
Having more channels for light controls is definitely easier.

[Tommy R]

Oh, I wouldn't ask you to do that! I'm thinking of getting a Flysky Noble transmitter and I believe it can support 8 channels. I just want to make sure that it will be compatible with the ESP32 MFCU.

[Tommy R]

Hey Wombii (or anyone else in the know), I've got a basic and likely very stupid question to ask.

If I use the SBUS feature from a receiver, does that mean I can control many more channels than my standard transmitter/receiver would normally control? As I understand, PWM would mean I can only control 4 channels with a 4 channel rx/tx, but if I have an SBUS output on my receiver I can control more. Is that accurate?

Similarly, is IBUS similar to SBUS in that regard? Basically, I'm trying to determine if my 4 channel Sanwa setup can control all the features that Martin's ESP32 system is capable of controlling. It would seem I'd need a receiver with an SBUS output, however, which does not seem to exist with Sanwa. So now I'm looking into the Flysky Noble NB4, which I believe offers IBUS, but not SBUS that I can see.

I definitely want to keep a steering wheel controller for my truck, but want to have full functionality like Martin does in his youtube videos. Any thoughts?

Many thanks!
Tommy

[Wombii]

I really wanted a wheel controller for my truck too, but I ended up learning to "drive stick" because I needed 16 channels.

The transmitter is what determines how many channels are transmitted through the air. The receiver is what determines how many channels are put out through wired connections to servos and other things. With the old standard PWM servo outputs that usually limits the channels, because there is only so much room on the receiver for connectors. With bus protocols like SBUS or iBUS the receiver only needs one physical connection to output multiple channels. You still need a transmitter with 8 channels and an 8 channel receiver that supports SBUS if you want to output 8 SBUS channels over one connection. Often you'll find SBUS receivers with 3 standard servo connectors + an SBUS connector for the whole set of 8 or 16 channels.

The ESP32 soundkit supports a max of 6 separate PWM connections, but more for a bus connection. Plugging in a single bus connection is easier both for the hardware and software parts.
It looks like the standard setup for for the soundkit used 8 channels, but most functions are available with 6 PWM channels. The standard setup is using:

• 2 normal channels for steering and throttle,

• 3 channels with 3 positions (up-neutral-down) for gear, indicators, headlights and engine on/off,

• and a normal channel /potentiometer for horn/bluelight/siren. It seems this one has 4 positions: horn-nothing-bluelight-siren. Skipping separate bluelight/siren controls you should be able to do that one with a 3 pos switch instead, or 2 pos for only horn.

2 of the 3 position channels requires dual rates.
You could probably cut one of the 3 pos channels by enabling auto indicators when turning. If you want to skip light controls entirely and only use engine sound, you might be able to get away with 3 channels (steering, throttle and gear).

I have only barely looked at the Flysky Noble. If it can output 8 channels over iBUS it seems like a good choice. Check that the channels are assigned to switches that makes sense with the info above, and that they have adjustable endpoints.

diyguy also has an open source arduino based pistol grip/wheel controller project that works directly with the soundkit, if you're feeling brave.

Please keep in mind that the above info is strictly theoretical from the documentation and code, and that I haven't tested it. I branched off at version 4, and had to make my own code to read SBUS, simulate an automatic transmission with a separate reverse switch and control sounds directly. I don't use the light features and I don't use any of the standard channel inputs.

[Tommy R]

Thanks so much for all the info! I just found out that the Flysky i6X (10 channel) is only $60US so I think I'm just going to get one for now. Once I'm more familiar with the ESP32 MFU I'll consider looking into getting a wheel controller to work with it.

It looks like this receiver is compatible with the i6X and it appears to have SBUS. It's 8 channel, but I think it may be all I need. Think it's a good choice?

[Wombii]

As far as I can tell, the soundkit now has the power to take iBUS/SBUS in, decode and output servo signal for steering servo and 5th wheel, so that should work fine. I would guess you can use the 5th wheel servo output for diff locker instead.

[Tommy R]

Well, I hate to admit it, but I ordered a stick radio yesterday (Flysky i6X) with a 10 channel receiver. I also ordered the 8 channel rx pictured in my earlier post. My hope is that I will get the ESP32 MFCU working and gain familiarity with it, then when I'm more confident I can look into adapting to a 8-10 channel pistol grip. Not sure if that'll be possible, but I hope it will be.

[jerry56]

You may already know but this one has the 10 ch and IBUS
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D35C6MQ...v_ov_lig_dp_it
And just FYI the with a firmware update the $50 6ch i6 becomes a 10 ch, I've done all three of mine and it seems to work pretty well...

[Tommy R]

Thanks! It looks like mine is coming with the 10 channel version of that receiver:


Ultimately, I'd love to be able to operate the truck with a Flysky Noble 8 channel tx, but I'm not yet sure it'll give me the functionality I'm looking for.