Want to get started, lost in info.

[GOATMAN!!!]

Hi people. I'm looking at building a couple of MicroMT units, and if all goes well maybe 10 to 20 or so with some friends.

Just basic sets, mounted in PVC conduit to keep things easy and less problematic in terms of people thinking we are terrorists if we play near civilization. Depending on cost I may or may not add ammo counters.

The problem I'm having is just making sense of which parts to get, and where to get them from here in Australia, and specifically Victoria (not that I mind getting stuff online in the slightest, but just finding the easiest/best place).

To give some background: I'm 21 with a decent electronics and soldering know-how, I have built several jaycar/dick smith kits, and I am a 4th year apprentice electrician in the industrial sector (I work on robots, air/fluid control, and motors etc). I have a basic understanding of the milestag system (still learning), and a fairly good grasp of basic electronic logic, driving things with transistors and relays etc. I may later on end up pulling apart relay/contactor solenoids to make some hammering for recoil and sound. Where I do lack is in the coding part of the system, and the IR transmission part (modulation frequencies, half angles, wavelengths etc). I'll be fine designing/soldering a circuit on veroboard or the like.

I'm really looking to keep this as cheap as possible, so while frag tag systems look appealing and great quality, unfortunately they are not for me. I have some fairly tight arse friends who study full time, so I am probably going to have to fund and keep around half of these units myself. I don't really mind this, but yeah, the cheaper the better. I'd rather it didn't blow out much over $800 for 10 or so. Is this unrealistic?

Let me get to the point anyway:

I understand that it can come across as kinda rude when some random noob makes demands like this on a forum, but I try my best to help others on other forums I visit when I can, and I would really appreciate help with this.

What I would really like, if at all possible, is for someone to make up a practical list of what parts to get and where from when you live in Australia eg: "grab XXXX part number from RS components for your IR led" and "XXXX lens from XXX store for your optics"

Trying to make sense of what IR led to pair to what IR receiver to pair with what lens is doing my head in lol. I'm sure there are others in a similar position to me who would really appreciate this too. I don't want options lol, I just want to know what works with what.

Thanks a heap for your time even just reading this epic, it's fairly late so it may be a bit incoherent. Hope someone will take the time to help me out.

Alex.

[djdrthq]

Hey Alex, I'll try and help you out where I can.

The hard(er) to get parts are the FET's, PIC's IR LED's and TSOP receiver's.

I use 40khz receivers, you can also use 56khz but you need to order them form overseas

http://au.farnell.com/

Farnell - TSOP4840 Part No. 1469636 $2.78 each
Farnell - TSAL6100 Part No. 1328299 $0.47 each
Farnell - PIC16F684 Part No. 9760547 $3.83 each
Farnell - IRLD110PBF Part No. 1350880 $1.25 each

The PIC's will need to be programmed, a basic programmer will be around $20. I've got quite a few PIC's spare and could program them for you if you wanted.

Switches, resistors, voltage regulators, IC sockets, LED's etc can all be bought from Dick Smith, Jaycar, Altronics, RS, Farnell etc.

50mm lens can be found in magnifying lens from newsagents and office retailers. Other sizes are harder to come by, Surplus Shed in the U.S. is the best place to get them from. There are a million different sizes and shapes, I've used 32mm dia 89mm focal length DCX (double convex) lens on some of my gear. They work well with 32mm electrical conduit with an outer 40mm pipe.

Adding sound to the MicroMT system will be hard due to the scarcity of the ISD IC's.

Let me know if you've got any more Q's, I been down this road

Dave.

[GOATMAN!!!]

Wow djdrthq, thanks heaps for that. Exactly what I was after.

What got me thinking about this again was going and playing paintball with a bunch of mates last Sunday. It was great fun, but a few things irritated me, lack of range for a start, expense for another (I spent $110 for the day), and also licensing/convenience issues. All of these seem to be non issues for laser tag. Oh yeah, and the stupid face mask kept fogging up lol.

Anyway, where I am going with this, is do you think that the microMT system will give us a similar sort of experience to paintball? Will it be feasible to run games purely with microMT guns, a laptop to setup, and a game reset/start box? I mean, we had a lot of fun on the weekend even without scoring etc, it'd be nice, but I think it would still be fun without it.

Not having ISD sounds isn't really an issue at the moment, piezo sounds would be fine, or I was even considering driving some sort of rudimentary click sound circuit off the fire LED output and a piezo buzz off the Hit LED output. Something like this: http://www.discovercircuits.com/DJ-C...-sound-gen.htm I don't want hit lights on the receivers for the time being, and the piezo sound would mainly be for the victim to know he was hit, not the shooter.

Out of curiosity, how much would you say a full 5.3 system would cost in comparison? I'll have a speak to some of the lads over the weekend and see who would be willing to spend the different amounts. I'd still most likely stick to the MT system for now though.

Where in Australia are you? If you're somewhere close to the Melbourne suburbs I'd certainly be willing to give you a slab or something thereabouts if you would be kind enough to show me some of the guns you've made, give me a bit of a look in person of the features and program me a couple PICs. Just sort of run me through the basics. If not then that's fair enough, but I would definately like to take you up on a couple of programmed PICs for a bit of reimbursement of course.

Thanks again Dave, that was a great help.

[djdrthq]

I'm in Ballarat, about an hour and a half from Melbourne central. If you're up for the drive your welcome to have a look at the gear and see it in action. Getting hands on experience with a system certainly helps in deciding where to go next.

MicroMT does not have any scoring capabilities, so a laptop is not required. Game settings can be changed from a single 5xx unit or weapon parameters can be changed through the config software - not something you'd do at a game. A mmt ref controller can be built to take care of starting and stopping games. There is also no timed games.

You can buy COB (chip on board) sound modules form a few places, they have things like machine gun or laser sounds on them. They can be hooked up to the trigger to provide a firing sound at least, but they'll keep making a sound when you're out of ammo

To make up a 5XX tagger and head sensor would cost anywhere from $120-$150 per person. But I'm not sure when the store will be reopening. It could be a while and the next revision will have a new sound chip which might up the price.

An MMT tagger with onboard sensor could be made for around $20, it's that cheap It's definately woth making up a couple of MMT taggers just to try things out. They're a good basic circuit to build if you're starting out in electronics and the wiring is pretty straight forward (this goes for anyone looking at making gear). If you decide to upgrade to 5.XX or any other system you will have gained experience with wiring, soldering, mounting of hardware etc.

[GOATMAN!!!]

Thanks for that, either way, making a couple of them isn't really braking the bank and at worst will be a bit of fun to fool around with.

Hmm, Ballarat is a bit of a drive. I'm in the north eastern suburbs, so maybe a little far. Might give that a miss for now, thanks for the offer though.

If you wouldn't mind, could you program me up two gun, and a game reset microcontroller? Of course I'll direct debit you some moneys for the chips, the postage, and your time.

If you are willing, shoot us a PM some time and we'll sort something out, there's no hurry though. Thanks again.

[WhiteWolf]

Im just getting started with this and i am going to use the micro MT setup but is there anywhere in Australia to get good toy guns to use as a basis for the taggers? I'm going to go and scout out some cheap stores but im not very hopeful that i will find anything.

[segmentor]

http://dragonslairarmoury.com.au/zen...index&cPath=61