Update on electronics

I  have had a few issues with the batteries on longer events not lasting as long as they should. It is down to the fact that I was tapping the 12v feed of one battery and that the sound system was drawing a bit to much power.
To solve this I have fitted a third 15 Amp battery to power the 12v system. Everything seemed to work fine until I refitted the sound system and all I got was some crackling and pops. When the soud system was reconnected back up to the main batteries the problem when away. It seems that the 15 Amp battery does not have enough constant current for the sound system when the head motor is working, which is also drawing of the 12v system. To solve this what I have done is rewired some of the back pannel switches to alow the head motor, most of the LED's and powered antenna to run of a tap of the main 18Amp battereies. This is in essence the same as I had before but I have just tidies up all the wiring. The new 15Amp battery has now been added into the system but it is running an independant circuit that is just powering the sound system which seemed to be the main current draw on the old system. To monitor the third battery I have fitted an illuminated volt meter behing the lower right vent, plus it looks good in low light.
I have also added a switcher unit so that each of my main 18Amp batteries can be switched over every hour or so making sure that both batteries stay at the same level and one does not det more current draw than the other. It is a crude system but in theory it should work keeping the batteries at equal levels.

One thing I did notice when working on the system was that the Sparkfun MP3 trigger board was getting warm to the touch. I noticed that when I got the pops and crackles from the sound system that the green LED on the board was flashing, but when I blew cold air over it it corrected itself and worked fine. I am not to sure if the board is faulty or just overheading so a small blower fan has been fitted to cool the sound board.

The small four pin socket you can see mounted in the right hnad side rear grill pocket is to provide servo control for the shoulder mounted mini gun. Once the gun is mounted on the shoulder and plugged into this socket the radio can control the pan and tilt of the gun as well as track with the head using mixing controls.