RC Tanks Australia Forum

Yes, my Tiger arrived today. I amused myself by chasing my daugthers Staffy around the loungeroom before going for a brief jaunt up the backyard to see if the chook was about.

The instructions are a bit of a laugh, as the Chinese translations tend to be.

First casualty has been the rear mudguard hinge. One of them broke off while I was clipping the mudguard into position. I don't think it was on right. And one of the little little pins on the faux tow-rope also broke. My fault that one, should have had my glasses on.

Michael

So is it what you expected Michael?

Hi Zak,

Yes, it is pretty much what I expected. In fact I'd say it is somewhat better than I was expecting. All up it cost me about $150 with postage ($153.46 in fact), so I wasn't expecting a museum grade replica. She looks good though, quite to scale and nicely detailed.
I was setting myself for a measure of disappointment, but I have been having a bit of fun racing it about the house. All the functions appear t work; my daughter noted with alarm that there was smoke coming out of it!. The up/down doesn't work as I expected it to. I thought there'd be seperate up and down on the stick, instead it's all on the down stick and I'm guessing a cam rotates and cycles the barrel up and down. Not an issue though.
The BB mechanism seems to work. The light flashes and there's a 'clack' as it fires. The recoil of the vehicle is a bit alarming I must say.
I can see why they need to be slowed down. It doesn't help being ham-fisted, but the remote is touchy. I'll have it sitting there and gently moving the stick to do a slow turn, when it will suddenly spin about. If I'm really careful I can get it to crawl along, but it seems to prefer flat-out.
There was a slight imperfection in the moulding of the back plate which meant the mount for one mudguard hinge wasn't on very securely. I broke it off entirely when fitting the mudguard in place.
One track link (metal) wasn't formed properly. A casting defect, so that it was only being held together at one end by the track pin.
Luckily I had ordered a few track links earlier to get a feel for the size, so I had spares. So she's been in the workshop having a link change-out already! I managed to remove the drive sprocket without any problems, but putting it all back was a bit of a pain and I found out how to remove the idler without splitting it. A bit fiddly but it's all good now.

All in all, I'm very happy with it

Cheers,

Michael

As a point of interest, here is the offending track link.

You can see where the casting is incomplete. It was ok to start with, but started making a clicking sound. It was only held by the right hand side although the pin probably stayed in the left hand side until it worked itself out through the gap.

Michael

Good to hear you are enjoying it Let the money pitting begin! :V

Any upgrades planned?

I guess so Zac. Where to start though?

I'm thinking of concentrating on getting the drive train into real good order, and I'd like to make into a bit more of an accurate model (although it is quite good as it is).

The tracks look like they could be a weak link (no pun intended) with only the ends holding the pin.

I see these, which it is said are of superior quality to the normal Heng Long metal tracks - http://tankarmy.com/heng-long-tank/prod ... ucts_id/45

And then there's these - http://www.ozarmour.com/store/heng-long ... k-kit.html

Whats the difference? Is there a difference?

I could probably do with a pair of metal idlers. Where to start

Well I personally think it's worth upgrading the electronics/radio first because it gives you easy hookups for servo recoil and elevation.

Yes, that's something I can look into I guess. I know nothing about electronics and radio control - this is my first RC anything (apart from our roller door on the garage).

I do some looking through forums before I start boring everyone with the questions.

Michael