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HL challenger 2 gear ratio

Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:34 pm
by Andy-G
Good evening to all in the forum.
I am a new member to the group and a relatively new tanker, having spent many years building and flying rc aeroplanes and crashing a fair few. I decided to switch to a ground based hobby.
I recently purchased a challenger 2 tank, this has been upgraded with metal drive wheels, tracks , bogeys etc. It also has black motors and steel gearbox. The Tank has good slow control and seems scale like, however, top speed is very slow compared to others I’ve seen on you tube.
My question is does anyone know the standard gear ratio of the HL challenger? My guess is that the metal gearbox upgrade on this is also a reduction type. Hence slowing top speed. Any advice most appreciated.

Thanks
Andy

Re: HL challenger 2 gear ratio

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 8:57 am
by Black Knight
Hi.

I believe that the upgraded gearboxes are actually faster than the standard one and offer better low-speed control.

For a more realistic top speed you may need to go the whole hog and get a DKLM PDSGB (basically a very fancy gearbox), a better control board (I use a Clark TK60) and a 3s lipo setup. I have installed this to good effect and my beast can get a fair turn of speed on (despite all the weight of the metal hull, gearbox, battery etc!)

https://youtu.be/BxVOXiHJaPM

Re: HL challenger 2 gear ratio

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 5:20 pm
by Max-U52
It depends on which gearboxes you put in your tank. They basically come in two different types, what they call 3:1 and 4:1. But those aren't the actual ratios, that's just what the manufacturers made up so that they be able to tell the difference between the two gearboxes. If you have the three shaft gearboxes you'll get a lot better top speed but the low end torque won't be as good. It sounds to me like you've got four to one in there. If you change over to 3 to 1 in the high/low motor configuration you'll get much better top speed.

Re: HL challenger 2 gear ratio

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:11 am
by Andy-G
Thankyou ,
Will going 3-1 impede the tanks slow speed control?
It has metal tracks fitted along with all the wheels and sprockets.
It’s running on a HL 2.4g radio.
The motors are black.
The gears are black steel

Re: HL challenger 2 gear ratio

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:51 am
by jarndice
Hi Andy. I fear I am unable to offer any better advise than you have already received but I was amused by your request because after all these years you have to be if not the first certainly one of very few members of the Forum who wants more speed,
Everyone wants less speed or to be more precise more realistic speeds for their Tanks.
This has been a selling point for some gearbox manufacturers who market their products as 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 or even 6 to 1 but as MAX-U52 rightly said its just marketing and the terms used have nothing to do with the actual gearing.
Somewhere on the Forum is a write up on the actual ratios to be found in our gearboxes and the effect that these have on the gearbox output,
It is quite an eye opener and in some cases the output is the reverse of that being extolled by the builder !!!
Take care Andy, They are after your money. :lolno:

Re: HL challenger 2 gear ratio

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:37 am
by 43rdRecceReg
There's a useful discussion here on ratios, together with some additional links :thumbup:
viewtopic.php?f=195&t=24766&hilit=gearbox+ratios

Re: HL challenger 2 gear ratio

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:37 am
by Son of a gun-ner
Andy-G wrote:Thankyou ,
Will going 3-1 impede the tanks slow speed control?
It has metal tracks fitted along with all the wheels and sprockets.
It’s running on a HL 2.4g radio.
The motors are black.
The gears are black steel
Yes, those 3-1 (close to 39-1) standard boxes will, you'll have jerky less accurate turns with the standard radio setup. Unless you have the very latest Heng Long electronics.

As for the boxes you have, they may even be the taigen "5-1" a picture of them will help.
I know the taigen "4-1" are close to 45-1 actual ratio. I'm not sure about the real ratio of "5-1" they could be somewhere in the region of 50 to 70-1.
You may think, "how about changing the motors." Sadly, a more powerful faster motor to turn such boxes would demand more amps than a standard board can safely deliver, and could quite easily cause your board to fail/burn out.

Re: HL challenger 2 gear ratio

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:41 am
by Max-U52
I have "3:1" GBs in both my M26 and M41 and I get very good low speed control. A lot depends on the board that you use and your driving Style. In the m41 I run a Clark tk20 and the M26 is still on stock TG Electronics. I just did a video on putting new gear boxes in the M26. It also has a little section on breaking in new boxes so you might want to look at that thread. It's called death of a gearbox part 2, the resurrection. You'll see there that even with the stock Electronics I still get very good low speed control on my M26. In fact, I refer to it as my trainer tank because anytime I meet someone that's never driven a tank before I hand them the controls for the M26. It's just a very easy tank to drive and to learn on.

Re: HL challenger 2 gear ratio

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 12:46 pm
by Andy-G
Thank you all for your help and suggestions. It’s appreciated for sure.
To clarify my situation.
I bought the tank already converted and don’t have the full specs on gearbox etc. Only that it has black metal gears and motors.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely tank and I’m very pleased with it.
But I noticed that when compared to my WW2 models (tiger1, stug, jagdpanther) the challenger is definitely slower at top speed, in fact I’d say they should be reversed as old WW2 tanks I assume we’re slower. Hence my striving for perfection, lol.
I imagine that the challenger in original spec was faster.
So, I’m just testing the water on this to see if others had experienced the same and had come up with a solution.
I will take some pictures of the internals and post.

Many thanks
Andy G

Re: HL challenger 2 gear ratio

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 1:15 pm
by Son of a gun-ner
Is your jagdpanther a stock/standard Heng Long?

I ask because although the jagdpanther gearboxes are set up for the jagdpanther in where the motor positions are, they should have the same length drive shafts as the Challenger. Therefore if both tanks have a standard Heng Long chassis you could "borrow" them just for a comparison test for speed etc. So you can see the difference yourself first hand before you start purchasing any new gearboxes.

Yes, modern tanks are usually faster than their WW2 ancestors.