HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

This board contains easy-to-do fixes on your new tanks from stock. This will hopefully help beginners to get the accuracy they want from their models.
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Tread Flintstone
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HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

Post by Tread Flintstone »

My new HL Sherman Tank didn't have a lot of smoke coming out of it, and the rear lights stopped working. I opened up the tank (easy--4 screws) and found the rear light plug simply came out of the control board. So after plugging the lights back in I noticed both exhaust smoke tubes were badly crimped and kinked...I'm talking at least 90% blockage!

I happened to have extra tubing on hand from a small pump and cut longer lengths and reinstalled the tubing on both sides of the smoke pump. Problem was solved and the tank produces a good volume of smoke now! Now when a new tank arrives the first thing I do is open it up and check the tubing and connections just to see if all is OK.
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silversurfer1947
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Re: HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

Post by silversurfer1947 »

Only 4 screws? That's a major change for HL.
Richard
Tamiya Tiger 1, Taigen FlakPanzer IV,Torro M16 half-track, Tamiya Panther,WSN/Torro T34,Taigen M41 Bulldog,H/l/Taigen Sherman M4A3,H/L T90, Haya M3 Grant, Metal Origins 234/2 Puma, Nashorn by Alwyn. I was only going to have one tank - honest! :D
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jarndice
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Re: HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

Post by jarndice »

I hope You will not discover the renowned unreliability of Heng Long Smokers,
There is an alternative, The "Tarr Smoker" which is a much better bit of kit and is highly recommended.
Shaun.
I think I am about to upset someone :haha:
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Tread Flintstone
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Re: HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

Post by Tread Flintstone »

- Only the Sherman was 4 screws...but have to unscrew the battery hatch...a bit of a pain.
The Panther has 6 screws, but the battery hatch conveniently unclips with a spring loaded clip....no screw.

- I've heard about the smoker issues, but ordered some spares from www.banggood.com. They were only $5 with free shipping!

At some point will look into the Tarr smokers... :thumbup:
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43rdRecceReg
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Re: HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

Post by 43rdRecceReg »

Looks as if you made a great start with the Sherman. Very enterprising, and no shouts for assistance yet... :thumbup: I'd never really looked at Banggood in depth before, until your link peeked my curiosity. Their prices are really quite amazing and, notwithstanding the transport time, carriage charges are equally astonishingly cheap..as with this Jagdpanther:
https://www.banggood.com/Heng-Long-116- ... ewalsoview
It looks as if one can get a real bargain, with just a modicum of patience... :think: Is there a catch somewhere that eludes me? The website is also highly rated on Trust Pilot. If you trust Trust Pilot.
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please"- Mark Twain.
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Tread Flintstone
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Re: HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

Post by Tread Flintstone »

I've ordered many things from Banggood over the past few years with no problems including Rc planes. shipping is usually faster than anticipated. No catches...everything is always cheaper when ordering directly from China or Hong Kong.

From amazon.com I got the HL Tiger 1 with metal treads, gears, and drive wheels for $119 shipped! Banggood has similar deals.

Only thing I'd avoid there is the knockoff ipads and tablets...but a Heng Long tank is a Heng Long tank! :)

Look up Costzon and see if they ship overseas....I got all 3 tanks from there.

They call Heng Long tanks Costzon, but when the box arrives it's a HL!
rampage
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Re: HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

Post by rampage »

I had a few issues with my HL Sherman out of the box too. The smoker was/still is one issue (both lines being severely crimped) but another issue was the turret traverse didn't work and the gun elevation/depression worked for about 5 seconds and then stopped. Also, something caused the left-hand drive motor to lock up.

So I opened her up. Yeah, just 4 quick screws. I was surprised too.

Drive motor was locked up because the gearbox had decided to make a snack out of the lead for the bow MG. So that bow MG LED is no longer functional.. I might rewire it later since I'll be doing a lot more internal work soon, but for now, not gonna bother with it.

Turret traverse was a simple fix. The black pin from the primary harness coming from the RX-18 was not seated into the plastic connector at all. So pulling the harness out and pushing the pin down until it snapped and reseating the harness resolved that issue.

Gun elevation/depression was the only really 'broken' part. Elevation/depression is handled by a wheel with a notch on one end, and that notch goes into a slider that's attached to the gun breach. It's held to the gun breach with 2 plastic pins, and apparently no glue. One of those pins broke and the slider had fallen off and was hanging out in the bottom of the hull. Easy fix once I figured out how the mechanism works.

I also found that out of the box the tracks were too tight. IT was causing undue compression on the forward-most and rear-most bogies and it looked silly. So I added an extra track link to both sides and now it's actually a much smoother, quieter-running tank. Not to mention it looks better without the suspension being compressed.

She's a great-running tank now! Though I would like to disable the track recoil, the neutral steer and get true proportional control.

Maybe I'll use a Tamiya MFU, or wait until HobbyKing gets more OpenPanzer boards.
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Tread Flintstone
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Re: HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

Post by Tread Flintstone »

Son of a gun-ner wrote:
43rdRecceReg wrote:I'd never really looked at Banggood in depth before, until your link peeked my curiosity. Their prices are really quite amazing and, notwithstanding the transport time, carriage charges are equally astonishingly cheap..as with this Jagdpanther:
https://www.banggood.com/Heng-Long-116- ... ewalsoview
It looks as if one can get a real bargain, with just a modicum of patience... :think: Is there a catch somewhere that eludes me? The website is also highly rated on Trust Pilot. If you trust Trust Pilot.
That's curious, I just looked at that link, looked through the pictures, one shows the 4th generation battery and charger, and another shows the 3rd generation controller, and nothing in the writing to indicate 4th?!

Mick.
Well, don't depend on these sites to give latest descriptions...even if the product is the newest version. I am willing to bet you will get the latest tank version. My new version tanks still come with the old 72mhz/ 7.2 nicad / old button configuration instructions. Instructions even talk about changing frequency crystals :/ :lolno:
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Tread Flintstone
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Re: HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

Post by Tread Flintstone »

The lipo and charger are total garbage. I have my own chargers. I did buy a quality 7.4 lipo, but find I am using my 3000mah Nimh.

I don't have to baby sit them while charging, don't have to worry about running them down too low, don't have to worry about letting them sit charged too long, and I usually just leave them in the tank and shut the switch off.

That's a lot more convenience and safety for just .2volts compromise. :)
Jay-Em
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Re: HL Sherman Tank - Crimped/kinked Smoke tubing.

Post by Jay-Em »

Simple trick to prevent smoker tubes from getting kinked: stick a length of .5 to 1mm metal wire in the tubing. The wire from big paper clips works fine.

It keeps enough of the tubink open, even if bent in rather extreme angles.
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