Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Fixes and mods for the HL Tiger 1
tao
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Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Post by tao »

I found using one of the little Heng Long volume controls (or similar type) you can wire one into the negative ground wire (red color)
coming from the recoil unit to adjust the gun return recoil speed and use the same thing (another one) to wire into one of the motor leads on the turret to allow turret rotation speed adjustment.
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MichaelC
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Re: Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Post by MichaelC »

tao, what kind of recoil unit are you using ? Stock Heng Long ones ? Isn't the return speed control by the spring and not the motor/gears ?
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Re: Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Post by tao »

Yes stock recoil unit.. the spring pulls the barrel back and then the motor returns it..Dan Crowley has a tutorial with resistors
but I found easier and adjustable just to wire that little pot into the one wire and no need to even open up the turret! The adjustment on the dial is very small for turret and recoil so you just need to play with it for a min to get it set how you like.

Here is Dan's overview of the workings:
So let me explain what is happening in this little circuit.

1 Power is supplied to the gun motor from the smoker jack. The resistor (20 ohm)drops the voltage to the recoil unit to slow down the return speed.

2. The power is routed through the contact switch on the gun. In its current position the contact switch is closed, and the power is fed from the HL board to the motor. If this was hooked to a battery the gun motor would be running and the gun would be moving back to it's fully extended position.

3. As the gun extends the contact switch is tripped open by the returning striker(A). As soon as the switch is open the power is interrupted and the motor shuts off with the bbl in the fully extended position.

4. To fire the gun you move the left joystick. A quick blip up. This supplied power to the motor, moves the gears to release and allow the spring to pull the bbl back. As soon as this happens the contact switch on the gun closes, and power for the smoker jack is allowed to power the motor again, and the cycle repeats.

If you wanted a gun flash,you would hook up a superbright LED with the short lead to the yellow wire, and the long lead to the Brown wire.(Add a 68 ohm resister to protect the LED. When you blip the throttle up this will power the LED to simulate a flash(Of course if you hold the left joystick up the LED will stay lit and not look very convincing. However all you need is a momentary connection to start the recoil motor and this works fine for a flash.)

That is all that is required to mod the Heng long recoil mechanism to achieve more realistic action.
tao
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Re: Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Post by tao »

I wired the volume control/pot into wire "D" the ground wire from the turret going to recoil unit (stock Heng Long) Very simple
and you can tweak the recoil gun return speed. Same thing for turret motor for turret speed.
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Turret wires.jpg
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greengiant
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Re: Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Post by greengiant »

Real tanks have short recoil systems that operate very quickly when the gun is fired. A second or less would be more correct for the whole cycle. The slow return to firing position it very unrealistic on a tank model.
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dgsselkirk
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Re: Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Post by dgsselkirk »

Actually the return on a Tiger is pretty slow. Watch this video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYMYdVt_CTE

And no, that is not a standard BB recoil for HL that is an asiatam recoil...
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MichaelC
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Re: Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Post by MichaelC »

greengiant wrote:Real tanks have short recoil systems that operate very quickly when the gun is fired. A second or less would be more correct for the whole cycle. The slow return to firing position it very unrealistic on a tank model.
I thought the backward movementis created by the counter force of the projectile so it would be violent or faster. The return is hydraulic which would make it slower, no ?

tao can you post a video of the adjusted speed on the recoil ?
tao
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Re: Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Post by tao »

Yes slower on the hydraulic return stroke..sure I can shoot a video but if you look at
Dan's Panther here at 2 min into the video.. that's showing it as slower. He has quite a few other cool mods on his site too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3g_SrFdZr4#t=130
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Re: Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Post by tao »

Fyi..The recoil units I did it with are on stock Taigen Tiger and Torro KT.
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Re: Easy way to adjust return recoil and turret speed

Post by tao »

Note: I just found a 10K volume control is fine after hundreds of recoils...that little HL burned out so I replaced.
(10K Ohm 4.5mm D Shaft 3Pin Logarithmic Taper Potentiometer) But just reduce the current on that return motor a tad if you want to slow the gun return.Yes modern tanks cycle faster but the tiger was slower and I assume in colder weather perhaps more. For me sometimes taking a little artistic license adds sometimes:)
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