HL Tiger 1 - buy cheap buy twice?!
Posted: Sat May 07, 2022 10:53 pm
Hi,
So new member here (yes I did an introduction) and just bought first RC Tank but not new to RC. Always wanted a tank, decided to get the HL Tiger 1 “pro” with the metal tracks, road wheels, drive sprockets and metal gear boxes as I knew I would want metal tracks and wheels eventually.
Out of the box, it looked a bit toy like but I expected that as it’s the bottom end of the market, but I wanted something to enjoy in the garden and upgrade and paint/model over time - basically knew what I was ordering.
Charged the battery and took a test drive around the patio today, no lawn, off-road or assault courses, just flat stuff and it’s not running smoothly, the right side has a lot of vibration and I worked out it’s one of the road wheels is “bent” and catching the adjacent wheel causing it to jump all over the place.
Better explained with a video:
Some investigation and inspection identified, “it ain’t straight”, see straight edge on the wheel: (The edge of the rule is on the face of the problem wheel. Other wheels are mostly square and true)
I checked it’s tight and can see no obvious problem as it appears to spin true, the metal suspension arm it’s mounted on must be the issue?
Even after no more than 10 minutes running it was clear the thing is over geared, under motored, or both. I decided to check inside how the arms are attached so opened it up carefully, also wanted to check motor size and that I had the expected metal gearboxes.
The gearboxes are indeed metal, with a plastic cover looked pretty decent, but removing covers there is a lot of play on all the gears on their axles, the axles appear to be in bushings not bearings - again not complaining at this price point just observing!
I noticed though that the right gearbox has a really loose gear set, it looks like the bushing in the gearbox wall is not parallel, and this shaft has a lot of movement, generally eccentric movement is not expected in a gearbox is my experience, the shaft to right of motor before final drive to track sprocket: Hard to photograph but the bushing is in focus if you click the image full size you might see how it’s “on the wonk” I believe is the engineering term. Not sure if this is factory issue or caused by the bad road wheel yanking on the whole drivetrain that side.
So. This brings me to the subject line of the post!
I already decided I had to have the Taigen metal chassis, looks excellent and the plastic HL is rather flimsy. Now I have the tank I can see gearing is really for plastic wheel/track weights and it’s going to struggle with the metal tracks it has before I add more weight with metal chassis - so at some point I need a new gearbox with lower drive and bigger motors. Having looked at the gearbox clearly it already has a problem either from the wonky wheel or factory and is not going to last anyway.
Plus - is the wheel bad and will do the same on the new chassis - or is the HL chassis the problem with the wobbly wheel. If I buy new chassis I might still have issues transferring running gear?
If I am in for chassis and gearbox… I am left wondering if I don’t just send this one back with its wonky wheel and go for a Torro kit or Taigen instead?
I suspect this is probably the wrong audience for that question
Any suggestions on the cause of the problem wheel?
Any suggestions what to consider as alternative if I send this one back?
Thanks for comments.
Oh, and just to add to the complaints, the controller sticks keep falling out - with the very poor slow speed control as well it seems I likely will be wanting to upgrade controller sooner than later… Probably answered my own question writing this, but what should I consider that is better built out of the box?
So new member here (yes I did an introduction) and just bought first RC Tank but not new to RC. Always wanted a tank, decided to get the HL Tiger 1 “pro” with the metal tracks, road wheels, drive sprockets and metal gear boxes as I knew I would want metal tracks and wheels eventually.
Out of the box, it looked a bit toy like but I expected that as it’s the bottom end of the market, but I wanted something to enjoy in the garden and upgrade and paint/model over time - basically knew what I was ordering.
Charged the battery and took a test drive around the patio today, no lawn, off-road or assault courses, just flat stuff and it’s not running smoothly, the right side has a lot of vibration and I worked out it’s one of the road wheels is “bent” and catching the adjacent wheel causing it to jump all over the place.
Better explained with a video:
Some investigation and inspection identified, “it ain’t straight”, see straight edge on the wheel: (The edge of the rule is on the face of the problem wheel. Other wheels are mostly square and true)
I checked it’s tight and can see no obvious problem as it appears to spin true, the metal suspension arm it’s mounted on must be the issue?
Even after no more than 10 minutes running it was clear the thing is over geared, under motored, or both. I decided to check inside how the arms are attached so opened it up carefully, also wanted to check motor size and that I had the expected metal gearboxes.
The gearboxes are indeed metal, with a plastic cover looked pretty decent, but removing covers there is a lot of play on all the gears on their axles, the axles appear to be in bushings not bearings - again not complaining at this price point just observing!
I noticed though that the right gearbox has a really loose gear set, it looks like the bushing in the gearbox wall is not parallel, and this shaft has a lot of movement, generally eccentric movement is not expected in a gearbox is my experience, the shaft to right of motor before final drive to track sprocket: Hard to photograph but the bushing is in focus if you click the image full size you might see how it’s “on the wonk” I believe is the engineering term. Not sure if this is factory issue or caused by the bad road wheel yanking on the whole drivetrain that side.
So. This brings me to the subject line of the post!
I already decided I had to have the Taigen metal chassis, looks excellent and the plastic HL is rather flimsy. Now I have the tank I can see gearing is really for plastic wheel/track weights and it’s going to struggle with the metal tracks it has before I add more weight with metal chassis - so at some point I need a new gearbox with lower drive and bigger motors. Having looked at the gearbox clearly it already has a problem either from the wonky wheel or factory and is not going to last anyway.
Plus - is the wheel bad and will do the same on the new chassis - or is the HL chassis the problem with the wobbly wheel. If I buy new chassis I might still have issues transferring running gear?
If I am in for chassis and gearbox… I am left wondering if I don’t just send this one back with its wonky wheel and go for a Torro kit or Taigen instead?
I suspect this is probably the wrong audience for that question
Any suggestions on the cause of the problem wheel?
Any suggestions what to consider as alternative if I send this one back?
Thanks for comments.
Oh, and just to add to the complaints, the controller sticks keep falling out - with the very poor slow speed control as well it seems I likely will be wanting to upgrade controller sooner than later… Probably answered my own question writing this, but what should I consider that is better built out of the box?