Op Telic challenger

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tomhugill
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Op Telic challenger

Post by tomhugill »

Another challenger build I'm afraid! This one is taking a Gary farrow painted top and back plate and making it into a reliable runner with all the bells and whistles.

First step is hull work. The quality of henglong plastic on this hull seems much worse than it used to be, feels very brittle. With this in mind I'll be doing some serious reinforcement. First job is remove battery box, hull get floppier than a very floppy thing. Fitting the suspension mounts is a pita, lots of holes to drill and align, but totally worth it. Next is fitting the suspension arms and wheels. I realised on the chally 1 hull it was much was easier to make up the mounts with the suspesion arms before fitting them to the tank, lesson learnt!

Once these were all on I test fitted the pdsgb to see if everything fits ok, thankfully it does.

ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage

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tomhugill
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Re: Op Telic challenger

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Next up is the aluminium hull reinforcement. I've enclosed screenshot of the aluminium angle I used. This was the mk 1 version of this mod, I used a separate piece to reinforce the suspension area here. On the MK2 version I just use one large piece. This was all bonded into the hull with JB weld. There also a cross brace piece made from off cuts from the sposnon reinforcement.

Lots of clamps are essential for this!!ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage

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tomhugill
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Re: Op Telic challenger

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The final part of the lower hull work was to pour resin into the lower which provides extra weight, a flat base for all the electrics (challenger has a v shape lower hull) and helps reinforce the plastic mounts for the gearbox and finally I thought provides extra stiffness. I have however realised that the aluminium is sufficient to remove all hull flex by it's self, but the other benefits make it worth doing still.

A speaker and tk60 were test fit in the lower for seeing how it all worked. ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage

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tomhugill
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Re: Op Telic challenger

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Something to be aware of if buying just the tub off AliExpress is the 6.0 version has metal idler adjusters which aren't included, make sure you buy them and the mounting screws!

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tomhugill
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Re: Op Telic challenger

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Next up was fitting the armoured models recoil and elevation unit. This is really well thought out and goes in really easily. It also works really well! I added a rubber boot from a 1/10 shock absorber to represent the gaitor.

I plan on adding an IR emitter in the sight above the gun and a working coaxial machine gun.

I've also upgraded the rotation with a black cap motor. However it's still too slow for the g2 board and watch this space for an alternative! ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage

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EAO
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Re: Op Telic challenger

Post by EAO »

Mr. Hugill,

That's looking very nice. That hull looks really beefed up now and should be able to handle a few hits along the way. Nice work. :clap:

Regards,
Eric.
"You can always tell a German, you just can't tell him much." Anonymous.

German cars, German girls, German beer, German firearms, German Shepherds, German motorcycles... Not necessarily in that order though!

UP THE IRONS!
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tomhugill
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Re: Op Telic challenger

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Been quiet on this one as it's been a very long cycle of waiting for parts, then waiting for time and motivation and waiting for Gary to have a free slot to paint my wheels!

However it's really cracking on now! The replacement metal parts and the mantlet (and any missing bits) have been painted to match by Gary and I've done some other cosmetic bits and bobs.

The main ones been the skirts from dklm, I bought a set of the front and rear rubber mudguards and the side sand skirts from Carson's updated kit. Considering I had to cut the sand skirts out and the material supplied was a folded plastic bag, I felt $40 was a little high, but hey ho, you got printed templates for cutting the sand skirts and a load of screws and washers.

I was a little worried about the durability of the printed fenders, which was born out when they were smashed by the courier. I ended up piecing them back together and using them as templates to replace with rubber ones.

Image


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So far so good. The sand skirts were cut out as per the instructions, to be fair not a terrible job but for the price I'd expect them to be pre cut.

Because my Telic chobham kit was from armoured models and didn't have the same mountings as the new dklm kit I had to improvise. I used styrene strip stuck to the bottom of the chobham and then straight glued the sand skirts segments on. There was somemslight amrndements to the rear most segments but aside from that everything fit really well.

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Now most of the external stuff is sorted the next job is to make ready for the electrical instal.

First job magnets to hold the turret together. As the control board and battery will live here.

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Installing the tk60g2 into the turret with the gyro board and starting to hook up the connections and conduit the cables

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The armoured models recoil unit

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Clark model universal rotation with deck level switch. I still need to hack the servo here


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Last edited by tomhugill on Sun Oct 10, 2021 7:17 am, edited 2 times in total.
Sub
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Re: Op Telic challenger

Post by Sub »

Hi Tom,
Looking really nice.
As you are doing, i moved all of my electronics into the turret too on my challenger, much more room than in the hull and easily accessable.
The hull looks roomy but soon gets crowded when you add all the bells and whistles.
Regards.
Sub.
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tomhugill
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Re: Op Telic challenger

Post by tomhugill »

Sub wrote:Hi Tom,
Looking really nice.
As you are doing, i moved all of my electronics into the turret too on my challenger, much more room than in the hull and easily accessable.
The hull looks roomy but soon gets crowded when you add all the bells and whistles.
Regards.
Sub.
It gets even worse when you're trying to keep internals out the way of a slip ring! It limits your battery size slightly but I think it's the best way.

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