My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

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Retired tanker
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My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

Post by Retired tanker »

Hello to all enthusiasts,
I did follow this forum every now and then, but as the closures due to tha pandemic seems to continue, I decided to be a member. I really learned a lot from this forum.
Actually, I am a retired materials engineer but still lecturing part time in a University in Istanbul. In order to keep myself busy,I decided to get involved with RC tanks. I am accustomed to building off road RC vehicles, but I spared my final off road vehicle for myself and gave all others to nephews and cousins.
My first choice for an RC tank was a HengLong Tiger 1, and ohh boy. I was very upset with the quality of almost every component and I started upgrading. I bought a Taigen lower hull, then a Taigen complete turret, then TK 6.1S and several additional parts.I have not calculated the sum of money I spent but easily I may say 4 or 5 times the cost of Tiger 1.

When I thought I was done with the Tiger 1, I decided to buy a second tank in the light of lessons learned from 1st experience.
I decided for a Torro Leopard 2A6 pro version. I estimated it will be much cheaper if the tank arrived with most available options. I was correct except one issue, the Taigen V3 mainboard. Just trying to learn more about the tank I made very small runs indoors.
Within the first week, the turret stopped turning left/right and the airsoft stopped shooting. I immediately informed Torro and speaking frankly they immediately shipped a new V3 and an airsoft unit, free of charge. Before the replacement parts arrived, I fixed the airsoft myself (a broken solder on the motor).
Upon arrival of the parts, I replaced the V3 MFU with the new one (and in the meantime I ordered a flysky transmitter/receiver 10 ch). As the stock transmitter is very limited and basic, I planned to change for a more capable control system.
The second V3 board never binded to the new transmitter, so I went back to the stock transmitter. Guess what,same problem OCCURED with the second V3 MFU.
Currently, I am running the tank with TK 6.1S from Henglong and trying to understand which option among IBU,CLARK,EIMOD and ASP will be technically sufficient and cheaper.
There are several comments regarding the selection among these boards, but indeed it is not easy. But my initial goal is to control all the movements of the barrel and the turret by servo motors, also control the onboard camera direction. And finally improve the airsoft in order to blink some cans in the garden.
Any input for the selection and price of the MFU's will be appreciated.
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Kaczor
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Re: My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

Post by Kaczor »

Hello a and welcome :) In case of first paragraph - we all been there. Upgading basic plastic Heng Long often means to spend more money than to buy new Torro tank ;)
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jarndice
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Re: My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

Post by jarndice »

Hi, Welcome to the Forum :thumbup: :wave: :clap:
The Heng Long Tiger 1 is an introductory Tank that for it's price means if the hobby does not appeal nothing much is lost and if you do become hooked then you are looking through an open door with a very far off horizon, the only clouds being the Partner and the Bank Manager :lolno:
I was interested when you mentioned using an ASP MFU :thumbup:
Where will you be sourcing it because I would love to get my hands on some more ASP2s, in my opinion one of the best boards made.
I hope you enjoy this place,
I have only been to Turkey a couple of times but the people were ace.
I think I am about to upset someone :haha:
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Herr Dr. Professor
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Re: My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

Post by Herr Dr. Professor »

Welcome, Retired Tanker! There is not much I could help you with regarding electronics, for you are ahead of me. However, I see no reason for the dedicated (stock) Torro/Taigen transmitter not to bind with either Taigen V3 board. I have over a dozen of these boards, some from Torro directly, and not a one has given me trouble. I do know that at least a few years ago when the Taigen V3 came out, the binding instructions were incorrect. Here is the process I use:
Taigen V3 Binding.jpg
Taigen V3 Binding.jpg (77.29 KiB) Viewed 1196 times
Jofaur86
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Re: My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

Post by Jofaur86 »

:D
Hello,
welcome to this great forum, where you will find lots of good advice and tips for this hobby.
according to your wishes, I would say, Ibu or Elmod electronics, they are programmable cards from a PC and day and night with basic Heng Long, I would also recommend a minimum 8-channel radio, see more "open source" allow to modify the Software
https://elmod.eu/manuals/?lang=en
, a member of this Forum
https://www.rctankelectronics.com/store/p61/IBU3.html
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Re: My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

Post by Retired tanker »

Kaczor wrote:Hello a and welcome :) In case of first paragraph - we all been there. Upgading basic plastic Heng Long often means to spend more money than to buy new Torro tank ;)
Hi Kaczor,
You are perfectly correct. I almost came to the point of buying a 3D printer, but thank god my wife stopped me.
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Re: My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

Post by Retired tanker »

jarndice wrote:Hi, Welcome to the Forum :thumbup: :wave: :clap:
The Heng Long Tiger 1 is an introductory Tank that for it's price means if the hobby does not appeal nothing much is lost and if you do become hooked then you are looking through an open door with a very far off horizon, the only clouds being the Partner and the Bank Manager :lolno:
I was interested when you mentioned using an ASP MFU :thumbup:
Where will you be sourcing it because I would love to get my hands on some more ASP2s, in my opinion one of the best boards made.
I hope you enjoy this place,
I have only been to Turkey a couple of times but the people were ace.
Hi Jarndice,
I followed the ASP issue on rctanksaustralia.com and almost everybody was happy with it. Now they have the newest ASP 2.5 version but they have ran out of stock. You may purchase the ASP from the store of this forum soon (as far as I understood). I am also keeping track if it is going to be available and when.
regards,
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Re: My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

Post by Retired tanker »

Herr Dr. Professor wrote:Welcome, Retired Tanker! There is not much I could help you with regarding electronics, for you are ahead of me. However, I see no reason for the dedicated (stock) Torro/Taigen transmitter not to bind with either Taigen V3 board. I have over a dozen of these boards, some from Torro directly, and not a one has given me trouble. I do know that at least a few years ago when the Taigen V3 came out, the binding instructions were incorrect. Here is the process I use:
Taigen V3 Binding.jpg
Hi Professor,
I got your point. Until I decide for a respectively functional and reasonably priced MFU, I will make another attempt to use the V3. But as you know, first impressions last and I do not feel good about the V3 board. However, the same goes for all MFU s, there are people which like and dislike all different MFU types. Perhaps only exclusion is EIMOD.
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jarndice
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Re: My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

Post by jarndice »

They ran out of stock of the ASP2.5 over 4 years ago and I understood that Kevin was getting out of the business,
If that is true we will have lost a genius in Tank control board design and manufacture.
If you go to the rctank.australia forum you will notice there has been nothing new for years,
A pity but I long ago forgot my password because I saw no further need to sign in as it was all old information. :thumbdown:
I bought a complete Taigen V2 mfu/transceiver/sound card/speaker and wiring and fitted it into a Taigen Panzer 4 and it worked fine,
I then bought another mfu but the V2 had been supperceded by the V3 but Taigen said the controller was the same,
Yeah right :thumbdown:
It took a lot of faffing around to get it to bind and it would drop out at the earliest moment,
I now have a box with a hardly used Taigen V3 inside gathering dust replaced by a Clark board running through a Turnigy 6XS.
I think I am about to upset someone :haha:
Retired tanker
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Re: My personalroad trip with Heng Long tanks

Post by Retired tanker »

jarndice wrote:They ran out of stock of the ASP2.5 over 4 years ago and I understood that Kevin was getting out of the business,
If that is true we will have lost a genius in Tank control board design and manufacture.
If you go to the rctank.australia forum you will notice there has been nothing new for years,
A pity but I long ago forgot my password because I saw no further need to sign in as it was all old information. :thumbdown:
I bought a complete Taigen V2 mfu/transceiver/sound card/speaker and wiring and fitted it into a Taigen Panzer 4 and it worked fine,
I then bought another mfu but the V2 had been supperceded by the V3 but Taigen said the controller was the same,
Yeah right :thumbdown:
It took a lot of faffing around to get it to bind and it would drop out at the earliest moment,
I now have a box with a hardly used Taigen V3 inside gathering dust replaced by a Clark board running through a Turnigy 6XS.
Hi Jarndice,
So it was all outdated info and I did not check the dates. It wrote ASP 2.5 will be available soon, so I thought 1 or 2 months later the boards will be on sale again. Sorry for furnishing outdated and incorrect info.
From my experience with off road RC cars, I do miss the endless number of options and being limited in RC tanks is not good. For the time being I stick with TK6.1S , and I installed a 4 channel 433mhz remote control on the tank and its controller on the transmitter. So I can control some extra features like turning on/off searchlights, or rotating the camera on the tank.

I will give a final try to the V3 with a Flysky 10 ch transmitter. If it does not work, I will try to install a separate 2.4ghz transmitter/receiver cards into the tank and the current transmitter. I hope I can run two separate 2.4 ghz systems on the same tank, but its worth a try.

Logically thinking, I will come to the same point as you did. A new Clark board inside my Leopard and all is good.
Thanks for the feedback.
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