Trumpeter/hl t-72b/b-1

[tomhugill]

I’ve had a trumpeter 1/16 t72-b1 kit for a while but have been held up by being unable to get a hl lower hull. I didn’t want to by a donor as I’d be wasting pretty much everything else.

Luckily AliExpress finally delivered a hl 6.0 plastic tub at a very reasonable price. Being 6.0 there were some nice features I hadn’t expected. It’s got adjustable idler tension which is really well done. Similar to the leopard 2. The mounts are really strong. I had expected to need to need an aftermarket solution but this seems fine. There’s also provision for output shaft bearings (sold separately). Finally the idlers I got from the same source as the hull came with bearings too. The whole idler assemblies rock solid with no slop.

I used stiffer springs with additional clocking of the 4 corner positions due to using a pdsgb. To get the alignment mounting this I added the output shaft bearings (press fit into the hull), assembled the mounting plate, then experimented with thickness to get everything properly aligned.

The tracks are from Attracks and are really excellent, down to the casting marks on each link. The sprockets have some wobble but Szabo is sending replacements (excellent service!).

The wheels are the metal ones with rubber tyres and bearings and went on without issue.

To get the trumpeter upper and hl lower to mate requires a little trimming but nothing major. They both share separate detail plates for the front and rear so I prised off the hl ones and replaced with the trumpeter. This got the bolts are the rear to align better.

The trumpeter comes with a turret ring and mounts for a rotation. I plan to use a Clark universal rotation. I’m also hoping to order the clark recoil and elevation units for the turret.
















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[Jimster]

Everything seems to be coming right along! I especially like your choice of gearbox.

[tomhugill]

Everything seems to be coming right along! I especially like your choice of gearbox.

They really are the best! I’m not braced the hull yet but it still handles the grass without throwing tracks.

One issue I did have was the previous owner had really troweled on the miliput on the turret. Chipping it off was certainly a challenge!


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[tankme]

One issue I did have was the previous owner had really troweled on the miliput on the turret. Chipping it off was certainly a challenge!

I was wondering what was going on there...

Looks like my Trumpeter T-72B1 project almost to T. No issues with the Attracks sprockets? Seems the guide teeth centering rings on my set has some major casting warping.

[tomhugill]

One issue I did have was the previous owner had really troweled on the miliput on the turret. Chipping it off was certainly a challenge!

I was wondering what was going on there...

Looks like my Trumpeter T-72B1 project almost to T. No issues with the Attracks sprockets? Seems the guide teeth centering rings on my set has some major casting warping.

Yeah my sprockets are quite wobbly, but I’m getting a new set. The ones on my t55 which are the same tracks are fine though.


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[tomhugill]

Hey folks,

I've not been very active posting stuff up recently but I wanted to share little project I've had gestating for a while but due to parts, time, lack of mojo haven't posted until now.

When I do a modern tank I try and get in 2 axis stabisation, on most modern armour this isn't an issue turrets are roomy and clarks g2 boards work pretty well. I've got a fairly well rehersed formula which does the job.

However on the Russian tanks space is a lot more limited. I've always wanted to do a t72 with reactive armour blocks since I got a part started trumpeter kit off a friend. Unfortunately given the limitations of turret size I couldn't fit a large form clark board (tk60 or 80), battery, rx etc.

However clark does something called the field tank training system, FTTS for short. This allows two board of various combinations to be combined to allow two operators in one tank, with information sent via a two wire "tk link" cable. I'd not seen this used before but it allowed me to use a tk39 board in the turret to control the stabilisation, recoil, elevation etc whilst the rest ran off a board in the hull. Clark also made a full option turret conversion for the t90 offering recoil, elevation, mounts for tk39, turret speaker, battle system and a slip ring, bingo! Strangely it's not easy to find on his site but I guess it's a niche bit of kit.

Luckily it all went in the turret really nicely with only some minor trimming to get the battle system to fit under the hatch. I'm going to add some magnets to hold.the turret down but it's a really good fit without already.

Wiring it up wasn't too hard, however there are a few quirks which aren't well documented which caused some frustration trying to work them out. Amongst these were the programming options are missing some bits which are on the new firmware, you need to have the rx plugged into the turret board (ttk) rather than the hull board (tck). There's a lot of soldering to do as the ttk39 uses the smaller plugs the 1.5mm pitch ones used on barrel flash and the 3pin servos plugs are the same as the rx sockets, also you do need to use 10 of the 12 wires on the slip ring. However these days I find it quite cathartic.

All thats left electrics wise is the ir emitter and the lights. Id quite like to add an led to the aa mg but we will see if I can drill the barrel. Then onto the actual building of the kit!

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[c.rainford73]

Exceptional work as usual a very cool build!

[tankme]

Nice setup. I have that Clark recoil/elevation/TBU setup in my HL T-72 upper. It was hard to get a hold of and kind of expensive. I think I had Kenny from DAK RC special order it or I got it from RC Tank Legion before his falling out with Clark. For some reason I thought the T-72 and T-90 turrets were the same, but I had to make a styrene plate to relocate the TBU mount on mine to fit the T-72 hatch location.

[Ecam]

That's about as packed turret as I've ever seen. Nice work!

[tomhugill]

With the mechanical and electrical side all but done I took this week to do the easy part of the build, the actually trumpeter kit. There's a few evenings work here but it goes together really nicely. The ERA is a bit mind numbing but the way it's built up is prototypical and looks great once you're done. I have had to make a few adjustments to facilitate the RC nature of the build. The piping to the external fuel drums has been pinned rather than glued so it can be lifted off to separate the hull. The fuel drum holders have been pinned to the rear as this has always proved a weak spot on my other Soviet tanks. The turret stowage bins have had the supports altered such that they're only attached to one of the turret halves so it can lift off for services. I've also made the IR spot light function to lift with the barrel elevation.

Next stage is adding the lighting. I've had a mad moment and decided to try and make the marker lights function with the aid of 0402 nano LEDs. I seem to have a method which works so hopefully I can get that side done next week and then it'll be time for paint

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