Hooben T55am merida

[tomhugill]

Hey folks, this one's been rumbling a while. Due to photo bucket issues I've been pretty terrible about posting builds, however this Tapatalk thingy seems to make life easier.

I bought the t55 off a chap on Facebook, it was in a sorry state, the wheels had been assembled incorrectly, much detail broken off and an interesting paint job (to be fair I think it was being returned). The good parts about it were it came with the metal hull strengthening plate which adds some heft to what is a light weight model, it also eliminates hull twist. It also came with the dklm 3dprinted speaker designed for the tank. Finally the very expensive metal tracks were present. The model came with a t55 tk22 but that wasn't going to cut it. A family member kindly bought me the t55 meridia kit from dklm.



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[tomhugill]

First thing to do was rebuild the wheels as the bearings had somehow ended up on the outside of them. The stock idler adjuster wasn't very good so I also got a henntec one which was fantastic. Just two screws needed to install.

The tk22 was replaced with a tk60 to allow use of a 3s lipo and superior sound. Trying to keep it neat as there's limited space in there.

Externally the dklm upgrade kit went on perfectly. I intend on adding a hidden battle unit so some.head scratching will be required.

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[maxmekker]

Nice writeup Tom

[tomhugill]

Next job was to install the hidden battle system. Went with a vampire 2 from Ian at rctankelectronics. I managed to get three sensors in the cupola vision blocks. The rear facing one had to go under the commanders hatch.

The emitter was put in the laser range finder which sits on the mantlet.

Here's a quick video of her battling with my tiger.

phpBB [video]

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[HERMAN BIX]

Looooove that '55 Mr Hugill

The extra armour really toughens the look.
I can tell there is stuff-all space in there for all the gear you've shoved into it , so good luck with that !

[Model Builder 4]

Looking good Tom, some nice upgrades and it sounds great too

Cheers, Lee.

[tomhugill]

Looooove that '55 Mr Hugill

The extra armour really toughens the look.
I can tell there is stuff-all space in there for all the gear you've shoved into it , so good luck with that !

Cheers Herman, I had a bit of a push before the nipper arrived to get as many tanks running and battling as I could. I've got a lovely set of fuel lines ready to install and have gone to Ludwig's to get the protective panels for fuel tanks on the sponsons which are missing from the dklm kit. Also considering a shapeways aa machine gun.

I've also been talking to attracks, they're doing a set of the correct t72 style tracks which the modernised t55 have.

[c.rainford73]

Looking absolutely stunning

[Soeren]

Oh, so tempting

[Ad Lav]

Looks and runs great, jealous of that upgrade armour kit from dklm lol