My Heng Long T-72 Musings

[tankme]

My metal Heng Long hull arrived this morning and I have to say I'm impressed with it. It is actually better than the Abrams metal hull IMO. Enjoy!





Bottom front.



Bottom rear with charging port and on/off switch.



Inside view of charging port on left and on/off switch on right. CNC gearboxes came with it.



Notice the thickness of the hull sides.



The sides have CNC machined detail. Includes adjustable idler/tensioner.



Another shot of the machining.



Rear mounting is done with magnets.



Front mounting with a bar under bar setup.



Torsion bars and machining.



Instructions.

[43rdRecceReg]

It certainly looks like an example of precision engineering. The cast hulls for the Taigen Pz IV, and the Mato Sherman, are far less impressive.

[jhamm]

Hi,
i own this HL T-72/T-90 Hull too...
Had some issues with the Idlerwheels:

phpBB [video]

after i fixed that I drove it a little to hear how loud it is:

phpBB [video]

it is very noisy!
Then i fit a PDSGB transmission:

phpBB [video]

Sounds better but not so quiet as a Modelspiegel-Transmission.
But it's very soft and easy to drive.
Although the left chain is much loose is it driving straight vorward.

[tankme]

It has an adjustable idler/tensioner. You can't fix the track tension with that? If you can't then I would make sure each track has the same number of links and possibly remove a link.

[jhamm]

It has an adjustable idler/tensioner. You can't fix the track tension with that? If you can't then I would make sure each track has the same number of links and possibly remove a link.

Yes i know there is a track tensioner.
The loose track is for testing.
Did you ever drive a tank with different track tension?
With the PDSGB Transmission it is no problem....

[tankme]

I haven't driven this tank much, but yes I do play with the tension somewhat on my tanks. I guess it wasn't clear to me that it was something you did on purpose for testing. Tanks with upper return rollers typically don't run the tracks very loose in my experience. Of course these are not full sized tanks so what works on the real tank may not work on the 1/16th scale tank.

[tankme]

At the last battle day, this tank broke. I started up and a ran it for a bit. When I came back to it a little while later the recoil had stopped working. Yesterday I cracked it open and tested everything. The servo recoil works fine on a servo tester and putting a fresh servo on the recoil port of the Heng Long v6.1S doesn't move. I also found out the IR bulb is not firing. Tried a different IR LED and no go. At this point I'm guessing it's the 6.1S board that is horked. Everything else on the controller works except those functions.