Herr Dr. Professor wrote: ↑Wed Aug 28, 2024 1:26 am
I had to laugh, zooma, because your warning from Monday (26-08-2024) exactly describes what happened when I opened my Haya Chieftain: "some of the plugs can pop out of their sockets and need to be traced back to find the appropriate socket." I had to get slivers under my fingernails figuring it out.
I have found that if you lay the top deck to the left hand side ( when viewed from the rear) when changing the battery , the cables are under a bit less tension and the black plugs are a little less lightly to "pop" out of their sockets
Last edited by zooma on Sun Sep 01, 2024 7:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
My HAYA Chieftain was running around nicely on its plastic tracks at the club this evening.
The tank runs and steers much better without the weight of the metal tracks to drag around, but I think the red motors will take care of this power shortage OK and then I will refit the metal tracks.......later........these plastic tracks work really well !
Now I can concentrate of getting the paintwork and weathering looking a little better - but that is dependant on my skills improving - something I am working on next!
Strange thing - I put some Tamiya "Clear" in the areas that I was going to place the decals and then I also put some on the exhaust to see if it could enhance my rust effect - but it has removed the rusty look altogether......so that experiment didn't go well !
Bob.
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Last edited by zooma on Fri Aug 30, 2024 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
tankme wrote: ↑Tue Aug 27, 2024 8:47 pm
Those black ones like that are called Dupont connectors. The two pin ones are usually for LEDs. One of them could be your IR LED if everything seems to be working. If you open the live video feed on your cell phone camera and point it at the LED on the top of the tank in that hood, it should light up purple on your phone camera when the gun is fired. If you plug it in and it still doesn't work, you can safely reverse the connector in the socket if it's an LED. If an LED is plugged in the wrong way, it just doesn't work and no damage is done. An LED by definition is a light emitting diode. Diodes only allow current to flow in one direction in a circuit. I remember a connector with 4 wires in it like that. I can take a look when I get home after my swing shift.
The one with the two wires is the rear tail lights. Sorry, can't help with where they go as you and I have different control boards. Mine is a Haya TK6.3.
Whilst the Chieftain is now driving much better, I did notice that one of the rear drive sprockets looked a bit wobbly - almost like having a bent axle on the gearbox output shaft.
In fact, it is due to the fact that the two halves of the drive sprocket are a poor fit into each other and they are also a "loose fit" that is only held together by the wheel fastening screw when it is tightened onto the axle.
I did wonder when I changed the tracks (from metal to plastic) if I should try to bond these two sprocket halves together with some 24hr Araldite (my favourite epoxy resin) to keep them together, but first I would need to do some "dressing" to make the two halves want to fit each other and actually "sit" together without wobbling.
Having just seen the vastly superior method of screwing the two halves of the drive sprocket together on my Centurion KIT I think I need to make the effort to remove this wobbly sprocket and give it some "attention".
.......I wonder if the HAYA Centurion Drive Sprockets would fit the Chieftain..........?
I checked the HAYA Centurion drive sprockets against the HAYA Chieftain sprockets and they are a different pattern, so I will try to “dress” the two haves of the Chieftain sprocket castings to fit together better and bond them together with Araldite to help them run more true.
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Last edited by zooma on Sat Sep 21, 2024 12:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I fancied a second Chieftain to convert to a Mk5 and paint in BATUS colours.
My attempt to buy a good used example failed when the seller who was advertising it suddenly stopped communicating (maybe he had already sold it?) as we were arranging a meeting where I could collect and pay for it.
Fortunately HAYA had one last complete Chieftain left. There are no metal tracks left, but my current Chieftain is running better on plastic tracks in any case, so I was happy to strike a deal for it with plastic tracks to include the genuine Leyland engine sound and a FlySky HAYA radio.
It will be running with RED motors right from the start and will make an interesting direct comparison with my first Chieftain that is still running on the standard motors....and with the “unknown” engine sound.
When it arrives next week (and I have had a chance to test it), and if the Leyland engine sound convinces me that it is worth fitting, I may well be ordering a Clark board pre-loaded with the Leyland engine sound to upgrade my first Chieftain sometime in the future.
If I do fit the Clark board, I can also take the opportunity to change the “toy” transmitter to a FlySky radio (that I already have) using the new tanks wiring as a reference.
To be fair, the original “toy” transmitter has proven to be a very competent performer, but my own preference is to use a more standard size transmitter so this could give me the perfect opportunity to make the change......maybe......
I had my Chieftain out today with the local club and the red motors (well mine are from Taigen) have tons of speed. Almost too much speed. It gets a little hard to control. The fast Merkava type rotation is super fast.
I am looking forward to seeing RED motors in a Chieftain Derek, I think they will transform the tank.
Your feedback is very encouraging.
As previously mentioned, it’s not the extra speed that I am looking for but the extra power to enable the tank to run and steer better.
From what I can see, all of the RED motors that I have seen from several different sources are the SAME as each other.
It’s a shame that the RED motors are not a straight fit in the Centurion, but I think I can space the gearboxes further apart (and shorten the output axles) to get them in if the BLUE motors fail to make the power the tank needs.
Bob.
Last edited by zooma on Sun Sep 22, 2024 8:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
