Panzer III battery

[bitols]

I finally managed to buy a Panzer III HL (3849), old version, at a very cheap price; the battery compartment is a mess, so now I need to:

Buy a new battery. The current one, besides being very worn out, is the standard 700 mAh, 7.2 V; I’d like a more powerful one. I’ve seen some batteries with 7000 mAh, 7.4 V: would it be worth it? Could the difference between 7.2 and 7.4 volts be a problem?

The battery and the tank have damaged contacts: which connectors do you recommend? (I’ve seen Tamiya connectors are very common, but I’m not sure.)

[Stormbringer]

The newer Heng Long tanks are coming with an xt60 connector now
They also come with a 7.4v battery
My 2 older Taigen tanks i have came with tamiya connectors and 7.2v nihm battery and i now run them on the 7.4v lithium ion batts
They are 7.4 v 6800 mah if thats any help

[Herr Dr. Professor]

I am not sure which version you mean by "old one." If you can send a photo of the MFU ("multi function unit," the big board inside the bottom to which all the connectors go) we should be able to determine the vintage. Many of the newer tanks by most of the manufacturers are using LiIo (Lithium Ion) batteries of 7.4 volts, it might be good to determine the vintage of the MFU before changing to a different sort of battery and connector.

[bitols]

ok, I'm not comfortable opening the tank, but at the same time I'm curious. I'll try to take some inside pictures to determine which is the correct battery.

[Panzermechaniker]

Here is the inside of my old HL Tauchpanzer III modified by Jarlath to show how well these things can be improved. The epoxy makes the hull very stiff. It's a great running little tank considering it is all plastic except the cheapo HL "metal" gearboxes but it is so light it doesn't need anything stronger

Panzer III inside lower hull.jpg (1.69 MiB) Viewed 144 times

[ColemanCollector]

If you can post pics of the bottom of the tank or the transmitter we can at least tell you if it's a 27mhz (old) or 2.4GHz (newer) tank. Taking the top of the hull off as far as the wires permit won't hurt anything, and the PZIII is only 5 or 6 screws. Crafty ol' Panzermechaniker above has substituted in rare earth magnets to make opening it up even easier. And it's an RC tank--you'll need to be opening it up many times!

Mike.

[Herr Dr. Professor]

I, too, was anxious the first time I opened a RTR RC tank, but with patience, bumbles here and there, lots of advice here on RCTW (and earlier on a defunct Australian list), I dove in and have been patiently bumbling and learning ever since. Take a photo each step of the way as you disassemble and you will have a record of how to put it all back together again. I still do so even when the tank is familiar.