'Special needs' Tiger I

[Athelstan]

No, not a Tiger with special needs; a Tiger modified to suit someone with special needs

I have had ME for over a decade now and although there's a lot of ups and downs with the illness it's never very easy to lift things or shift them around much. Taking my Tiger apart for the first time was surprisingly difficult because of a lack of strength, as was simply switching the thing on...

As I was roughing out plans for a small wooden 'tray' to use to lower the tank from a table on to the floor I began wondering what other modifications I could investigate to make my life easier. There's a number of unrelated modifications in this little list but this is just a copy of my to-do list

Aim

To modify a Heng Long Tiger I in such a way as to make it easier for me to access and work on. In essence, make as much of the model as 'workable from the top' as possible.

To-do list

* Move all switches in to the turret
* Move battery connectors in to the turret
* Modify the upper half of the turret so it can be secured to the lower half without having to remove the entire turret
* Modify the smoke unit to use a dedicated fan
* Mount smoke unit on the chassis
* Enlarge exhaust holes in the chassis to allow smoke to exit via the actual exhaust replicas
* Modify smoke refill method
* Move and fan-cool the RX 18
* Move the speaker
* Get a flash unit

I've already regreased the gearboxes and weathered the tracks.

It's really the first three points on that list that will benefit me from an accessibility point of view. Assuming I'm able to get it all sorted to switch the tank on and get things rolling you'll unclip the top half of the turret, flick the switches and then pop the top half back on; with the same being true for turning the tank off. Alternatively I may try and simply move the switches under the commander's hatch; the downside being that it removes the ability to install a figure at some point but the big plus would be you wouldn't need to lift the top of the turret off. We'll see!

To charge the battery you'll pop the the top half of the turret off, attach the charger to 'secondary battery-connectors' and go from there. A combination of Scottish weather and a peak-detect charger should allay any fears of the battery overheating by charging in a confined space.

I've got a couple of canny ideas to try and make it possible to lift the entire top half of the tank off but - one thing at a time.

I'll keep this thread updated as I plod along, hopefully it might go some way to helping out someone else who is decrepit before their time

[Athelstan]

First update!

Modifying the battery wiring to allow charging (and switching on/off) via the turret.

First: Snipped the plastic connectors off the wires and soldered new wires to the battery


Second: The new wires were initially very long as I didn't want to cut them to size just yet


Third: Having drilled a second 6mm hole in to the top of the battery housing I fed the wire up through in to the hull


Fourth: The battery is in, its wires heading straight up in to the hull...


Fifth: ...and out through in to the turret


Sixth: Lastly for the day (I tire extremely quickly), I cut the wires to length and soldered new connectors on to them


Things are under way!

[Johnf]

Will you use these battery cables as a charging point? Have you considered the asiatam hull. It can be opend in a couple of seconds without any tools and all ectronics is easy to access including the battery.

[Athelstan]

I will be charging via those cables, yep. The Asiatam hull looks fantastic and it's something I hope to be able to get at some point in the future. As much as I'd love to say "To heck with it" and buy one on the credit card I simply can't afford it at the moment. I'm not 100% sure yet but I also think I'd rather explore the idea of a new radio and El-Mod electronics before I began upgrading the hull itself.

It's just so easy to build up a huge long list of "stuff that would be awesome"...

[Athelstan]

Oh, I should point out that there are Corally connectors underneath the heat-shrink; I prefer them to the Tamiya-style connectors!

[panzerfahrer]

Have you considered replacing the slide switches with mini toggle switches, far less effort required to operate them, they only cost, a pound or so each,and I think you would find them so much easier, you could probably fit 3 inside the hatch.

[Dietrich]

Hi Athelstan, :~
Firstly, I am sorry to read about your illness , I had ME many years ago now but I was a lucky one and made a full recovery.
That is a long list of alterations to make, but rather than 'Overloading' the turret with so many switches and battery chargers, why not make it easier to split the hull top and bottom ? The screws can simply be dispensed with and magnets used instead to hold the two halves together. I realise that the effort of pulling the two pieces apart may be a lot so you could experiment with smaller or weaker magnets. I used the two 'Centre' screw holes located over the tracks as a pair of 'rod and sockets ' which locate the hull in place and stop it from sliding about and the magnets hold it all in place.

You can also make use of the hatches on the Tiger, cut them free of the deck and hinge them in place so that they can easily be lifted to access switches and a recharging port.

I hope that this gives you some ideas that you can use....making the turret top removable will require some modifications to the 'Airsoft' mechanism, as the spring is located in the turret roof and so are the guns pivots.
If you still want to remove the turret top then I would still suggest that you look at magnets and the 'rod and socket'
Alb.

[Athelstan]

Have you considered replacing the slide switches with mini toggle switches, far less effort required to operate them, they only cost, a pound or so each,and I think you would find them so much easier, you could probably fit 3 inside the hatch.

Hey Panzerfahrer; I had/have been thinking about toggle switches, yes. A simple, compact "three in a row" of toggles would take up next to no room at all. I need to really figure things out before I finalise the switches but I do intend on replacing the default ones with identically-sized ones!

Dietrich - Magnets! What a fantastic idea, I'm just ordered some off fleabay That's such a simple but effective idea that I think it's single-handedly made me want to convert this - conversion - in to a "remove the upper hull" as opposed to "remove the upper turret". Having said that though, I would still like quick an easy access to the turret interior for different reasons as - realism permitting - I'm sketching out an idea for a "shell eject" mechanism in which 5.56mm casings would be forcibly ejected from the turret.

Thank you, the photos were really helpful - they've given me a lot of food for thought!

[Athelstan]

Goodness, I'm so forgetful. I'm sorry to hear that you had ME, Dietrich, though I'm glad you made a recovery. May I ask how long were you unwell? I made a sudden and near-complete recovery in 2006 but relapsed to worse-than-before within a few months. It was so frustrating and I've yet to get anywhere near to even my old pre-recovery situation. Still, life has its challenges - just have to keep plugging away and doing what you can.