Mato steel gears

[FreakyDude]

Dietrich
See the pics below, I used the tap tap method for the gears. The splines come off really easy when you set the gear portion between the jaws of an open vice. Surprising how softly you have to hit it to make this work.
I am a hair off though to be quite honest as I would like the gears to mesh a tad more than they do but I had no metric drills ( lol too anxious to wait ) but this was just a practice run anyway and I learned what I need to do the steel gears this weekend after my metric drills get here.

27 revolutions of gear 1 to equal 1 complete rev of the drive shaft. This will indeed be a scale speed tiger.

[NigelDerEnglander]

Hi guys,

Well, I never got round to buying a new set of gears last September. The set of gears on my HL Pershing is already a home-converted 3:1 box made from the cast metal gears and it makes a terrible racket now after several years service. So I really want to buy a new set of 'proper' 3:1 gears. There are two choices, the brass ones:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160778923805? ... 1423.l2649

or the steel ones (yes, I realise these particular ones are the wrong shafts for the Pershing! And they're 4:1):

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290705913565? ... 1423.l2649

Pricewise there's only a few quid in it. Obviously the brass ones look nicer and give the better impression, but they look like a non-standard fit. The base plate and so on. Or is that for non-HL builds?

Has anyone had experience of both types? Because it's the comparison I'm after - I'm sure either would be 'good'. For me a major factor would be how quiet they were as I'd rather not hear a 'toy' gearbox meshing over the HL sound whether in normal operation or under load (my home-brewed gearboxes sound awful nowadays as the gear meshing is so poor).

Looking forward to your comments!

nige

[Tankbear]

Hi Nige,

I've got a set of the mato brass ones in my tiger and had the gearboxes seize (two gears travelling at different speeds on same shaft by design), also ruined the motors due to the siezing and extra friction so it has cost me new motors as well.

Also had to remove from tank a number of times to strip down and lube. Plus the drive shafts are too thin and brass is soft so bends dead easy. And on mine the drive shafts was a fraction too short so had to space out with a few washers.

I got 4:1 version which should be quite low ratio but are less low ration than the Asiatam 3:1 so the tank is fact faster than should be.

Plus points are when bedded in reasonably quiet in operation compared to my other gearboxes. Plus easy to remove pinion gear to upgrade motors for decent ones.

I've not tried the other gearboxes but have had them recommended to me, but apart from that cannot comment.

I've considered fittng Tamiya gearboxes next time I upgrade, might be an option although more expensive and you need to change drive wheel as well to fit drive shaft.

Ian.

[tomhugill]

The new asiatam 3:1 steel boxes would seem to be those HL black steel TUs with the 3:1 gear added (like on their old 3:1s that used the pot metal HL gears) I think theyve added bushes etc so they will run smoother/quieter than the stock ones would

[NigelDerEnglander]

Hi Tom,

I must admit I've hated the cast monkey-metal ones ever since they came out. In fact the more I think about it, I think my Tiger has my home-modded 3:1 box in it and works fine and the one in the Pershing is a commercial 3:1 box with cast gears - other than the first one and it had alignment problems from the beginning with off-centre axles.

I'll probably get the black steel gearbox and see how that goes over the summer.

Thanks for everybody's input.

Nige

[NigelDerEnglander]

Hi folks,

I ended up getting the steel gearboxes from Panzer Command. Unfortunately they only did the Tiger output shafts so I had to order these and swap the output shafts of the box being replaced. Lucky I did as the graunchiest gearbox was in the process of turning the pinion and first gear into brass dust! I also replaced the supplied motors with the LiPo Pro 480HS motors. This may have been a mistake as it seems too quick at the lowest speed still!

At the same time I decided to refurbish my metal tracks and boiled them in oil. Big mistake! I stripped them down - a hell of a job for the Pershing tracks - and then had to soak them in paraffin to try to degrease them. Putting them back together took 2hrs per side and the damn things keep coming apart, despite using Loctite and super glue on the small track connectors.

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth I got it running in the garden and it _is_ quieter from the gearbox area it has to be said, but not as quiet as I hoped. Turns are accompanied with gear meshing sounds. After a few hours of use one of the output stages in the Rx14 board has blown, necessitating a stripdown. The gearboxes look to be bedding in okay.

BTW. I have a replacement Rx18, but does anyone have a picture of the disposition of the RX18 inside a HL M26 Pershing? Due to the mounting posts for the Rx13/14 boards I guess it has to be somewhere other than where they go? Or were the posts removed for the Rx18?

I'll do a search for pictures of the current HL M26 internals, but perhaps someone else already knows where such a picture is on the site...?

Found a link:

http://www.rctankwarfare.co.uk/forums/v ... =22&t=8063

Hmm, just tucked down the side, I'd thought that might be the case. Well that's the mission for an evening sometime soon!

Thanks again,

Nige

[jonger]

I have shimmed all my standard metal gearboxes using brass washers (4mm mainly) and it makes a great deal of difference if you do that, my gears don't grind or "ring" (rubbing against each other) any more, and if you bed them in with grinding paste they run a lot quieter and smoothly and hopefully will last a long time.

[NigelDerEnglander]

Hi Jonger,

I did shim a few of the worst-fitting shafts, but generally this gearbox is the best I've had through my hands in terms of lack of play.
I didn't bed them in though. I hoped the steel ones would be good enough from the outset.

My current problem is that having started to install the Rx18 I find that pressing the cannon (yucky recoil) button causes the voltage to drop enough to reset the Rx18! Putting full forward then reverse on quickly does the same! Grr. Currently the tracks are off and I thought that would do it less than putting the tracks on and having the motors under more load! Hmm.

Has anyone else experienced this with the Rx18 as I had this happen when I tested the Rx18 before on the bench when I first got it?

I might get round to putting the tracks back on tonight and see if the problem 'goes away'.

Nige

[Dietrich]

Hi Nige,
Sorry for the late reply reference the RX18 dropping out. My answer would be a NO....and I suspect that you might have a bit of a problem there with either...
1. A dodgy connection with a plug into the RX18 unit. Unplug them all and put them back in checking that all the pins go into the holes.
2. A failing battery
3. Possibly a wire to the battery is coming loose and is only holding on by a few strands of wire. I would suggest that you carefully remove the this plastic cover on the battery pack and then slide the black end through which the wires pass up away from the battery and towards the main battery 'plug' and make sure that the wires are properly soldered on.
Alb.

[NigelDerEnglander]

Hi Dietrich,

It appears to be a dodgy RX18. It was dodgy from when I bought it unfortunately. I remember I had this problem then and it blew a drive transistor. I got the supplier to send me another partly burnt-out returned unit and swapped the drive boards over. It appeared to work okay again and I put it aside. Then I just installed it now as a part of the gearbox upgrade and saw the same problem once I started using it in earnest.

I dug out an older RX18 I have in a 1:25 Tamiya Chieftain (just a running lower hull) and tried that. It was fine, no problems. So my other Rx18 is a dud. I am considering taking the CPU boards out of the burnt-out Rx18 and swapping them over to see if they are any better. If not, then I will put both dodgy RX18s aside for spares and get another for the tamy chieftain, though I am now into my 4th (5th?) year of that particular conversion!! It's been a dream to RC that for the last 35 years ever since I saw a mate's dad's 1:25th Tamy Centurion with RC in it back in the late 70's. He must have been one of the true RC tank pioneers!

Nige