RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

You'll find LEDs with fibre optic attached on eBay being sold for 1/14 scale truck dash dials. These come in several colours so if you are able to drill out a barrel you could fit one of these. A larger calibre barrel would be easier!

General Jumbo01 wrote:You'll find LEDs with fibre optic attached on eBay being sold for 1/14 scale truck dash dials. These come in several colours so if you are able to drill out a barrel you could fit one of these. A larger calibre barrel would be easier!

I already have the leds so would prefer to use those provided I can find how best to attech the fibre.

From what I can gather, use a small diameter shrink wrap around the end of the machine gun and the fibre where it comes out the back of the barrel, with just barely enough of the wrap around the barrel as possible for a grip on it, the fibre should be the same length as the wrap that's around it, heat that shrink wrap up to hold tight. Then use a length of shrink wrap that just fits the LED diameter, fit it over the LED, slide in the fibre with its wrap on, till it touches the top of the LED, then heat up that bigger wrap till it tightens on the LED and smaller wrap.
Depending on the LED size, you can use an in between sized shrink wrap between the bigger and smaller wraps, shrinking that one on the smaller one before fitting into the larger one.
If done correctly, I believe it should hold tight enough, and shouldn't need glue.
Obviously the legs of the LED's would need their own shrink wraps too.
It's a shame the gun barrels in question don't have a larger diameter at the tail end, otherwise you could do it like this.

Sherman - 30 Cal. Browning bow machine gun
https://www.forgebeartanks.com/store/p1 ... _gun_.html

Or, you can completely ignore what I said above, and figure out if you can attach the LED behind the gun barrel to the hull using something suitable with a hole to hold the LED

Son of a gun-ner wrote:Or, you can completely ignore what I said above, and figure out if you can attach the LED behind the gun barrel to the hull using something suitable with a hole to hold the LED

I use the shrink wrap method as described above and it has served well for years.

You need to ensure that the led and the fibre optics end surfaces touch and are aligned. You do not want to use glue that may get on the surfaces so shrink wrap tubing is ideal. If the gun barrel can move then you may want to shrink wrap along the wires so that the surfaces cannot part.

Thanks for all the suggestions and advice about the machine guns. Back to my original question - does anyone have any ideas about the engine noise, please? I am going to move this into the Other Builds. It may be a while but it will get built eventually!

silversurfer1947 wrote:Thanks for all the suggestions and advice about the machine guns. Back to my original question - does anyone have any ideas about the engine noise, please? I am going to move this into the Other Builds. It may be a while but it will get built eventually!

Well, that is another case for the Benedini boards. Are much, much better than any 35rc tank product and are super small, programmable, customizable...
I think there are no benedini sounds for panzer I, but the 35rc sounds are not real panzer I neither... Fit something that sounds similar or create your own and enjoy!