Prospective Tank Owner?

[hooben-hobby]

As an employee of Hooben, I also suggest that you can use Henglong's tank first. They are cheaper and are very suitable for the tank enthusiasts who have just started

Then talk about Hooben
advantages of Hooben: excellent details, completely based on the original tank, they are defined as models, not toys.
Disadvantages: long production period, bad logistics, bad customer service.
Production time problem: We are ready to open a shop in Germany for easy purchase
Logistics problem: We are now delivered by most express delivery from DHL, and the time will be faster
Bad customer service: we recruited new customer service staff

[SJITRX4]

Hi Chaps. Wow - thank you all for the replies! A lot of things to think about there for sure. But so nice to get useful responses so soon. Of course, I've still got to get financial approval from 'er indoors If that happens, I'll keep everyone posted!

[SJITRX4]

OK, a step further perhaps! I've seen this and I like the look of it, that is how it looks, not so much what it has etc, if you understand me:- 1/16 Scale USA M41 Walker Bulldog Light Tank Upgrade Edition by Heng Long - RTR - HLG3839-001
It has the 7.0 board, which I gather is good(?) and it comes with metal gears but rubber tracks, which I thought might be a good start? But, any thoughts on this would be very welcome. (It's being sold by Motion RC by the way)

Clearly, I'm on a budget here! The four Defenders have absorbed a lot of funds and I doubt there will be a great deal of sympathy for an expensive tank!

Thanks again.

[STHV]

As an employee of Hooben, I also suggest that you can use Henglong's tank first. They are cheaper and are very suitable for the tank enthusiasts who have just started

Then talk about Hooben
advantages of Hooben: excellent details, completely based on the original tank, they are defined as models, not toys.
Disadvantages: long production period, bad logistics, bad customer service.
Production time problem: We are ready to open a shop in Germany for easy purchase
Logistics problem: We are now delivered by most express delivery from DHL, and the time will be faster
Bad customer service: we recruited new customer service staff

If you genuinely have replaced your previous customer support then that is excellent.

However I just simply cannot agree on the details part.

The Maus and E-100 are both terribly designed, the Maus is quite literally just a scaled up 1/35 scale dragon kit as evidenced by the terrible turret with a large lip running along the base of the turret face and the hull has a mix of parts from both prototypes not just V1 like the Kubinka hybrid. They are both covered in low detail and very cheap plastic parts and the E-100 is even visibly sagging under its own weight in the promotional images.

The overall construction is terrible its just brackets with nuts glued to them, which often means the screws cannot be removed due to said glue. The only parts of the vehicle that even feel solid are the hull sides and the chassis. The rear armour has even fallen off mine without me even driving it because the gearbox was broken on arrival among others.
At least the general dimensions of the running gear seem to be correct however the return rollers are just fixed solid bits of metal that the tracks have to scrape along on the return.

Even the internals are terrible, it was advertised as 360 degree traverse but it has no slip ring and has microswitches installed to limit it to about 320!
The convoy light is even secured with blu tac.
And the board is terrible and it has awful audio.

Those micro switches would have been far better used on the elevation mechanism as it ripped itself apart after reaching maximum elevation and shredded the cheap plastic gear.

The FPV was also not as advertised and was significantly lower resolution.

For a tank you charge almost $2000 for now its quality is lower than even the Pantiger.

[Estnische]

It is a good start. Even if you don’t like what you get, there is not a big investment. Eventually you can upgrade the parts if you choose. One other thing I would recommend before you commit your purchase: watch videos of your chosen specification tank to see if it runs how you envisage.

A fully plastic tank tends to bounce over vegetation, whereas a plastic tank with metal tracks, wheels, sprockets, gearboxes and hull has a hefty momentum that makes it sink to the road and move more realistically. Having said that, avoid the metal upper hull and turret versions made of cheap pot metal.

Professional version

phpBB [video]

Base version

phpBB [video]

[SJITRX4]

Thanks guys! And thanks for the video links. I've watched one or two, but not yet seen these, so that was useful.

Re the weight, I've used stick on wheel weights in our Defenders to give some heft to the chassis etc. Is that sort of thing an option on a tank - I see that the hull is largely empty and would probably accept some weight, but not sure how that would affect springs etc.

Still some thinking to do and, I've got a Camel Trophy Defender project in the early phases, so........

But, really grateful to everyone who has answered so far!

[jarndice]

All metal transmission will give you weight at the base of the Tank ie-metal tracks, metal wheels, metal suspension, metal gearboxes.a metal hull if it is available would be good as well.
I do not recommend a metal body or metal turret,
A metal turret can put a damaging amount of excess weight on the plastic body,
A metal body is a pain if you make a mistake with fettling the tank whereas a plastic Body is easily fixed with filler and surfacer.

[hooben-hobby]

As an employee of Hooben, I also suggest that you can use Henglong's tank first. They are cheaper and are very suitable for the tank enthusiasts who have just started

Then talk about Hooben
advantages of Hooben: excellent details, completely based on the original tank, they are defined as models, not toys.
Disadvantages: long production period, bad logistics, bad customer service.
Production time problem: We are ready to open a shop in Germany for easy purchase
Logistics problem: We are now delivered by most express delivery from DHL, and the time will be faster
Bad customer service: we recruited new customer service staff

If you genuinely have replaced your previous customer support then that is excellent.

However I just simply cannot agree on the details part.

The Maus and E-100 are both terribly designed, the Maus is quite literally just a scaled up 1/35 scale dragon kit as evidenced by the terrible turret with a large lip running along the base of the turret face and the hull has a mix of parts from both prototypes not just V1 like the Kubinka hybrid. They are both covered in low detail and very cheap plastic parts and the E-100 is even visibly sagging under its own weight in the promotional images.

The overall construction is terrible its just brackets with nuts glued to them, which often means the screws cannot be removed due to said glue. The only parts of the vehicle that even feel solid are the hull sides and the chassis. The rear armour has even fallen off mine without me even driving it because the gearbox was broken on arrival among others.
At least the general dimensions of the running gear seem to be correct however the return rollers are just fixed solid bits of metal that the tracks have to scrape along on the return.

Even the internals are terrible, it was advertised as 360 degree traverse but it has no slip ring and has microswitches installed to limit it to about 320!
The convoy light is even secured with blu tac.
And the board is terrible and it has awful audio.

Those micro switches would have been far better used on the elevation mechanism as it ripped itself apart after reaching maximum elevation and shredded the cheap plastic gear.

The FPV was also not as advertised and was significantly lower resolution.

For a tank you charge almost $2000 for now its quality is lower than even the Pantiger.

Sorry for it my friend
Are your problems have been resolved?
MAUS and E-100 are our earlier tanks. We have planned redesign, but after several new tanks that are about to be released
At that time, the old Hooben VCU, the customer felt that it was not good, so this year we used a new VCU, and it also added a lot of functions. You can see it in Hooben's shops

[HERMAN BIX]

Thanks for being along Mr Hooben-hobby.
I for one appreciate your input and wish to extend a warm welcome to the RCTW group of hobbyists.
While this is not the strictly correct place to do so as its another new members intro, we do understand it may be awkward at times to represent any business and deal with any negative feedback & genuinely wish you and the rest of the team at Hooben the very best.
Please pass on our regards for the continued involvement they have in the section of the hobby, and certainly my thanks for continuing to offer models to us.
Understanding that nothing and no one is perfect, mistakes happen, and things can always be better, but if the option is nothing at all, that would be a shame.

Folks, please address any issues with Hooben directly using the existing Hooben contact process and leave any complaints out of this thread.
Lets help Mr RX4 find his way in the hobby without negative distractions......................please.

Welcome along Mr RX4 and for what its worth, begin with a Tiger 1 as its by far the most well supported model version and has an endless resource of research & historic reference to support it.
But most of all, have fun it what you do & share pictures if/when you can.......................(not like Mr jarndice-hes a mean'y with pictures )

[Meter rat]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I wish I had found this forum and asked the question you have asked, before I purchased my first model, and known about a certain shop which has appeared in the black list
There are a lot of knowledgeable people on here.