RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Jarlath wrote:Any LED's? Turret rotation gear? Magnets for upper/lower hull?

Yeah, all there. But i forgot to add the ball bearings for the road wheels in the budget, so i am up to $220.

Now that the most complex and risky part of the build is done, it will be a more relaxing completion of the kit going forward. The treadplates of the fenders are extremely well detailed.
The upper hull main parts are put together in an hour, no issue, very little putty on joints.
The upper hull can be easily made into a removable top for RC access with minor reinforcement. It is squeezed in place on the lower hull, no need for magnets.
Rotation can be done with a VEX robotics mid size gear and a standard Heng Long unit. Because of the configuration of the upper hull, the location of the rotation unit at the back is lower than the turret ring. It will require some spacers for the gap.
The two kit grooves on the turret ring for holding the turret are removed, these were way too tight for motorized rotation. A 1mm thick plasticard ring is made and put around the turret ring so that the vertical rim of the turret is almost flush with the top, but i made the rim just a little bit higher than the ring to give the turret some room to rotate freely.
Spacer roundels are made to bridge the bottom of the turret with the height of the rotation unit. They also give some weight to the turret bottom.
The rotation wheel is put in place after carefully calculating the center. It is essential to avoid any wobble. The location is tested first with a couple of superglue droplets, finetuned as required, and then fixed in place with hex bolts when the perfect location is determined. After some grinding of the plastic bar between the middle and rear section of the upper hull, the Heng Long rotation unit is put in place. Some grease is applied to the rotation wheel joints.
Here we are, Panzer 1 turret rotation. No need for over engineering. It works perfectly. The 35RCTANK board offers good speed control over the rotation. I can make it turn extremely slow or faster as required.
The turret will be given elevation with flash/sound on the 2 machine guns.
Winter is coming.
Regards, Louis

Louis!
Excellent work! I swung by your videos on Youtube of this chassis and was very impressed. With any luck, the tiny Takom Japanese Light Tankette that I have stored will work equally well with this type of careful massaging.
regards,
Painless

Kitty looks very relaxed!
Great update and smart engineering.

I’m loving it Louis


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Hi Louis. I am wondering whether you fitted any bushes to the return rollers. My thinking is that repeated rotation on the thread of the retaining bolts might erode the plastic?

Louis you are a magician with these kits!

Hi Louis. I am wondering whether you fitted any bushes to the return rollers. My thinking is that repeated rotation on the thread of the retaining bolts might erode the plastic?

Thanks everyone !

silversurfer1947 wrote:Hi Louis. I am wondering whether you fitted any bushes to the return rollers. My thinking is that repeated rotation on the thread of the retaining bolts might erode the plastic?

Hi, no, i did not, but i did file the tread. It would certainly be wise to plan the purchase and install these to improve the rolling and minimize wear. But the gearbox will likely die first...

PainlessWolf wrote:With any luck, the tiny Takom Japanese Light Tankette that I have stored will work equally well with this type of careful massaging.

Thank you my friend ! Your inquiry triggered my curiosity and i checked the Takom Type 94 Tankette i also have in store.

Comparing the size with the Panzer 1
Seems to me a Tamiya twin gearbox can be used, requiring only minor grinding at the front bottom of the gearbox to make it fit the chassis.
The only major problem i see are the provided tracks. These are one piece plastic tracks, solid except at the joint, and not very flexible. I do not see any individual links replacement available. Looks like a show stopper to me.
Going back to the Panzer 1 build

Warning to anyone buying the 35RCTANK MTC-2 board. The connector type for the battery is the same as the motors. This means it only takes one second of inattention to plug a charged battery into a motor connector, and the board is fried...
Now, the turret.

Looking at the main turret parts, i was happy to notice that the model is providing a good mantlet and pivoting mount for the machine gun elevation, requiring limited work for RC control.
The visor can be position in any position, but the mount are to be glued in place and are very thin. Still, it allows some flexibility for the careful modeler.
I did purchase a set of Aber MG13 machine guns. These is the long barrel version. I found out later there is also a set of MG13K (short barrel) that are probably a better fit for the Ausf B.
After a study of the Aber instructions, provided brass parts and comparison with the Takom plastic parts, i determined that i would not be using the Aber kit on this build. First, the brass and Photo Etched parts are extremely small, i could barely make them out wearing two pair of glasses on top of each other. So small, and their assembly is quite complicated.
Contrary to the Browning, its not obvious how to drill a channel on the MG13 for the fiber optics without risking much damage to the part. So, in the end, i re-packed the Aber parts, i will likely use them at one point for an Ausf A static build instead... in the light of day.
The Takom MG13 machine gun are of good quality and can be easily modified for RC. There is only one ejection pin hole to fill, sand and polish.
Continuing on following post

The biggest problem with the vinyl tracks is the large flat spot where you have to glue them (or melt the ends together).

I'm going to face the same problems with projects like the Bren Carrier, Vickers Mk VIc, TK-S and others, so I was thinking about printing them in soft PLA and using plasticweld to hold them together? (or maybe a small pin like those black plastic toy tank chassis that you and I are great fans of).

TPU would be nice and soft, but it won't be good for all for the guide horn detail - I can see lots of stinging and other unpleasantness there. Does anyone have any experience of TPE?

A thin fibre optic is prepared.
The two MG13 with flash are ready in no time and quite acceptable.
They are installed on the mount and the LEDs are connected on the back using the wire and resistor provided in the 35RCTANK board kit, glued and reinforced in place. Resistor always going to the Positive longer leg of the LED, and absolutely required to avoid frying it.
Elevation is provided by a simple arrangement of a micro servo with an arm connecting to the twin machine gun mount. Unceremoniously glued in place with a couple of superglue drops after the optimal position has been found. No need for over engineering, this is not a King Tiger 88mm with recoil...
The fit of the servo is good.
And here we have the finished turret, short YOUTUBE video of turret in action on following post.
Firing the MG13
The details are good.