My Tiger Tank 1 (Early model, full option) Build.

[DavidByrden]

There are 36 known photos of Tiger "332", catalogued at TIIF.DE.
It's not grey in the photos, and I can't see any evidence (underneath things, in hidden corners etc) that it was ever grey.
We don't know what colour the Tigers of the 503 battalion were painted. It's quite possible that they used the "tropical" colours, because they operated in Southern Russia.

David

[silversurfer1947]

A little more progress to report. I connected up all the R/C units and ran through the test procedures as per the Tamiya manual, as I thought. Got all the right flashing lights in the right order, so went ahead and installed them all.

Sitting back, I realised it had been very quiet. Reread the manual and found I should have the engine noises. i then realised I had no connected the speaker unit properly. Hopefully, as everything else worked the sounds will be OK. The drawing in the manual shows very neat wiring. I can't get mine to look anywhere near as good.

[Ad Lav]

Good luck with the wiring, although the tiger is the most forgiving!

You'll be rolling along soon

[silversurfer1947]

Richard if your engine grills are from "ABER" do make sure you look at them closely before fitting them,
One side has crease lines that are there to allow you to bend the edge to follow the shape of the engine cover.
Place the "ABER" grill over the engine cover CREASE LINE UPWARDS" then super glue in place finally tapping along the crease lines to follow the shape of the engine cover,
A tip- Dry run fitting the grill, and you can press along the crease lines with your thumbs to get the rough shape you need before glueing in place.
Then finesse the bend in the grill.
shaun

What you say seems logical, however I am a bit confused. The Aber grills are labelled left and right. If I fit them as labelled, this would mean that the crease lines are on the bottom of the grills, not on top as you suggest. Have I missed something?

[jarndice]

The only thing you have missed is me kicking my self for such stupidity although goodness knows I should be used to it by now, you are of course quite right,
Crease lines face DOWN and the writing faces UP.
In the true spirit of Mr Uriah Heep, My umble apoligies sirrahh!
Or the other version -
Glad you saw my deliberate mistake Pike, Pity no one else was paying attention!!
(no one likes a smartar*e)
I ate you Butler!
shaun.

[silversurfer1947]

As you can just about see, I have managed to fit the engine grills. I shall have a look at what is necessary for the rear fenders next. I am having real problems with the small parts from the Basic set. I think the description got lost in translation. I would hate to see what the advanced set looks like. Any help in how to set about making up the various catches and rackets would be most welcome.

[silversurfer1947]

It's been a while since my last pot, but I have not been idle. I have been working on some detailing, which has been a huge struggle with very small pieces of PE brass.

I had not actually run the tank at all, so decided t give it a test - I discovered I have a major problem, no doubt from a stupid, elementary mistake. I have read the manual again, but it does not really help. I am therefore hoping someone can point me in the right direction, (after such comments as "Stupid Boy" or other similar and less polite versions.)

Sequence of events as follows :-

1. Turn on transmitter and tank, to be greeted by the correct start-up noises and engine on tick-over.
2. Main gun elevation operates correctly with appropriate sounds.
3. Turret rotation works with correct sound.
4. This is where things start to go wrong. Throttle absolutely no effect. Tank does not move and no change in engine sound.
5. Steering control. Full left, instead of a pivot turn to the left, the tank goes forward fairly quickly. Similarly, instead of a pivot turn to the right, it takes off in reverse. Both of these without any throttle at all.

Either the equipment is faulty (unlikely) or I have connected things wrongly. As a total novice, I have no idea what I have done. Before dismantling thing, I shall be grateful as to where I should start looking for the most likely fault. I though I was very careful in my connections.

I did warn that I would probably be asking stupid questions - i guess this qualifies big time.

[Ad Lav]

Sounds like you've got the channels in the wrong slots in the receiver. I did this on mine and had to mess around for a while until I got it right!

Depends how you want it setup though, I have throttle and steering left hand side. Turret and main gun right hand side.

[silversurfer1947]

Opened the tank up and checked the connections. All was as it should be (apparently) - the cable labelled Ch1 was connected to Channel 1 on the receiver, etc. Read both the Tamiya manual and the RC transmitter handbook. All was revealed. The Tamiya manual specifically states Ch1 Rudder, Ch2 Throttle, whereas the transmitter manual says Ch1 throttle, Ch2 rudder. I thought the Tamiya instruction sightly odd at the time ,but did what it said. I have swapped channels one and 2 over, and guess what - it now works perfectly.

The Tamiya manual is WRONG!

I shall leave the controls as they are - throttle on left, steering on the right for the time being. Once I have seen how I get on, I may change the steering over with the turret rotation.

All I have to do now is finish building the tank! One thing that will need addressing is its appearance. It looks too clean and new, but I don't want to mess the whole thing up by making a pig's ear out of weathering it.

[Ad Lav]

Glad you got it fixed.

I happened by the left stick stuff by chance. Only annoying thing is I needed to trim the channel fittings for my spectrum receiver.