1/8 Scale HL Abrams

[tankme]

If Armortek put out an Abrams, I'd buy it regardless of what it cost.

[Jib]

I recently signed up for their news letter, I put the Abrams and a few others in the box where they ask what models you’re interested in

[Jib]

So, decisions were made, bad decisions.

Tried to drive it in 7-9” of snow. Tank sunk into the snow, the drive sprockets froze up. While I was trying to get the tank moving again I pushed it too hard, snapped one of the two drive chains.

Had to put it on my daughters sled and sled it back to the garage. Also found out I detracked both tracks, lost several track pads, and broke one of the track links, along with a couple of bent pins.

Thankfully they are sending me replacements of all the parts, only had to provide pictures of what was broken.

Pretty dumb on my part. The snow was almost up to the drivers hatch when it sunk down into the snow. Pretty sure real tanks wouldn’t be driving in that. Not sure why I thought this would be different.

[tankme]

What I've been told by folks that run their tanks in the snow...leave them out in the cold for a bit to climatize. Once they are at the same temp as the snow, they won't attract so much snow to the tank. Also, some take like WD40 and spray the sprockets and idlers so the snow doesn't stick to them. Not sure if that works or not as it doesn't snow much here in Texas.

[Jib]

So the person I was trying to work with in replacing the electronics fell through, so now I’m looking at Beier.

Does anyone have any experience putting Beier in a large scale model, or know of any other aftermarket MFU people who may have something that fits this situation?

I’m used to putting Elmod in my tanks, but Elmod doesn’t support ESCs.

[tankme]

I'm going to be using some of the original Open Panzer TCBs in my tanks. I also have an older IBU, but those are discontinued. What voltage are you planning on running?

[Jib]

The battery is 36v. Drive motors are 36v, traverse is 12v, elevation is 24v. It’s an interesting mix. Think the traverse needs to be a 24v, it’s a little slow.

[Jib]

So I’ve been trying to make lemonade out of lemons while I’ve been waiting for all the parts to come in to fix my tank. The last piece comes tomorrow.

In the mean time I have replaced the 12v traverse motor with a 24v motor. Even without upping the voltage it gets (12.9v) it still moves about twice as fast. I think the motor/gearbox I got has more rpm’s too, but the torque is still good enough to rotate the turret.

Replaced the red machine gun LED with an orange one.

Put in a 36 wire slip joint so I can get some extra stuff going in the turret. I have a custom daughter board coming in tomorrow that I’ll put in there to make everything nice and clean looking.

I took about 5 days playing around with servo placement and implementation for recoil. There are six servo outputs on the TK8.1, at least two of them work (recoil and periscope) and one of them does not appear to work (hatch). I tried multiple placements, orientations, ways of connecting the servo horn to the barrel, servos with more torque… It took a lot longer than I felt like it should’ve.

https://youtu.be/23X-URWGLJk?si=CNOpVJ3P8ZDfwjb6

I finally picked up an airbrush and painted some of the SEPv3 parts, so hopefully I’ll put those on soon. They gave me touch up paint, but it was so old that it was all dried up. Tried to match the color as best I could, but it’s not perfect.

I have some more ideas to expand what I can do with the MFU, but I have to wait for the parts to come in first to see if it will work.

The last piece to get the tank running again should arrive tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll get it out this weekend.

[Jib]

Finally got the new drive chain put on and the track repaired.

There’s also a demo of the motorized CITV I got from OKMO/DKLMRC at the end of the video. I'm using a Foxeer Toothless 2 Starlight Mini camera and a Rush Solo Max VTX here.

https://youtu.be/UdfMJ8uF1Aw?si=p8lqipUR8T2df7yG

[Jib]

Finally got my tank put back together and out for a test run before we get more snow again.

Heres the list of things I’ve done/added

Motorized CITV

Turret spare tire mount

Loaders cupola

VCSU

Bustle rack grate

Servo recoil

FPV system with its own on/off switch

Replaced original slip ring with 36 wire slip ring

Replaced original 12v traverse motor with 24v motor

Replaced red machine gun LED with orange LED

Guns smoke

Filled mud guard grooves with putty and sanded them down, awaiting paint

Modified gun barrel range from 0 to 10 degrees to -7 to 15 degrees

https://youtu.be/F9QJ0tP3rRs?si=XN9E8rhKDdpt091O