Marc780 Tiger 1 Part 3 - Electrical issues and broken switch
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 1:32 am
i decided to rewire the tank for the Rx18. It worked with the old tk01 board for a couple minutes, then it would work intermittently. i figured the problem must be heat. Since that's the only thing that changes in the equation. The board must be heating up as soon as it gets a load on it. And the placement by the designers, of the transistors etc. of the board facing down doesn't help things either.
At first i tried to add a fan-i was going to glue it in front of the board and see what happened. But as soon as I went to strip the end of the wire from the switch, it pulled off from the circuit board. No problem i thought - i have the parts for an RX18 swap already! Then I went to hook up the Rx18 and strip the wire from power switch. I tugged on this wire a little too hard and the power switch broke into pieces. DRAT!
Then I went to Radio shack (an electronic parts retailer here in the states) and tried a regular toggle switch with only two poles (never do this by the way). I smelled burning and the switch got hot. No power was being passed...the fan i'd installed over the circuit board was not turning so it WASN'T getting power. Obviously I'd shorted the battery somehow...
OK I am one who doesn't mind admitting his mistakes if somebody somewhere else can learn from them. So. Lessons learned?
-The heng long power switch is not easy to find. Unless you know electrical things (I only know the basics) just do a straight replacement with this switch!
Notice how the switch works. The DC power (battery) goes into the wires in the center, and the board and everything else gets power from the two outside wires. This kind of switch is not very common and you can look for a long time for replacement power switches, and not see one that works exactly like the Heng long switch does. So don't try to replace it with a 2 pole switch, it won't work and you might destroy something.. I'm guessing all i did with that switch was short the battery. I can only hope i didn't cook the board....hopefully no power got to it. The fan didn't turn so maybe just MAYBE it didn't kill anything. But whatever it did it's too late now, anyway.
I checked the battery with the volt meter right after I discovered my ghetto wiring fail (I had to unplug it FAST) and it was hot, almost too hot to hold. But it still held 7.2 volts. i guess i could check connectivity with the volt meter to double check. After all this i gave up and ordered 4 Heng Long power switch from Ali Express (the shipping cost more then the parts so why not 4?)
So now the King tiger works and the Tiger doesn't. Oh well! I'll know i'm done when i finally stop buying things!
I am though, very happy with how the paint came out. After making lots of mistakes with my first tank, the king tiger, I knew a lot more about what NOT to do, what works and what doesn't when modifying these tanks.
The paint looks much darker then the King tiger I did and this is mostly a happy accident. It looks much more authentic. Sometimes cutting corners is actually useful. The pictures help show me what the airbrush missed-quite a lot really. After seeing these photos I went back and touched up a lot of the grey with more sand gel and a paint brush...The camp stripes are really too wide! If I touch up with the airbrush again it will be the last time if i botch that I'll have to start over!
The way I did it might be helpful to know if your model paint jobs are coming out too bright...i started with a grey primer. then i airbrushed "sand gelb" over that. I didn't cover the grey completely with the sand, a lot of the grey shows through and that is fine. Then i did the rest of the camo and the overall effect is very pleasing. The zimmerit is from Welsh Dragon.
At first i tried to add a fan-i was going to glue it in front of the board and see what happened. But as soon as I went to strip the end of the wire from the switch, it pulled off from the circuit board. No problem i thought - i have the parts for an RX18 swap already! Then I went to hook up the Rx18 and strip the wire from power switch. I tugged on this wire a little too hard and the power switch broke into pieces. DRAT!
Then I went to Radio shack (an electronic parts retailer here in the states) and tried a regular toggle switch with only two poles (never do this by the way). I smelled burning and the switch got hot. No power was being passed...the fan i'd installed over the circuit board was not turning so it WASN'T getting power. Obviously I'd shorted the battery somehow...
OK I am one who doesn't mind admitting his mistakes if somebody somewhere else can learn from them. So. Lessons learned?
-The heng long power switch is not easy to find. Unless you know electrical things (I only know the basics) just do a straight replacement with this switch!
Notice how the switch works. The DC power (battery) goes into the wires in the center, and the board and everything else gets power from the two outside wires. This kind of switch is not very common and you can look for a long time for replacement power switches, and not see one that works exactly like the Heng long switch does. So don't try to replace it with a 2 pole switch, it won't work and you might destroy something.. I'm guessing all i did with that switch was short the battery. I can only hope i didn't cook the board....hopefully no power got to it. The fan didn't turn so maybe just MAYBE it didn't kill anything. But whatever it did it's too late now, anyway.
I checked the battery with the volt meter right after I discovered my ghetto wiring fail (I had to unplug it FAST) and it was hot, almost too hot to hold. But it still held 7.2 volts. i guess i could check connectivity with the volt meter to double check. After all this i gave up and ordered 4 Heng Long power switch from Ali Express (the shipping cost more then the parts so why not 4?)
So now the King tiger works and the Tiger doesn't. Oh well! I'll know i'm done when i finally stop buying things!
I am though, very happy with how the paint came out. After making lots of mistakes with my first tank, the king tiger, I knew a lot more about what NOT to do, what works and what doesn't when modifying these tanks.
The paint looks much darker then the King tiger I did and this is mostly a happy accident. It looks much more authentic. Sometimes cutting corners is actually useful. The pictures help show me what the airbrush missed-quite a lot really. After seeing these photos I went back and touched up a lot of the grey with more sand gel and a paint brush...The camp stripes are really too wide! If I touch up with the airbrush again it will be the last time if i botch that I'll have to start over!
The way I did it might be helpful to know if your model paint jobs are coming out too bright...i started with a grey primer. then i airbrushed "sand gelb" over that. I didn't cover the grey completely with the sand, a lot of the grey shows through and that is fine. Then i did the rest of the camo and the overall effect is very pleasing. The zimmerit is from Welsh Dragon.
