$35 Ebay Panzer Pzkpfw III - Missing parts and repaint

[Marc780]

This tank i got as is for $35 (shipped) from Ebay. I'm beginning to think it was about $10 too high but why quibble at this point. It came in standard molded grey and was missing: tracks, cuppola, machine gun, 2 return rollers and mounts, battery. It came with the (worthless as always)Tk01 board, which i thought for a minute might actually work for a little while at least. It doesn't, drives only in a straight line and the usual "ghost tank" issue with these junk boards so planning to swap in my RX18 spare parts soon.

I painted it today while the wife was gone for a few hours. She hates the smell and fumes and i don't blame her.



I saw the paint scheme on line, the simple sand base and green seemed perfect for this light tank (which was of course simply a second line tank for the panzer forces by 1942) and tried to duplicate it. Sandgelb with Grungelb (sp?) stripes and that's all there is to that! It took me an hour to do. The tracks arrived from Nova hobby and I promptly painted them red primer for the rust. Silver later on the high spots naturally-but that red primer seems to stays sticky for DAYS. So i'll leave it be (more or less enforced because it will take me days to hook up the electrics) and the primer will be dry by then.

Still waiting on thereplacement cuppola/mantlet, return rollers and metal mounts. In the meantime i'll splice in connections for the rx18 board and cross my fingers that this one works...don't really want to invest $80 in a 2.4 Ghz radio system for this tank it would be counterproductive (proof once again there ARE no cheap R/c tanks...)!

[PainlessWolf]

Marc,
I think you have done a lot with a 35.00 Panzer. Anything you add from this point on is gravy.
regards,
Painless

[HERMAN BIX]

Gravy indeed mate, spot on work, and quick too.

[ALPHA]

Hey Mark... if you want to save a bit on the 2.4 gig rig... since you already have one... just get the 2.4 RX... transfer the binding button... and viola!!!!!!!!!!! you have a running tank...Nice job on the paint by the way

Happy Tanking

ALPHA

[Marc780]

That's a great idea alpha was thinking of doing exactly that. The 2.4 board as a separate part can be found for $30 and already have a spare binder to plug in..why not use one tranmitter for two tanks? ..you could simply swap the box from one tank to another each time but that's just too much trouble plus the risk tearing a wire or connector each time.I was wondering if the (expensive) 2.4ghz transmitter can bind to TWO different binders or is it one binder/one trans? You'd think you'd be able to do that since, suppose the binder went bad you'd have to toss a suddenly useless transmitter too.
If anyone knows and can weigh in on this I'd be grateful-id like to avoid spending another $80 if possible- guess I could just plug in the new binder into a tank that works and try and bind it myself. If you buy the whole system they have already bound it for you-i dont even know how to do it.

[MichaelC]

Don't see why you can't that with the HL 2.4Ghz. When I was on Taigen 2.4Ghz, I only have 3 radios and it was for 12 tanks. I just bind the radio to the tank I am running everytime. Not a big deal at all.

[ALPHA]

That's a great idea alpha was thinking of doing exactly that. The 2.4 board as a separate part can be found for $30 and already have a spare binder to plug in..why not use one tranmitter for two tanks? ..you could simply swap the box from one tank to another each time but that's just too much trouble plus the risk tearing a wire or connector each time.I was wondering if the (expensive) 2.4ghz transmitter can bind to TWO different binders or is it one binder/one trans? You'd think you'd be able to do that since, suppose the binder went bad you'd have to toss a suddenly useless transmitter too.
If anyone knows and can weigh in on this I'd be grateful-id like to avoid spending another $80 if possible- guess I could just plug in the new binder into a tank that works and try and bind it myself. If you buy the whole system they have already bound it for you-i dont even know how to do it.

The binder is just a trigger switch... connects a circuit that joins it to the transmitter ...I just move that around and bind several tanks to one transmitter... even though I have three ...just remember to turn one off before starting up another.... I like the new Heng long system... it's actually evolving... and right now IMO it's better than the Taigen

Have a good one Mark

ALPHA

[Marc780]

Don't see why you can't that with the HL 2.4Ghz. When I was on Taigen 2.4Ghz, I only have 3 radios and it was for 12 tanks. I just bind the radio to the tank I am running everytime. Not a big deal at all.

Michael c do you happen to know the binding procedure? I have The heng long radio rather then the Taigen system..I saw a 2.4ghz receiver for $30 shipped on ebay, and i already own two spare binding wires (these little wires are hard to find at times -the 2.4 trans and reciever are common and seem to be sold by numerous vendors, not so the binding wire!'So figured i'd buy spares while i could even find them).

I was thinking of doing just what you described -just using one transmitter for two tanks. The standard junk radio useless as always, if I had to guess I'd say the lousy radio performance is what motivated the seller to dump the tank in the first place. The missing tracks and cuppola i understand, no doubt for possible use on another tank- I'm baffled though why he'd remove TWO of the return rollers before selling it!

[ALPHA]

Michael c do you happen to know the binding procedure? I have The heng long radio rather then the Taigen system..I saw a 2.4ghz receiver for $30 shipped on ebay, and i already own two spare binding wires (these little wires are hard to find at times -the 2.4 trans and reciever are common and seem to be sold by numerous vendors, not so the binding wire!'So figured i'd buy spares while i could even find them).

I was thinking of doing just what you described -just using one transmitter for two tanks. The standard junk radio useless as always, if I had to guess I'd say the lousy radio performance is what motivated the seller to dump the tank in the first place. The missing tracks and cuppola i understand, no doubt for possible use on another tank- I'm baffled though why he'd remove TWO of the return rollers before selling it!

Hello Mark... You got the button.. all you do is plug it into the Rx ...turn on your tank...turn on your transmitter... press the binding button..then press the start button on the transmitter... your tank should thus be bound

Happy Tanking

ALPHA

[Marc780]

On another post about my other tanks I mentioned i dropped my 2.4 ghz transmitter. After that the turret traverse on my King Tiger quit working. Everything else would work, even the barrel up and down, just not that. I traced the problem to the transmitter-after several similar episodes, starting to think the trans is the first thing you should suspect when the tank doesn't work right.
Someone suggested to take it apart, and with nothing to lose i did. I didn't fix it but I did learn something.

It comes apart with 4 phillips screws in the back. This transmitter is different from the Rx18 trans-the controls are modules that plug in. If you could find a source for the "modules" i guess you would call them, you could fix your trans cheaply. The faulty module is shown below.



It is plugged in as are all the other modules for the other controls. In other words, one dead module does not wreck the whole transmitter. These are stamped and molded together. I did not attempt to disassemble any further, but it would not surprise me if you could do just that and actually fix the thing. I didn't try this, with another transmitter on the way, i just tucked it into my spare parts and wrote "BAD" on the bad module. If something breaks on one of my other 2.4 transmitters perhaps i can just swap in a known good module from this old transmitter and make it work again.

Parts are arriving to replace the ones that were missing. I ordered 6 roller wheels from Welsh Dragon as for some reason, the previous owner had torn off 2 of them. I primed them all along with the metal cuppola i got from Ali Express (it cost $15 shipped, and came in only two weeks. Mr Jack wang came through again, he is really the only one i trust to order from there.)

I am going to wait until the return roller mounts arrive (ali express/Jack wang again, $12 shipped for 6 metal mounts, small bolts and roller axles), prime those too then paint them all.



The 2.4ghz board arrived and i installed it into the Mark III, and bound it to the transmitter, my one remaining good one. Then for kicks i tried the same transmitter also bound on my king tiger to see if it would also work, it did. So you can bind two or more tanks to one transmitter and they will all work without rebinding. Not sure what would happen if you tried to drive them all at once! But i'm not going to try that, sounds like asking for a crash.