RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Let me start by saying, quite openly, this beast is not yet finished. I do hope that I will finish it - but at every turn it seems there is a fresh modelling challenge thrown at me, and since the build is not seen as a priority by the rest of the family, I am fortunate in having plenty of time to "sleep on it", as it were. Probably just as well, as I have made plenty of mistakes along the way - which I will share with you all in this thread.
The story begins in August, when my mate Andy purchased a Chally from Andrew at Haya - plus metal tracks and a 360 turret ring. Oh and an IBU3, TARR and Beacon from Ian. I didn't really want to know about Modern stuff, but you know how it is..............

A certain auction site yielded a used Chally, with a rather smart paint job.
Let battle commence.

DKLM Chassis and recoil on order, I started to "hack stuff about".
First off was the fitting of 360 slip ring. This is version 1, before any thought to elevation and recoil.
Of course, it was all so simple. Plenty of capacity for everything that was going into the turret, and a nice meaty feel and heft to the slip ring - made from unobtanium and built to last. Slip ring plum dead centre in Turret, What could possibly go wrong?

Well, the bits from Carson at DKLM arrived and quickly demonstrated that there was insufficient room to provide the desired elevation. I will post pics of the Chassis in the next build log, so for now we will stay on topic and see how we met the challenge of coping with the elevation and recoil.
Rather than live with limited elevation, it was out with the Dremel and assorted bits of Meccano. Here's the result: That's genuine Meccano, and after much cursing and measuring and remeasuring is pretty central in the Turret. Pretty will not quite do, as we will find out in the next installment. As Flies to wanton boys, are we to the Gods. They kill us for their sport. That was a couple of weekend's work - in between dog walking, Dad's taxi. V1 was created in November, and v2 in the second week of December, so you can see this build is moving at a glacial rate.

I had earlier "had a go" at the TOG. Having realised that the HL/Taigen Xenon I had licking around (another story - my Befehls Tiger was lunching Recoils for fun at one point......) did not emit IR, I was determined to put this right. The TOG is an obvious place to put it, even if I now wonder at the effort expended. Following Shaun's advice elsewhere, I duly purchased a pin vise which came with (insufficient in my ham-fisted hands) drlll bits. Anyway, I managed, eventually to cut out the "door" and surprised myself by managing to make a hinge using the remnants of one of he (many) broken bits:
I know you are asking where the bellows came from. My mate Andy cannibalised an old woodworking Router machine. He has no idea of its provenance, merely that it was sat in his "shed of wonders". Sorry.
Anyway, that's it for this installment.
More pain to follow.......

This thread promises to be quite entertaining; hosted as it is by Beavis with brain, and minus Butt-head! I'm enjoying your eloquent account of tussles with electro-mechanical Adversaries so much that I'll be looking forward to further instalments soon, if your family commitments permit:thumbup: These are challenges many will be familiar with on this Forum. Most here overcome them, I think, and so I'm convinced that you too will engineer some innovative solutions...if not elegant ones (for the moment) .. Refinement comes later as the build evolves.... ..or the sledgehammer alternative lurks in the background.

I think I left off yesterday, with the promise of a spot on the DKLM Chassis. Mine arrived in the last week of November. Carson was, as ever, splendid - he had warned me when I ordered that there would be a delay as the workshop were busy doing other things. I actually had to collect the parcel from the Parcelforce depot, as there were the dreaded fees to pay. Since the lady who answered the bell was of pleasant demeanor, and I wanted to borrow some scissors to open the package, I decided against arguing that since I had had to collect the parcel a discount was due. Paid up and looked happy.
Next stop the NEC to meet a mate at the Bike Show. I was early so had ample opportunity to have a look in the boot of the car. First impressions - beauty to the beholder. Second impressions were painful - literally as I now had a number of paper-cut digits. Thankfully it was cold. It did add a job to the ever expanding list; clean up the edges. Pics: So bike show duly done, the following day afforded the briefest of looks - more football, dog walking, ferrying neice to stables; a waste of Tank time, but sometimes idleness has its place in life. Hmmm, perhaps I got a bad one? The fit of the rear panel was certainly not plug and play. Email to Carson revealed that a certain amount of DIY would be required. Not easy drilling Stainless - for that is what the chassis is made of. Of course it helps if you take a little more care of ABS panel parts in the first place. What sort of idiot places said item on top of a tall box, still affixed to the old HL chassis, then swings their Black and Decker workbench into the box? This one apparently. Well, it needed a bit of modification anyway, so let's just add that to the list shall we?

Anyway a few pics of the quandary I found myself in in the first test fit: I slept on it (for a week or so actually - again others had decided there were better things to do in my spare time) before returning Dremel and flat file in hand. Seems you have to remove all trace of any material from the rear of the HL panel, plus trim a smidgen off the sides. Then the panel will slide sweetly between the "spurs" which project at the rear of the DKLM chassis. Once completed, the fit is pretty good. I didn't want to perma-fix the upper and lowers, and the simple use of magnets is hindered by the DKLM being Stainless. I have a cunning plan, involving magnetic strip and Neo magnets attached to the remaining HL posts (2 towards the rear need to be removed entirely to clear the DKLM gearbox units), but other challenges have added to the joy so that task remains, as I write mid-January. Hey-ho.

Some pics of dry fit upper and lower, after surgery: Sundry internal work done - I will send pics in the next installment, which will cover off the repercussions of over-engineering the 360 Turret, space planning and why we all need a Tardis.
To be continued......

Glacial is the only pace I know for builds, life always manages to get in the way. I've been working on my Sherman Jumbo for about 2 years now although I did knock together a Tamiya Panzer IV somewhere in between.
Nice work so far. I'm not much of a modern armor fan but I do have a soft spot for the Challenger for some reason. It's a cool looking tank.

hi fella, welcome to the world of tanks we see shiny things and buy them only to find once your home they don't fit keep up the good work it will drive you mad but it will be worth it im about to upgrade my tammy leo and there's so many shiny parts so chin up and keep going

Ruben/B_Man,
Thanks for the kind words. This is not my first attempt, but sometimes feels like the last. Sledge hammer has been relocated to the shed for safety's sake. I think I went through 3 Taigen Turrets on the Befehl's Tiger to get an HL BB converted to IR to my satisfaction. That model still requires some minor work - but that will have to wait until the Chally gets signed off. Will we never learn.
I agree, it is an exceptional looking Tank. I would not have got one myself but a friend did and I couldn't resist. Believe me there are times I wish I had - like last night when I realised I would be having another session crimping JST XH connectors very soon. That will teach me to trust pictures on the TinTintNet on DSUB wiring. All will be revealed......
Tony

Hmm...well, I can understand all too well the shock you had when the upper and (gleaming new) lower halves of your tank to be don't line up I had the same sense of disappointment when i discovered that the much vaunted (but overrated) Asiatam metal Pz IV metal chassis is similarly dimensionally challenged. In fact, It's simply too long for the HL/Taigen upper bits. Whilst the sledgehammer option loomed large, I found myself reaching for a hacksaw instead..
Anyway, not for the sake of schadenfreude, but for fellow tanker compassion, I look forward to more mishaps and laterally-thought solutions! The 'pain/gain' cliche really has a renewed significance in the
realm of rc tanking......

43rd,
Ah, on the DKLM chassis, I suspect it was a mismatch of expectations. My expectation was that the HL back plate would bolt straight on. It will - after you have cleaned off every vestige of HL bracketry from the bottom (my foolishness had already removed large parts of the upper mounts, so perhaps my clumsiness was in fact prescience after all), any protrusions from accessories you have glued on, and taken a file to the sides of the Wedge of the plate. It probably explains why Tankbear made his own - and why there is a note on Carson's website that states you can (or should if you are time poor or in a hurry) purchase a plastic plate from him. Me, I prefer to make life as difficult as possible - "that'll learn 'im", as more than one teacher was known to remark. If I were doing it over again, I would buy the plate - but then that's hindsight for you...................

Living in the Highlands dulls the edge of impetuosity. Indeed most of my neighbours, far from swinging claymores, tossing cabers, or rousing the clans against the damned Sassenach, live happily in a semi-comatose state where no job is ever actually 100% finished, and tasks appear to unfold in slow motion.
That said, I've rushed into things in the past..and regretted them later. Life's too short to indulge in regret and hindsight, and so the Highland approach to tank building might suit you better
Rushing a tank could prove costly (except with a 'sticky bomb', of course ) Let others make the mistakes for you..and before you; so you can avoid them.That's what forums are for, in part. Oh, and I meant to add that the DKLM chassis really looks highly tactile; so nicely engineered that you want to..well, just touch it!

I promised I would do a section on wiring - so that some may learn from my mistakes.......
From the off, and wishing to improve on some of the shortcomings on my Befehls Tiger, I wanted to have some form of quickly detachable Upper and Lower. To whit, a means of avoiding pulling multiple JST connectors apart every time I needed access.There are 18 wires going in to the Chally Turret - 2 of which go straight to the HL multi-port connector in the Upper hull.
That left 16 - and I calculated I needed 15 to go to the IBU3.
There are plenty of connectors available, but an awful lot are made to either cater for thick wires (16AWG minimum I would think) or require an electron microscope and the deftness of a Brain Surgeon to solder. I posses neither.
I elected to use a DSUB DA15 connector as per the attached: Perfect, I thought - when I mess this up, which I will surely do, at least I can use a screw driver to sort it out. The only problem is that I was somewhat space constrained. For whilst the DKLM chassis looks to have plenty of room, some idiot had built an enormous superstructure to hold the Slip Ring. Being that idiot, I found to my cost that my initial planned layout - IBU board at front, battery somewhere aft of that, and the TARR near the exhausts, was going to be a challenge.
regardless, I built a harness for the Slip Ring to IBU3. Here it is: It worked, but required much manipulation to get the upper hull seated and Turret to rotate without fouling something.
This is the "only" internal gear layout that will fit with the Iceberg slip ring gubbins: Of course, anyone of sound mind at this stage would probably have lived with a compromised Elevation and ditched the Iceberg. Be polite and call me obstinate.
I decided that I needed to put the DSUB on a diet instead (I had already abandoned the beautifully crafted 8 Pin DIN cable with central connector, as the cable was thick enough for Transatlantic cable work - I cry to look at it even now, just thinking of the sheer number of JST crimps sacrificed to get it all working). A (long) trawl on the net revealed a potential solution - IDC (insulation displacement connection) DSUB and Ribbon cable. Despite being kept awake even now of memories of being stranded at the roadside on 250cc bikes "upgraded" with air horns using cr@p blue snap connectors (actually that is a lie, it usually thinking of the horrendous cost per mile of running a Laverda 500 in the 80's that does that), it has actually worked very well. Well not version 1 obviously.
Despite having looked at the DSUB and noting that the 2 rows probably resulted in a pattern of 1,3,5,7,9,11,13 and 15 on the top, evens on the bottom, I believed what I found in the TinTintnet, and managed to reverse the order. As a consequence nothing, unless it was connected to the HL 8 pin, worked. Out with the multi-meter (why didn't I do that in the first place before spending forever tinning then crimping?) and a few choice words, I realised that this was not going to be a simple case of deftly plucking JST's out of their white plug, it was the start of Groundhog Day. So I left it for a few days and made another one. I also used branded JST parts rather than the ones from FleaBay I had used early. OMG what a difference. Only 1 casualty out of 10 - and that was because I had got annoyed after it "found its way" into the wrong slot in the plug and I was less than tender getting it out again (actually truth be known I was also too lazy to find a proper pin to push down the tab, and was using a screwdriver that was to hand).
Net result - everything working and the hull is far less of a struggle to fit: Final task in the wiring was to copy other Forum members and put the on/off switch in the fuel drum. Since this has been done before, it was relatively straight forward - see I can copy. Oh, and I learned how to solder HXT Bananas, which was fiddly. I found my "helping hand" would shoot the wretched thing across the room (allowed to do stuff in the Utility room by this time - probably only because I could be called upon to break up fights over PS4/who made that mark/who did or didn't flush the loo. You can't do that if you are in the garage. I prefer the garage )when applying any lateral pressure whilst cooking the Solder in the cup. That meant it took longer than hoped to tidy up when called to tea. Pretty sure I would be back in the garage if it was known that "hot works" wree being undertaken without a permit. Anyway, for what it is worth, here is an On/Off switch: So all that remains to do now is:
Tune IBU3 - not happy with settings for Recoil
Fit TARR - will require QD plumbing to upper Hull. Have a cunning plan with SUGRU. We shall see.
Build Hull attachment system using magnets, brown paper and vinegar. Foul language as well probably.
Paint lower hull - and trace bits from the rear panel I placed somewhere safe. If anyone knows where, let me know.........