RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I found a cheap old variant Heng long Pz III that I can experiment/mod with and the first thing I'd do is swap out the ancient board that's in there for the relatively inexpensive Taigen board since I already have the Taigen controller. My question is how does the Taigen board fare against the newest HL Rx18 in terms of sensitivity and driving performance? Is the Rx18 still go cart-like or similar to the Taigen (not perfect but pretty satisfactory)?

Thanks for any answers!

Driving performance is about the same. Sounds are as crappy as the older HL-boards. Much louder, though.Taigen was a bit before HL with proportional turret rotation and has more steps in the driving-curve. Another positive is that the Taigen standard comes with a fan. I never, ever succeeded in blowing-up that board, éven with high rpm 390 motors.

The Taigen controllers drive quite smooth compared to the old-gen HL RX18s, but the current, 4th-gen Heng Long RX18 is far beyond Taigen, as well as their own earlier offerings. It's no Clark, let alone an IBU, but HL are getting close.

Biggest "problem" with the latest 2-sound RX18, is that the wiring is quite different here&there from the older RX18 and Taigen boards. It's no plug&play if You replace an older board.

Thanks for the insight:

You say that the newest Rx18 HL are different from the previous standard, would this mean that the Taigen board is compatible with all the Heng Long wiring that came before the newest edition i.e. Rx14 wiring? The Pz III is a non- smoke edition, so I assume it'll come with a really old board.

More steps in the driving curve definitely seems like a worthy improvement.... I haven't noticed any proportional turret rotation in the Taigen Pershing though.

Jay-Em wrote:Driving performance is about the same. Sounds are as crappy as the older HL-boards. Much louder, though.Taigen was a bit before HL with proportional turret rotation and has more steps in the driving-curve. Another positive is that the Taigen standard comes with a fan. I never, ever succeeded in blowing-up that board, éven with high rpm 390 motors.

The Taigen controllers drive quite smooth compared to the old-gen HL RX18s, but the current, 4th-gen Heng Long RX18 is far beyond Taigen, as well as their own earlier offerings. It's no Clark, let alone an IBU, but HL are getting close.

Biggest "problem" with the latest 2-sound RX18, is that the wiring is quite different here&there from the older RX18 and Taigen boards. It's no plug&play if You replace an older board.

I take it you haven't heard the new HL RX-18 board with dual sounds.

https://youtu.be/ZkeN4tu-jQc?t=186

Roboticus_Prime wrote:

Jay-Em wrote:Driving performance is about the same. Sounds are as crappy as the older HL-boards. Much louder, though.Taigen was a bit before HL with proportional turret rotation and has more steps in the driving-curve. Another positive is that the Taigen standard comes with a fan. I never, ever succeeded in blowing-up that board, éven with high rpm 390 motors.

The Taigen controllers drive quite smooth compared to the old-gen HL RX18s, but the current, 4th-gen Heng Long RX18 is far beyond Taigen, as well as their own earlier offerings. It's no Clark, let alone an IBU, but HL are getting close.

Biggest "problem" with the latest 2-sound RX18, is that the wiring is quite different here&there from the older RX18 and Taigen boards. It's no plug&play if You replace an older board.

I take it you haven't heard the new HL RX-18 board with dual sounds.

https://youtu.be/ZkeN4tu-jQc?t=186

Oh, but I have most certainly. I own two of the latest 2-sound RX18's. Hence my discovery that the wiring doesn't exactly match.

The crappy sounds I referred to were of the Taigen controller, and the 3rd gen HL controllers. Even the latest Taigen controller, with the separate soundboard, is afa sound goes, nothing to write home about tbh. The latest HL 2-sound, controller boards ( = 4th gen) run circles around it.

Added to that, I'm none-too convinced of the quality of the new Taigen board with tne separate soundcard. It blew at the first attempt to put it in my Jagdpanther. No "pooff" no smelly smoke, just connect, recoil went bezerk, quickly disconnect power, but already too late. Only the fan still runs. Re-binding doesn't make a difference. It's just dead.

The current -4th gen HL controller seems a lot more sturdy. Not blown one yet, not even with a serious short in the turret of the Leopard I tried it in Wires went up in smoke, but controller still works fine.

Jay-Em wrote: Oh, but I have most certainly. I own two of the latest 2-sound RX18's. Hence my discovery that the wiring doesn't exactly match.

The crappy sounds I referred to were of the Taigen controller, and the 3rd gen HL controllers. Even the latest Taigen controller, with the separate soundboard, is afa sound goes, nothing to write home about tbh. The latest HL 2-sound, controller boards ( = 4th gen) run circles around it.

Added to that, I'm none-too convinced of the quality of the new Taigen board with tne separate soundcard. It blew at the first attempt to put it in my Jagdpanther. No "pooff" no smelly smoke, just connect, recoil went bezerk, quickly disconnect power, but already too late. Only the fan still runs. Re-binding doesn't make a difference. It's just dead.

The current -4th gen HL controller seems a lot more sturdy. Not blown one yet, not even with a serious short in the turret of the Leopard I tried it in Wires went up in smoke, but controller still works fine.

Ah, apparently I couldn't read yesterday. You are correct sir! Wait... Where did you get one of the new boards?

Jay-Em wrote:

Roboticus_Prime wrote:

Jay-Em wrote:Driving performance is about the same. Sounds are as crappy as the older HL-boards. Much louder, though.Taigen was a bit before HL with proportional turret rotation and has more steps in the driving-curve. Another positive is that the Taigen standard comes with a fan. I never, ever succeeded in blowing-up that board, éven with high rpm 390 motors.

The Taigen controllers drive quite smooth compared to the old-gen HL RX18s, but the current, 4th-gen Heng Long RX18 is far beyond Taigen, as well as their own earlier offerings. It's no Clark, let alone an IBU, but HL are getting close.

Biggest "problem" with the latest 2-sound RX18, is that the wiring is quite different here&there from the older RX18 and Taigen boards. It's no plug&play if You replace an older board.

I take it you haven't heard the new HL RX-18 board with dual sounds.

https://youtu.be/ZkeN4tu-jQc?t=186

Oh, but I have most certainly. I own two of the latest 2-sound RX18's. Hence my discovery that the wiring doesn't exactly match.

The crappy sounds I referred to were of the Taigen controller, and the 3rd gen HL controllers. Even the latest Taigen controller, with the separate soundboard, is afa sound goes, nothing to write home about tbh. The latest HL 2-sound, controller boards ( = 4th gen) run circles around it.

Added to that, I'm none-too convinced of the quality of the new Taigen board with tne separate soundcard. It blew at the first attempt to put it in my Jagdpanther. No "pooff" no smelly smoke, just connect, recoil went bezerk, quickly disconnect power, but already too late. Only the fan still runs. Re-binding doesn't make a difference. It's just dead.

The current -4th gen HL controller seems a lot more sturdy. Not blown one yet, not even with a serious short in the turret of the Leopard I tried it in Wires went up in smoke, but controller still works fine.

How cumbersome would it be to adapt older HL Rx14/older Rx18s wiring to the newest Rx18 board? If the driving performance is on par with the Taigen board, I'd really consider the newest Heng long simply due to the pretty cool dual sound system.

I haven't seen the 4th gen control-set on the market yet, but it's just a matter of time. Heng Long is already providing it with the T-90, the King Tiger and the Sherman, but I'd go for sure and check with the sellers. Still a lot of older, no-dual sound gen3 around in the shops.

The driving- and controlling is even somewhat better than the Taigen. Everything is now proportional in quite a few steps, plùs separate up and down control of the barrel, no more cycling of the barrel.

I think what's needed is one of the newest turret-connector boards, the ones with 1 long connector and 3- or 4 smaller ones. However, there will be a lot of wire-tracing involved. Heng Long used some nifty tricks to get f.i. that separate up/down of the barrel.

One of the more peculiar results of that is, if You fire the machine gun via the lower left button on the new transmitter, ànd rotate the turret at the same time, the machine gun keeps lighting-up...

Hmmmmm....... Forgot everything about that new turret elevation control. Really seems like a revolutionary board in that case.. How long does it usually take for the boards to appear separately? Surely they must come out at the same time? What if someone fries their 4th gen board for some reason and is looking for a replacement?

It looks like you can get them at rctank.de here, although they're listed as third generation. It looks like the new set to me, though.