RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Salutations everyone!

This here is Rumble.
I decided to name him that after I got booted from my girlfriend's room because he made too much noise when he moved.

So Rumble is the T-90 MT upgrade version from Heng Long, with metal tracks, idler wheels, drive sprocket, zinc alloy gearbox (I didn't know they even used those), and a metal drive. As a result - he weighs about 7 kilograms give or take - and eats into the stock battery provided by HL. He has a tendency to move left on concrete, and right offroad even with trim and directional corrections, something I'm looking to fix soon.
I feel that the extra weight comes at a cost offroad - because he likes to get stuck on uneven patches of ground.

I've decided to skip on the decals - because I want to give him a fresh paint coat based on one of the tanks I saw while watching the recent Biathlon games that were held in Russia recently - a blue / black / white scheme I really liked.
I'm also looking to remove that horrid recoil he makes when firing, because it makes some of the loose parts come off their hinges.

All in all - he's quite the experience to run around with, and I like him, despite the few flaws he has.

I'll be opening him up soon, to take a look at what he has on the inside of the hull - I've heard a few of the tanks HL makes have loose gearboxes that just need a bit of tightening.
I will also be looking to change his turret rotation to a full 360 degrees, and make some changes to the gun elevation so that it doesn't make that irritating clicking noise when it reaches its maximum incline. Also, for some reason - his smoke dispenser doesn't work.

In any case, I look forward to any links, advice, and tips you all may have for the upgrades I want to make, in addition to searching other forums and videos on how to make those upgrades.
Also, I don't want to sacrifice image quality, so here are the links to the most recent pictures of Rumble:



Out. o7

Looking good. Do you plan on painting the sprockets and tracks? For all that you desire with the dodgy Heng Long electronics it sounds like a nice upgraded control board and some servo recoil and turret rotation assembly are in your future

c.rainford73 wrote:Looking good. Do you plan on painting the sprockets and tracks? For all that you desire with the dodgy Heng Long electronics it sounds like a nice upgraded control board and some servo recoil and turret rotation assembly are in your future

Hm, never considered that.
But yes, I really want to rid the tank of its current limitations. I'm holding off on changing the control board because I don't want to **** up anything in case something needs to be soldered; what with me not having an engineering background. Any chance those upgrades can be made without changing the stock board?

Son of a gun-ner wrote:Haven't you got a grown up to show/help you. . . .
Failing that, there's always a YouTube tutorial

You really don't need to be an engineer to learn to solder, honestly.

Oh, and in a word about upgrading a standard heng long electronics, NO

Mick.

Nope - I'm about as far under a rock that I can get. I'll watch some videos in any case - when it comes to that.
Not upgrading electronics any time soon; I'll be looking up potential upgrades with stock electronics and new parts though.

Son of a gun-ner wrote:Well, I don't believe the standard heng long board supports servos, but if I'm wrong, I'll be terribly embarrassed.

Mick.

No but Ian at RCtankelectronics.com sells a kit on his website to make it battle ready and servo recoil

c.rainford73 wrote: No but Ian at RCtankelectronics.com sells a kit on his website to make it battle ready and servo recoil

I had a look - seems like that kit supports only IR ready tanks? Mine is airsoft.
And besides, it seems like most builds I come across do not have a standard HL board. They all seem to use a Clark TK22-L2 board, or sometimes an IBU2 board with a 480 motor and aftermarket servos. Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EwUvUNe9Pg

Not a T-90 obviously, but I assume the components are almost the same.

You guys have anyone here or outside I can use as a reference?

HammerWihoutASickle wrote:

c.rainford73 wrote: No but Ian at RCtankelectronics.com sells a kit on his website to make it battle ready and servo recoil

I had a look - seems like that kit supports only IR ready tanks? Mine is airsoft.
And besides, it seems like most builds I come across do not have a standard HL board. They all seem to use a Clark TK22-L2 board, or sometimes an IBU2 board with a 480 motor and aftermarket servos. Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EwUvUNe9Pg

Not a T-90 obviously, but I assume the components are almost the same.

You guys have anyone here or outside I can use as a reference?

When you mention a reference to you mean a build thread about a similar Heng Long/Taigen tank with airsoft? Or someone you can purchase upgrades from?

Carl

Hammer, all Heng Long tanks comes with electronics that will IR battle other Heng Long tanks as it is part of the base electronics. So even though your tank is a Airsoft tank, you have the capability to battle other IR tanks once you obtain one of those IR kit.

However, almost all tank clubs IR battle is based on the Tamiya standard, which is not compatible with Heng Long's own. That's why you see most people would upgrade to an aftermarket board like Clark or IBU in order to do IR battle. There are other side benefits of course with the upgraded electronics as you can now use hobby grade radio of your choice, you have access to more channels, as well as servo control functions for your IR tank.

Lastly, airsoft and IR is not mutually exclusive. I have built tanks that retain their Airsoft, but also has IR battle capability.

MichaelC.

Son of a gun-ner wrote:Michael, I need to know more about your combined bb and IR tanks, any links etc to where you've done this please?

Mick.

Mick, unfortunately I don't have a built link, but I did two tanks for a local member last year where he wants to battle with his son on IR, but play with Airsoft when he is by himself. There is really only two places where the IR battle system and the Airsoft cross paths, and that is the barrel and the recoil mechanism. If you don't care for the flash LED in the barrel and the recoil (Taigen even has a recoil airsoft now anyway so even that is not an issue), you just add on the IR system on top of (literally and figuratively) the existing Airsoft.

All I did for the two tanks was to find a place for the IR emitter (usually red warning LED for the airsoft gun and replace it with the IR bulb - but you do lose the warning red LED obviously) and in most cases resurrect the IR receiver mounting plate on the tank (Most Heng Long tank has the IR mounting plate anyway, even if it is Airsoft to streamline production). If not they are included in the IR kit. The wiring is completely separate as I recall, if not you can always double up.

The bottomline is that for Heng Long, and for Clark/IBU, there is no switch or option to turn off one or the other. Both IR and Airsoft capability are activated when you "fire". If you hook up both system, when you airsoft is shooting BB, the IR emitter is also firing off IR signal at the same time.

MichaelC.

c.rainford73 wrote:

HammerWihoutASickle wrote:

c.rainford73 wrote: No but Ian at RCtankelectronics.com sells a kit on his website to make it battle ready and servo recoil

I had a look - seems like that kit supports only IR ready tanks? Mine is airsoft.
And besides, it seems like most builds I come across do not have a standard HL board. They all seem to use a Clark TK22-L2 board, or sometimes an IBU2 board with a 480 motor and aftermarket servos. Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EwUvUNe9Pg

Not a T-90 obviously, but I assume the components are almost the same.

You guys have anyone here or outside I can use as a reference?

When you mention a reference to you mean a build thread about a similar Heng Long/Taigen tank with airsoft? Or someone you can purchase upgrades from?

Carl

Thread - I meant a thread; should've been more specific.