A good days tinkering
Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 11:08 pm
*A quick warning, this was meant to be a quick post, but I ended up rambling a lot...*
Not sure if I should've put this here or in the Heng Long section.
Finally did something today that I've been putting off for ages. Since I bought a cheap 'spares' 27Mhz RX18 Bulldog, that turned out to be working on and off, my son has always wanted to play with that instead of his nice new 2.4Ghz Pershing. So I decided a while back I'd swap the 2.4G from the Pershing to the Bulldog, bonus being that then theres no aerial to worry about him snapping or poking himself or 1 of his brothers in the eye with. But having read of other people having issues getting everything to work correctly when upgrading I was dreading it.
So 1st was the Bulldog, opened it up to take the relevant bits out, but there were more soldered joints than I'd expected (on the connection blocks, and on the airsoft unit, as well as the lights). So I opened up the Pershing to again find more soldering than I was confident in being able to do, so came to the conclusion to strip the bulldog completely bare, and then fit everything from the Pershing, disconnecting what I could, cutting what I had to (lights) and keeping everything else connected and trying to not get it too tangled.
From there onwards it all went quite well, despite having to look after my 6y/o and 1y/o while doing it, which included getting their tea and spoon feeding the littlest! Airsoft unit fitted into the Bulldog turret, along with the raise/lower motor, and then put the turret back together and back on the upper deck, turret ring fitted, traverse motor fitted. Wires for the front and rear lights, machine gun, and the light that comes on when the BB fires, all soldered together and working. Swapped the metal Pershing G/boxes into the Bulldog, but the wires were only short as they needed to be in the Pershing, but with the limited space in the Bulldog, the control board has to go right up front, so had to cut the wires off the plastic G/boxes to extend them.
A quick tidy up of the wires to try and make sure none of them get caught in any of the gears, screw the top back on and hope its all ok! Thankfully, all is well, everything works perfectly!
Only minor: Theres a little button in the battery compartment of the 2.4 system, not entirely sure what it does, but it's connected to the control board, so I managed to loosen it and fit it to the Bulldog, albeit inside the hull so if I ever need to press it, I'll have to take the tank apart.
One odd thing, RX18 with the original plastic gearboxes, forward went forwards, backward went backwards, the replacement 2.4G board with original plastic gearboxes, forwards went back, backwards went forward? Put the metal gearboxes in and it was back to being the correct way. So presumably the board or wires to the motors are wired opposite on the new boards.
Not sure if I should've put this here or in the Heng Long section.
Finally did something today that I've been putting off for ages. Since I bought a cheap 'spares' 27Mhz RX18 Bulldog, that turned out to be working on and off, my son has always wanted to play with that instead of his nice new 2.4Ghz Pershing. So I decided a while back I'd swap the 2.4G from the Pershing to the Bulldog, bonus being that then theres no aerial to worry about him snapping or poking himself or 1 of his brothers in the eye with. But having read of other people having issues getting everything to work correctly when upgrading I was dreading it.
So 1st was the Bulldog, opened it up to take the relevant bits out, but there were more soldered joints than I'd expected (on the connection blocks, and on the airsoft unit, as well as the lights). So I opened up the Pershing to again find more soldering than I was confident in being able to do, so came to the conclusion to strip the bulldog completely bare, and then fit everything from the Pershing, disconnecting what I could, cutting what I had to (lights) and keeping everything else connected and trying to not get it too tangled.
From there onwards it all went quite well, despite having to look after my 6y/o and 1y/o while doing it, which included getting their tea and spoon feeding the littlest! Airsoft unit fitted into the Bulldog turret, along with the raise/lower motor, and then put the turret back together and back on the upper deck, turret ring fitted, traverse motor fitted. Wires for the front and rear lights, machine gun, and the light that comes on when the BB fires, all soldered together and working. Swapped the metal Pershing G/boxes into the Bulldog, but the wires were only short as they needed to be in the Pershing, but with the limited space in the Bulldog, the control board has to go right up front, so had to cut the wires off the plastic G/boxes to extend them.
A quick tidy up of the wires to try and make sure none of them get caught in any of the gears, screw the top back on and hope its all ok! Thankfully, all is well, everything works perfectly!
Only minor: Theres a little button in the battery compartment of the 2.4 system, not entirely sure what it does, but it's connected to the control board, so I managed to loosen it and fit it to the Bulldog, albeit inside the hull so if I ever need to press it, I'll have to take the tank apart.
One odd thing, RX18 with the original plastic gearboxes, forward went forwards, backward went backwards, the replacement 2.4G board with original plastic gearboxes, forwards went back, backwards went forward? Put the metal gearboxes in and it was back to being the correct way. So presumably the board or wires to the motors are wired opposite on the new boards.