RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

General Jumbo01 wrote:Personally, l wouldn't use the HengLong metal gearboxes as they are rather low on material quality. The Taigen boxes use better metals, reflected in their prices, but l guess you can always be unlucky and get a defective one. Why not send it back?

The HengLong nylon geared boxes run quite well and, unless you can't live with their gear ratios, I'd suggest you use them until they break. The Taigen model names, although they sound like gear ratios, are not (yes, l was fooled too).

Generally, all of the HL/Taigen/Torro motor and gearbox units are of basic quality. It may be possible to simply replace the motors with a quality 'can' with lower turns that would provide lower speeds and more torque but l'm not yet familiar with smaller sized units yet.

Always add a tiny spot of oil on both ends of the armature shaft bearings and then feel free to grease liberally the gearbox gears. Try to use a light weight grease that doesn't attack plastics - if you can find a Teflon grease this will be perfect but otherwise some model train greased do a good job.



Unfortunately, cheap brushed motors without ball races will always be noisey but l don't know the smaller brushless cans yet so cant recommend one, but with two brushless escs you'd have to get an 'open' spec MFU. Hope this helps.

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I cannot send it back anymore- too late now. I do not now what a 'çan' is. But a gearbox with lower turns was not advised since it makes this big and heavy Leo too slow.

My Taigen gearbox comes with ball bearings: https://www.rctank.de/Leopard-2A6-31-PR ... -axles-low

I have put a liberal amount of Teflon grease on the gears. I will also do that to the armature shaft bearings. Thanks for your advice.

I agree the nylon geared boxes that came with the tank did a better job- no wobbling at all. And that for a much cheaper price. So I will swap later the Taigen 380 motors to my plastic Heng Long gearbox and see if that goes well. The problem with that gearbox is that one of the electricity cables is loose and has to be soldered - I am not handy in soldering but a nephew of me probably can do it.

For the moment I will continue to use this Taigen box until it breaks. It is too expensive to to throw it away after one month of use

Probably after all, it is this what caused the excessive wear and later the track breaking: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=26504

And it was probably augmented by the fact that this Taigen box had already defects when it arrived to my home brand new.

I am fairly new into RC tanks and this adventure into the swamp was not my best move. But then again the plastic gearbox was abused too and hold its own. So I have become weary to buy expensive gearboxes which have loose drive shafts even before they are used. And I will never ride again in this abysmal sort of clay


To be honest I have learnt the hard way that this wet swamp clay is just not suited for my tank.

All of you , thank you very much for the time and effort you made to help me!

I have used a couple of different after market gearboxes. I think that the Watersons were the best. Came with 3 different pinion gears and a removal/ installation tool. High quality machined gears.

I have a set of these in my PzIV and they work great. It has a bunch of metal parts as well as metal hull and turret schurzen. They drive it really well through anything I've tried it on or in.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tank-Gearbox-F ... :rk:8:pf:0

Or maybe something like these...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Steel-ML49mm-G ... rk:89:pf:0

I haven't used any of these, but they do look pretty impressive.

I'm not sure of the correct length you need, but most of the manufactures make the different gear boxes in all the different length for the HL's.

Hope some of this helps!

Bill

Thanks Bill.

Bastiaan

"Can", sorry, a term used for can style motors, not open frame type. Cheap, low quality versions of these motors are sealed, the brushes cannot be replaced and the commutator cannot be cleaned. If you replace them with more high spec "cans" you should also be able to select the number of turns /wind of the motor. When you consider that in other forms of RC hobbies it is common to spend over £200 on just one motor and ESC to get two motors and two gearboxes for £12 - 100 is very cheap.

If that gearbox has ball races on each end of every turning shaft and the frame is precision drilled then you should be fine there. Use a light oil on the ball races. Do not grease the motor shaft ends - just the smallest amount of light oil! Teflon grease is for the gear teeth. I'll take a look around 380 sized cans (for my own benefit too) and get back on that one.

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Hi,WD40 make a Dry PTFE spray which is ideal for lubricating Gearboxes
(WD-40 Specialist. Anti Friction DRY PTFE Lubricant) .
You mentioned Axle Support bearings, I am a firm believer in them and it is one of the first modifications on every Tank I purchase,
They prevent excess stress on the gearbox mountings and stabilise the gearbox output shafts which reduces the chance of Tracks being "Thrown".
I was surprised that the Taigen Gearboxes were so disappointing,
If you did buy them from DOM at www.rctank.de He would certainly want to hear about the problems you are having with them,
I would advise against buying Heng Long Metal Gearboxes, Yes they are much cheaper BUT they really are RUBBISH,
Whereas the Nylon Heng Long Gearboxes are very good value.

General Jumbo01 wrote:When you consider that in other forms of RC hobbies it is common to spend over £200 on just one motor and ESC to get two motors and two gearboxes for £12 - 100 is very cheap.

Yep, a pair of high end tank boxes with motors aren't expensive, they only appear expensive because of how cheap some are.
When I finally threw the towel in with the HIGH end slot cars, single motors were in excess of £250 (think they're over £300 now), with the pinion and crown gear another £40 or more on top. Oh, and these setups weren't built to last.
A well engineered pair of boxes may feel expensive, but they're not.

We really need to chat about slots - my '60s youth was misspent spending my parents salaries on 1/24th scale slot car racing at the big commercial raceways around the south using the very first clear plastic blobs (they weren't lexan then) and hand built brass chassis. I used Dyna Enduro 26d cans then, and you could specify the wind. All gone now are those huge 8 lane tracks.

Anyway, 380 cans. A quick couple of phone calls to distributors has revealed......no good ones are made! No demand. If you go to 540 size (1/10th race standard) then hundreds of types but mostly now brushless anyway - fine if you can fit them in and bin the stock MFU!

So... I'm going to do what some of us did in the '60s, break down a sealed stock 380 can and rewind it to give lower revs and more torque. Now, where do l find the wire?

jarndice wrote:Hi,WD40 make a Dry PTFE spray which is ideal for lubricating Gearboxes
(WD-40 Specialist. Anti Friction DRY PTFE Lubricant) .
You mentioned Axle Support bearings, I am a firm believer in them and it is one of the first modifications on every Tank I purchase,
They prevent excess stress on the gearbox mountings and stabilise the gearbox output shafts which reduces the chance of Tracks being "Thrown".
I was surprised that the Taigen Gearboxes were so disappointing,
If you did buy them from DOM at http://www.rctank.de He would certainly want to hear about the problems you are having with them,
I would advise against buying Heng Long Metal Gearboxes, Yes they are much cheaper BUT they really are RUBBISH,
Whereas the Nylon Heng Long Gearboxes are very good value.

Thanks. I have re assembled the tank and will drive with the Taigen until it breaks. Then will put the nylon gears in it. The axle support bearings are for later.

General Jumbo01 wrote:"Can", sorry, a term used for can style motors, not open frame type. Cheap, low quality versions of these motors are sealed, the brushes cannot be replaced and the commutator cannot be cleaned. If you replace them with more high spec "cans" you should also be able to select the number of turns /wind of the motor. When you consider that in other forms of RC hobbies it is common to spend over £200 on just one motor and ESC to get two motors and two gearboxes for £12 - 100 is very cheap.

If that gearbox has ball races on each end of every turning shaft and the frame is precision drilled then you should be fine there. Use a light oil on the ball races. Do not grease the motor shaft ends - just the smallest amount of light oil! Teflon grease is for the gear teeth. I'll take a look around 380 sized cans (for my own benefit too) and get back on that one.

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Ok, thank you.

seb4 wrote:

jarndice wrote:Hi,WD40 make a Dry PTFE spray which is ideal for lubricating Gearboxes
(WD-40 Specialist. Anti Friction DRY PTFE Lubricant) .
You mentioned Axle Support bearings, I am a firm believer in them and it is one of the first modifications on every Tank I purchase,
They prevent excess stress on the gearbox mountings and stabilise the gearbox output shafts which reduces the chance of Tracks being "Thrown".
I was surprised that the Taigen Gearboxes were so disappointing,
If you did buy them from DOM at http://www.rctank.de He would certainly want to hear about the problems you are having with them,
I would advise against buying Heng Long Metal Gearboxes, Yes they are much cheaper BUT they really are RUBBISH,
Whereas the Nylon Heng Long Gearboxes are very good value.

Why are the metal ones worse as the nylon gear?