Learning necessary electronic and mechanical skills/components needed for a build?

[jarndice]

My very first R/C Tank was a Heng Long Panzer 4 Ausf F2/G which I bought from "Hannants",
I took it out of its box charged the battery loaded a few bbs and put it through its paces, It did what it was supposed to do,
I removed the battery and proceded to strip it down even to the point of using debonder to breakdown every panel, I then got hold of as much literature adout the PZ4 as I could find to learn all there was to know.
There are still many unknowns about German armour in general and the PZ4 in particular.
There were few upgrades available and no Forums to ask questions so I pretty much taught myself using an Airbrush learning about tapping and dieing threads and finding model fixing suppliers,
It has since then been my prototype PZ4 It has been an Ausf B, An Ausf D and an Ausf H, It was converted long ago to digital from analogue via an RX18 through a Taigen V2 to a Clark TK20.
I strongly recommend anyone starting in this hobby to buy the cheapest R/C Tank they can find and go the same route you will learn lots and save a fortune later on with more expensive models,
oh and find a dealer you can trust,
Mine is www.forgebear.com
never let me down.

[ColemanCollector]

Phew! I'm not the only guy that takes the cheap and cheerful route to get started. Pick a HL model you like, run it, open it, practice paint on it, etc. You may find you can't get enough of it, or you may put it on a shelf and move on to the next hobby. Seen it many times in flyfishing, shooting, hunting, car restoration. My son's Second World War jeep restore project is from an owner that found it wasn't the fun they thought it would be

I have 9 tanks--only 2 have been bought new. The other 7 are from folks who didn't catch the fever. Still learning, still chopping up plastic, still figuring stuff out, still giving my wife cheap amusement.

I have 2 Open Panzer TCB's sitting in my parts bin. Way above my electronics pay grade now, but one day they'll get used thanks to my banger old Heng Longs.

Mike.

[Kaczor]

As the predecessors wrote, start with ready-made (and relatively cheap) solutions.

[Herr Dr. Professor]

I think that I am in the kind of learning process to which you refer, Mithras. I started with Taigen Ready-to-Run, then had to disassemble one such to see what the problem was, then called a seller for advice (this was 20 years ago) and fixed the problem (turned out to be mechanical, not electronic). From there I learned how to update Taigen electronics and after some time moved on to try setting up a simple RC vehicle. Now I am up to fitting electronics into a kit. I did have to do a lot of reading here and there and I had to ask specific questions here on RCTW. I was fortunate, for model railroading taught me that fixes are always possible, invariably taking patience and sometimes (not really so often) a bit of money. To see examples of my more recent slow progress with RC, see viewtopic.php?t=32221&hilit=Jeep and viewtopic.php?p=345295&hilit=FAMO#p345295

[tankme]

You can't find many willing to help build one of these as there is no money in it and lots of headache. With my own builds, it doesn't matter how long it takes me to build a tank. I have been building my own Abrams since 2014...no joke. When you are doing it for someone else, it needs to be done relatively quickly. I don't even want to know how many hours I have in each one of my tanks. That's why custom tanks you see on Ebay or other places are like $900-1500 dollars as most of that cost is labor. Not to be rude or anything, but I'd rather work on my tanks than someone else's tanks. I have enough of my own projects that I don't need to take on other's projects. Then when you finally get it built and get it to the new user, you become their tech support for the tank. If the customer is really bad they can expect you to fix anything that breaks. I have a lot of knowledge on these tanks as I've got actual real tank repair experience and I've been doing RC tanks since about 2002. I typically don't ask a bunch of questions on the forums, I get online and do my own research. My last resort is usually asking someone. Sure that takes longer, but then I know the information and I don't need to rely on others. It's the same kinds of reasons you don't see complex, detailed manuals how to do work on these tanks. A detailed manual on how to do something doesn't provide any benefit for the person that generated the doc unless they are making money selling the things in the manual. And a detailed manual like that TAKES A LOT OF TIME and then probably still only covers a limited amount of scenarios.

So for those reasons I will answer questions and share my knowledge, but have no interest in building for profit.

[Jarlath]

I'll go out on a limb and be a voice of inquiry...
You state that you have no experience building the proper setup for motors servos and electronics.

Does that mean you are looking to take a non-RC model and convert it into a running RC tank/AFV or even the next level, an IR battling version?

[ColemanCollector]

There aren't a whole lot of mainstream rc kits that you build out there, but of them, Tamiya is king. Everything (motors, gearboxes, receiver, turret motor, IR battle system, etc) comes in the kit. You supply the radio. You will have a top quality runner when the directions are followed. Not cheap, but not frustrating either!
Mike.

[jarndice]

Following on from CCs wise comments Tamiyas building instructions for a number of their kits are readily available on the download section of the forum