Vintage 1993 1/16 M1A1 Abrams IR remote control Just restored to operation
Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2023 3:46 pm
oops, I had the date wrong, 1993, not 2003 lol
I have owned this since 1993 and forgot about it until recently after finding it in a storage box. It had been modified with a toy grade radio control system so that it could run outside in the garden dirt track. My kids ran this thing literally into the ground
That's Ok, it is a toy and we had fun with it.
After looking it over, saw that the left track was broken and then I remembered this is why we quit running it. Back then in the early 90's, I did not know how to repair the broken track nor did I really care as it was just a junker toy to me at that time. That being said, I decided to use my skill set learned over the last several decades and repair that broken track. After that was repaired, I wanted to run it and realised the radio system in the Tank did not work properly and it was then that I noticed that the original IR receiver board was still in the chassis, Just needed to be wired back to the motors and such. So I did that and then realised I did not have the IR transmitter
So I looked around for a bit and found it 
After finding some batteries for it fired it up and much to my amazement it works perfect 
I know what your thinking but actually this thing is pretty cool how it works. You give it a commands from the TX and it starts moving and will continue with the last command for about 5 seconds and if another is not received it will stop. Plus more. The turret rotates 360 degrees Pretty nice feature for a toy methinks. more on the operation later.
Oh, and it fires missiles
I have owned this since 1993 and forgot about it until recently after finding it in a storage box. It had been modified with a toy grade radio control system so that it could run outside in the garden dirt track. My kids ran this thing literally into the ground
That's Ok, it is a toy and we had fun with it.
After looking it over, saw that the left track was broken and then I remembered this is why we quit running it. Back then in the early 90's, I did not know how to repair the broken track nor did I really care as it was just a junker toy to me at that time. That being said, I decided to use my skill set learned over the last several decades and repair that broken track. After that was repaired, I wanted to run it and realised the radio system in the Tank did not work properly and it was then that I noticed that the original IR receiver board was still in the chassis, Just needed to be wired back to the motors and such. So I did that and then realised I did not have the IR transmitter
So I looked around for a bit and found it After finding some batteries for it fired it up and much to my amazement it works perfect I know what your thinking but actually this thing is pretty cool how it works. You give it a commands from the TX and it starts moving and will continue with the last command for about 5 seconds and if another is not received it will stop. Plus more. The turret rotates 360 degrees Pretty nice feature for a toy methinks. more on the operation later. Oh, and it fires missiles
What a hoot! SFC Jones looks as if he's actually enjoying it! I wonder if any of these castings were used for the somewhat better, but still quite toy-like Abrams with elastic-plastic tracks that saw sales for some time here in the U.S. I cannot recall what the brand was, certainly not HengLong or Taigen/Torro or any others we usually see.
The light buld glowed in my head and I realised I had the WRONG DATE 
as the only thing constant is AGING