So much has happened in 10 years

[Joat]

Started this over 10 years ago, life and what not happened, thinking about trying bring her back to life
Things I am after
Reliability, Hard hitting airsoft , smoke , maybe barrel recoil?
I was already looking at getting Flysky i6s?
No idea how to integrate into the electronics, which I need all new, separate esc's?
I was looking at getting the new turret base with bearings, 360 slip ring with bearings, don't really want a metal top and turret, but if it's better ? Then I will look into it
I have a plastic hull but the metal taigen torsion suspension , metal late road wheels, sprockets etc .
Older brass metal gear boxes, will be upgrading to mato steel bearing 5.1 long shaft ?
Sorry having trouble loading pics, it's been a long time since I've been here lol,
I'm located in Hawaii btw, so any USA vendors links will be greatly appreciated, I was trying to buy from Forge bear, but the shipping was almost 200% of the parts I was trying to buy.
T.IA

[Kaczor]

I don't think there is a ready-made BB + smoke combo.

[Joat]

I don't think there is a ready-made BB + smoke combo.

Oh I don't need main gun to smoke, sorry just regular engine smoke, I want a good reliable unit, either bought or diy ?

[Kaczor]

New Heng Long smokers are quite good.

[Herr Dr. Professor]

Recently I updated a HengLong tank from TK5.3 (much later than the RX18) to HengLong 7.0. My questions about the Challenger 2 may help you. Here is a thread I use for most of my questions when I am not doing a "build": viewtopic.php?t=36831

If you want to bind a tank to your FlySky, you will need an aftermarket board of some brand. Recent experience of zooma's might help you get an idea of what is involved: viewtopic.php?t=36853&hilit=Clark

[Jib]

I did a brief video on how to hook up a Henglong gun smoke unit to an Airsoft unit, if that’s still a thing that interests you.

https://youtu.be/VpHASKt_4fw?si=uskH886xuQ2RbF0K

If you want to use your own radio the Taigen V3 will allow you to connect a 6 channel radio, but the channels are acceleration, steering, traverse, elevation, trim, and start/stop, so you will lose the ability to activate the machine gun and turn the smoker on and off. Also horrible speed control, but you can fix that if you’re using your own radio.

Otherwise you’d need an aftermarket MFU like Clark, Beier, Elmod, OpenPanzer, SGS. Most of these have built in speed controllers so you don’t need to get ESCs unless you’re doing something larger than 1/16 scale.

For shops in the US, the only ones with RC tank specific items I know of are MotionRC in Chicago and TaigenTanks outside of Orlando. East Coast Armory in PA does a lot of very detailed 3D stuff for certain 1/16 scale models.

DKLMRC (Hong Kong) and RC Tank Legion (Maylasia) are also good sources for aftermarket 3D printed parts and other things. Maybe coming from the other direction, shipping won’t be so bad?

[Exhibitedbrute]

Does haya not do a bb firing smoking barrel system I. Their cent and chief

[Jib]

Not sure if they come with that, I feel like I remember watching one of Mr Tank A Lots videos about that Centruion and fiddling with an Airsoft system and having to deal with the BB feed getting in the way of the recoil servo he installed, so probably?

Whatever the system you should be able to adapt a HL gun smoke kit to it.