Overview


Well, I finally gathered enough courage to show-off a build ("build" is kind of a big word for my small adjustments and adaptations.. :P )

It started with a box-stock Heng-Long T-90, cast metal gearboxes and all. They went out first. The following things are added/changed:

-battery box cut length-wise so as to make 2200mah zippy's fit.
-steel gears, all bearing supported
-rs390/480 22000 rpm long-can motors
-foam sound isolation pads around the gearbox ( old mouse-pad cut to size)
-Wecohe reinforcement plate under the gearboxes
-metal sprocket and idler
-metal 'HQ' tracks (Mato, I believe)
-IBU2Ultimate with T-72 soundset
-Visaton frs5 5w 4ohm speaker with "boom-box" made from a hard plastic box I found somewhere in a dust-bin. Fits exactly between IBU en battery-compartment.
-Micro servo for barrel elevation
-BB-unit removed and a 9000mcd LED in the barrel. Blinding! 8O You'll only look in the barrel once, and will never try that again.. :haha:
-Brass insert for exhaust
-Heng Long smoker reservoir with fan and volt-up board.
-SOL modern Russian tank crew
-Vallejo modern russian paint-set
-Big can of Khaki-drab, found at the local Praxis builders' market.
-big can of Terracotta for the tracks
-Humbrol track-colour as a wash
-A lot of painting.
-A LOT of dry brushing to fake extra highlights.
-It's hard to see, but I stuck a bit of chromatic reflecting tape to the aiming thingy. In daylight, it gives an exellent iridescent effect.

I went for a very subtle bit of weathering. No more than a bit of dusting on the skirts, and a bit of dry-brushing with gun-metal here&there.

Now let's see if Photobucket lets me show stuff.. here goes



A Heng Long smoker @ 8.6v works pretty well..



wideview.. a little too light.. I'm really bad at taking pictures.. *shame*



The exellent SOL figures. My painting-skills kinda lets them down. Age, bad eyesight.. all conspiring..



The business-end.



Close-up of the turret.



Again, the amazingly well working Hl-Smoker-With-Fan-And-Volt-up. has run for about 2 hours now, and still goes.

It's a small thing, But I'm exceptionally proud of the exhaust-insert. The way the smoke came out at first ( especially because it's quite a lot with the volt-up board connected to the resistor wire) was kind of barmy.. a steady stream of narrowly focussed smoke. Looked quite peculiar. I experimented with stuffing foam, gauze and whatnot, in it, but it remained odd. Then I stumbled upon an detailed picture of the T-90's exhaust, and it struck me: A bit of folding and soldering of an 5mm wide strip of brass could make a great exaust disperser.
And whaddaya know. It actually worked and the smoke looks pretty realistic to me.

Edit:
Well, finally succeeded to make a video that wòuldn’t immediately use-up the mb’s allowed. Hope the link works:


(Watch fullscreen if possible)


Recent addition : metal & rubber bb suported wheels, metal swingarms.
Running is less ‘clattery’ with the rubber covered road wheels. Nice.
Tank weighs-in at approx. 4kg by now. That really helps stability while driving. I noticed there was much less hopping&bopping while driving.

Things left to do:
-trying the other ‘momentum’ settings on the IBU2U
-setting barrel motor and turret rotation sound level to 50. They’re still too loud for me.
-make canvas mantle for main gun. The plastic bit looks just wrong
-make rear lights

Well, after a day of fiddling and pondering ways to simulate the grating in the engine-bay cooling outlets, it struck me: I still had some photoetched grills from my Königstiger left over. They would make perfect covers for the vents. I cut them to size and ca’d them on the ducts. A bit of Vallejo Model Air #12 later : Perfect!

And, as I already surmised, opening the rear vents helped the sound quite a bit. The mid-highs are back. And kinda cool that the noise is louder at the back than at the front. Makes for a far more convincing doppler effect. Cooling seems to have improved too.

Detailed view:



Sideview:



Just for the fun of it, birdseye view:



I attempted to make a running video, but that got way too big. Took it in HD by accident. Upload would take several hours.. no thanks. I’ll try again tomorrow at a lower rez.

(Heh.. just noticed one of those blighted hoses has popped-off.. tsch..)

And, yes these are the same posts as on rctankwarfare, but not everybody is aware of its existence. It’s a bit UK-centric (logically)