For those who like the bigger scale tanks,and may be thinking about buying one of this size scale to work on.

I will start out with a little info on this 1/12 scale models for those who have seen them for sale and may not know to much about them.They are built by Hailang(from china),I now have three of them.I paid (will round the price off=$80.00 dollars each for 2 of them new,and $20.00 dollars for the Third one from a friend used).The one I will be rebuilding now is the used one,bought it for parts but its in such good shape decided to up-grade it.

If you want one of these to up-grade into a nice tank that will perform just as good as a typical HL tank,they are a good canidate and will fill the bill.But to buy one and expect it to work and run like a HL tank out of the box you will be very dissapointed.The tracks are very stiff,a lot of slop in the road wheels,a gun that moves up and down over a cam-system and very un-accurate to shoot,a lot of binding and crunching noises when you run it,after letting off the controls it will still continue to move for a second or two before it stops,and very eratic controls in general.Over all just a poor tank out of the box.Not worth $80.00 if you was to try and use it stock.I would stay away from them and buy a HL tank.

Now with all that said,they are a good rebuildable 1/12 scale tank foundation to work with.For the money I have not yet seen anything that will compare for the price or the quality of the tank itself.The plastic body is slightly of less quality than a HL tank,a little more brittle but still suitable for a nice tank model.All the roadwheels can be used on an up-grade,and the gun is a good one and can be made to work just like a HL tank gun.

I'm adding a few pictures to start this out.In some ways this is kind of a re-pete of an early-er build on one I did a few months back,but there will be some substantial differences.The first had only two drive motors,this one will have four.It will have all HL components in it,full sound but no smoke unit.I will post several pictures here to start with to show the internal build of the first one i did,and the two color versions I have and a picture of the Panzer and a 1/16 Tiger for size comparrison.

Hope this will be of interest,Any comments welcome.

The green tank is the one allready up-graded,and operates just like a typical HL tank.(has HL tiger tracks,and controls,S&S)
The brown one is what will be this project. BIGMIG

I have allready been working on this off an on for about a week.Started off by striping the tracks and all the internal parts.The nice thing about the road wheels is they were put on the tank in two pieces and not glued.This is helpfull because they need to be cut down 1/4 inch in order to fit the tiger tracks.I used a hobby type saw you will see in the pictures with a 1/4 inch square piece of key-stock taped to the saw on both ends to get my 1/4 inch space for cutting off the flange on the wheels.Its not rocket science and does a fairly accurate cut if you cut slowly.Then I glued the two halves togeather,both inside and on the outside of the spindle shaft.It makes a very solid wheel.I lube the spindle shaft and reinstall the wheels.There are 16 wheels and I will be using 14 of them and will have 2 for spares if needed down the road.The very front two will not be used because there will be four motor boxes installed and no idlers will be required.

I will be using two of the stock battery's.I cut out the top of the battery box and cut out pieces of sheet plastic to raise the height of the battery box,then reframed the box.two batterys fit nicely laying on their sides.After wiring is completed for the battery connectors the top lid that was cut from sheet plastic was glued to the top to complete the box.The batterys can now be accessed through the battery cover on the belly of the tank.

A note here about the switches and battery charging jacks.(on all my tanks I move the on-off switches to an easy accessable area on the back of the tank,a charging jack is spliced into the leads to the battery and usually just hangs out the back of my tanks.)
Now I know most guys on here try to hide the charging devices they install to preserve the authenic apearence of their tanks,that is a good way to do it but don't matter to me.Don't like turning my tanks over to turn them on or off and have to open the battery compartment to charge a battery.

On the back of the tank hull is where the on-off switch is located,along with two other switches I installed for the batterys.Each battery will have its own switch on the positive leg,and the wire from each off those switches goes to the in "side" of the main on-off switch.Each battery has its own charging jack,therefore the reason for the two additional switches.Each battery can be isolated for charging purposes and I can also use one battery or both batterys at the same time while operating the tank.Will most likely use both at the same time for operation. Pictures below--- BIGMIG

Cool. Focus on the gear train for us. Looks like you have done something different there.

Hello YHR,
The pictures on the start of the post,are mixed and the one you may be refering to was a belt drive system I used on the first one I did.This one will have extentions added to the drive shafts on each gear box.Will post this next. BIGMIG

To continue on,we get to mounting the rear motor boxes.The posts that the original gear box was mounted on had to be cut off,and a flat sheet of plastic cut to fit for mounting the gear boxes on was installed.This piece is attached to the end of the battery box,to the very back of the tank body,screwed to the original cut off posts,and also glued to the sides of the tank.It is very solid and even made the whole back of the tank more rigid and less flexable.

The two motors were installed and power wires ran toward the front of the tank for later instalition.I cut four little strips about-1/2 by
1 1/2 inches long,drilled three holes in each one and glued two on each side of the battery box for wire holders for routing wires.
Next was to make extensions for the drive shafts for the motor boxes.I bought a short piece of 5/16 tube and a piece of 5/16 soft steel rod.The tube was measured and cut to the length I need for the extensions.The end that slips over the original gear box shaft was drilled and tapped to accomadate a set screw that will be screwed onto the flat of the original shaft to hold the extension in place and to make it turn with the original shaft.For the other end a proper length piece was cut and a flat ground on it to allow the sprocket to fit onto the shaft.Then a center hole was drilled and taped on the sprocket end of shaft for the mounting screw.That shaft was then slid into the tube and a hole was drilled through both the tube and shaft,then taped and a set screw installed to fix the short shaft to the tube so it is now solid.

After installing the extensions a piece of sheet plastic was cut to fit each side,and a hole drilled in each just slightly larger than the shaft to allow the shaft to fit through and this piece attached to the side of the tank and will stabilize each shaft extension and serve as a bearing surface for the shaft.Due to the slow speed of the turning shaft I think this will be suitable,and will have light grease applied for luberication.In the pictures I will post(looked at these,looked at the tank,they look like they are way out of alliengment but test runs on the track at full RPM of the motors and track seems to run true) ?????I think some is kind of an optical allusion and the back sides of tank where shafts passes through lean in slightly and give the apearance of the motors being out of alignment,but tracks seem to run great(go figure) ????

This is the point where I'm at as of today. Pictures to follow---- BIGMIG

Dear Bigmig,

Looking forward in seeing your 1/12 Abrams completed.
Here, just want to share some pictures of my own same tank.
The tracks still needs to be upgraded, I tested to use a
Stuart track but still have not done it, see the last picture.
The tank is only in display mode at the moment.

Can you tell me more about using the 1/16 tiger tracks?
How's the dimensions?

best regards,

Patrick C.

Hello caragan 1970,
The stock track on the Panzer is 2 inches wide,the plastic Tiger track is 1 3/4 inches wide.The tiger track still looks right on the panzer,and it is very flexable and easy to add or subtract links for length addjustment.Also the exsisting road wheels on the Panzer work just fine after reducing the width by 1/4 inch.One of the problems though,it takes (2) sets of Tiger tracks (total of four)
to do the up-grade.There will be some left-overs from the two sets.In addition you will need the matching sprockets.

Just a note at this point===For me It is less exspensive to buy two new tiger tanks and strip them for all the parts I need to up-grade the Panzer.(less than $150.00 dollars)I end up with two of everything,(4) tracks,(2) radios,(2) sets of boards(4) gear boxes,
(2) guns and gun motors,gun elevation motors,smoker units,gun traverse motors,sprockets,idlers,and all the road wheels.In addition to all the various lights and other internal components.
Not knowing your situation or cost for tanks and or parts,It may be cost efficient for you to go through (Mato in canada).The reason I mention them is the fact that I do know they sell most of the HL parts.(this is just for general information).

At this time I thought a little clarification might be help-full.===For those who may read this the first re-build I did on the Panzer
posted back a few months,I was very happy with and it works just like a typical HL tank.But one of my main concerns was how well the HL boards would hold up under heavy use,or being run on rougher surfaces.(I run mine around the house,or on nice smooth cement surfaces and have run a couple of them on nice fine gravel)
This project that is now under-way on the second Panzer is going to get two sets of gear boxes,two in the front and two in the back.
My plans on how I'm doing this is in theory only and has not been tested by me yet.I "think" it will work the way I plan on doing it,time will tell.The control and duel boards was not bench tested(should have probbly done this but didn't)so this may or may not work out like I plan.The results will be posted good or bad.
Thanks for reading,hope it can be help-full to others---BIGMIG

Work continued on today,taking the motors out of another tiger Tank to mount in the front section of the Panzer.Drilled out the holes for the gear box shafts and used the extension tubes to line the gear boxes up for drilling the holes for mounting.Will make the shaft extensions for the drive shafts tomorrow,then will mount the last two sprockets.One thing I didn't count on(tearing two tanks apart for parts but discovered two different boards in the two tanks.RX-13 and RX-14)Had four tigers to pick from,chose two with different boards.( [:-][:-][:-]--DAM--DAM--DAM--).I hate changing boards.
Getting closer though to the instalation of the boards and the real test of "will this actually work like I hope" ???.Will be answering that question soon.If it don't pan out I can always put the Tigers back togeather or use the parts to move on to some other project,or have another Panzer with one set of gear boxes instead of two.I starting to accumulate a lot of,radios,transmissions,original gear trains from Panzers,Panzer tracks,And humvee tranny and wheels,Tiger hulls,and a panzer hull.
Getting ready to box all the extras up and post them in the RCU classifieds.Work continues on tomorrow-----BIGMIG

The RX14 is the better board, if you're unsure on plugs and where everything goes, I have covered it [link=http://members.iinet.net.au/~wackywheelz/tanks/hobbyhavoc/ssupgrade/pershing/]here[/link]

Oh, and what do you hope to gain from having two driving motors per track?

Hello wackywheelz and thanks,
Just briefly looked over your instalation procedure,looks very complete.I have done several instalations now,but I will also look over your procedure in more detail.Don't hurt to double check yourself,can save a potential problem.Looks like your layout should be placed in the tank-FAQs section for others to use.Thanks again--
What I hope to gain is more power for the heavyer tank,and less of a electrical load on the boards by using two.(one for each set of gear boxes)And two batterys in parellel for a stronger power supply. Thanks again---BIGMIG



Additional note,had talked this over on another post with darkith and he seemed to think this will probly work.Although he suggested i try it on the bench before actual instalation.That was a sound idea,but I went ahead with-out a bench test.Hope I don't regrete that decission. BIGMIG [:-][:-][:-]

Fogot the pictures----

Hello again,
Made the second set of shaft extensions for the front two gear box shafts and installed them and the sprockets.Tested all the motors to get them running in the same direction.Connected the two right side and then the two left side motors togeather for test running.Put on the tracks and adjusted them for proper length.Then I ran each side directly off a battery at full speed,got a slight wobble in all four sprockets as expected.As good or better than on a typical HL tank,so was happy with the test for proper tracking and no apparent binding.Did notice the last road wheel on each side did like to jump around more than I liked,so after looking it over to see how best to deal with this did the following.==The road wheel arms(don't know the tec-name for them)on these tanks are set out a little more than 1/8 inch from the tank hull,this allows them to flex some-what and allows for some unwanted slopp.I cut a 1/2 inch strip from sheet plastic to reach the full length of the hull and placed this between the suspension arms and the hull.
this was glued to the lowest part of the hull,now there is mabe 1/32 inch clearence and this will help stop these arms from flexing inwards like they were able to before.Now I decided to glue the front and back road wheel arm in a fixed position.Test ran each side again,worked like a charm.Tracks ran very true now,no flexing wheels or arms.The remaining 5 road wheels on each side still operate independently.I'm very impressed at this point with what Power I believe this tank is going to have.I would expect this will be able to climb a very steep incline,probbly run out of traction before it would run out of power.Also will add I flipped the tank over and on each of the four road wheel arms (2 front & two back)I cut a piece out of sheet plastice that would fit tightly inside the backside of each of the four arms and glued it to the hull and the arm.Very solid now and fool proof.This can be seen in the pictures I will attach.Well I think I have covered every thing thus far.Pictures to follow----BIGMIG

Every time I look at your last lot of pictures I start thinking about Doctor Doolittle and his "Pushyoupullme" (or was it a Pushmepullyou?).

It looks like an interesting concept and should provide a bucket load of torque. The downside is that if one of your batteries drains faster than the other the opposing circuitry will not only have to push the tank but also be laoded up with the extra gearbox resistance. The only way to avoid this would be to have some sort of clutch mechanism which triggered when voltage/amperage hits a certain level.

My 2 cents worth.

Cheers Mario

Hello mariomart,
Still have a lot of unanswered questions yet at this point,this is a total experiment for me.( ksoc ) posted a picture of a tank for me to see that ( bullyhys ) had built with four drive gearboxes.He didn't use HL controls though,he used duel ESC's to control his.
My goal here is to stick with all HL equipment,trying to hold the cost to a minimum and also like the HL controls overall.Seeing I only paid $20.00 dollars for the tank itself and $140.00 dollars for the two new parts tanks,this will be a cheap experiment.I figure the worst that will happen I may burn up a board or two,but I hope not of course.I can always take out one set of gearboxes and add Idlers to the front and still have a good working tank,just not end up with the power I want.Very happy with what I've got so far,very good track system.

The original way I had planed on doing this there may have been more problems,a seperate battery to each board.This may have resulted in more conflict between the boards like you refer to above.After some advice on another post I made (need advice on electrical question)several guys posted some ideas and comments.(darkith) has got me going in the right direction and showed me a better way to set up the batterys and boards.What I'm going to try(getting close to this now) will be to use a Y connector running both batterys in parallel to the first board and then continue on from that board to the second board.By doing this the power to both boards will always be equal.I do expect there will still be some minor variations between the actual motors and boards but hope the controls will be able to withstand this.For direction controls(steering the tank straight)I will still rely on the trim controls on the transmitter if needed.Like I say I'm still experimenting here and it could end up not working.Stay tuned,will have some results soon good or bad.I would love to see this work like I hope it will.It will make an in-expensive way for guys to have a 1/12 scale tank with sufficient power and the fun of building one.I would also like to see one of these painted with a really good paint job,there are some guys on here who do fantastic paint jobs on their tanks.I don't have that ability,wish I did.
Thanks all----BIGMIG

One thing I will add there will be one small board connected to both big boards by way of a Y-connector from small board to the two big boards.Hope all this makes sense.

Finally got to the task of connecting up the boards for the first prelimanary testing.Got all the motors running and turning in the right direction.Did this with tracks removed,and one board at a time.Made up the Y connector that goes from the little board to the two big boards.First attempt the lights would flash but tank would not start.(set the top hull from a tiger onto the hull of the Panzer to connect to so I would have the lights and other features for the tests)Dissconnected one board at a time and tryed each board by its self,they seemed to work OK.Started the tank on one board and pluged in the second board,things kind of ran iraticly and would start and stop.Then one half would not work at all.Decided to change the little board out and use a different crystal,also (darkith) had suggested I might need to cut the center wire on the one that went to the second little board so I also did that.Tried it again and everything seemed to be working alright now.Put the tracks back on and decided it was ready to test on the floor.Just kind of stuffed all the wires and boards inside to make the test run,set the tiger upper hull on top of the panzer and pluged in the pin connector.
(Will post three pictures of this below) Fired it up and ran it around in the house.Was supprised it actually ran pretty straight frontwards or backwards.Turns very good even on deep carpet,has a lot of power and is very responsive.Didn't want to get to aggresive at this point because I was a little concerned the boards just laying in the bottom of the hull might contact each other and short something out.Now I will start mounting the boards in a permenant location and get it ready for further testing.
Thats it for now. BIGMIG

I love the hybrid Tiger/Abrams concept. I suppose you should call it a "T1A2".

You just have to do a video straight away. Please.

Cheers Mario

Looks kind of strange,not very bullet proof. LOL Got a video camera,but would'nt have the slightest idea how to load it into the computer and post it.I load my photo's through my printer and fax machine,then into the computer.Its hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

Finished getting the boards mounted in their permanant location.Did some more test runs,did get it to throw a track doing a super tight turn on deep carpet.Got the clutches to slip when the track locked up and broke two track links.Repaired the track and ran it some more.This tank has a lot of power,talk about super spins.Very happy with this big guy,now its on to finishing everything on the upper hull.Pictures to follow--Taken at 10 P.M. and my flash didn't want to work,to much light for the flash but not enough light for good pictures.But here they are anyway----------BIGMIG

To continue on,now working on the upper hull and the turret.Not much I did to the upper hull,routed the running lights and connected them to two leads that will go to the battery switch.There are two lights on the back and two on the front.They all four have red lenses,I actually like them red front and back and will leave them that color.They will be on when ever the battery's are on.I'm adding two of the bright white lights off one of my tiger parts tanks to the front and will function just like on a regular Tiger tank.
Added new wires to the turret traverse motor and left them long at this point untill I decide where to mount the little connector board.In the pictures you will see different colored wires(I use recycled wires out of my shop for my toys,usually use any color wire for (neg) but only red for (pos)--why waste good wire).

In the turret will be installing a gun elevation motor(the original method that was used in this tank was a cam that the gun road over as the turret was moved.Made any gun shot accuracy almost impossible.)Will also add a lazer sight,seeing it already has a built in tube for this.May do a few modifacations to the top of this tank,not sure what yet.

This tank is kind of unique in another way also,most everything on the outside of the hull and turret is attached by screws.Even the gun halves are screwed togeather.All the hatches and its external features are easylly removed if one wants to take them off for what ever reason.Would be easy to repaint one of these.A couple of items just clip on,one being the rack on the back of the turret.
Even the front head lights are held on with screws.I do like this feature,not much glue used on this tank.Well this is where I'm at,pictures to follow--Note all the screws in the upside down turret that hold on all the exterior parts. BIGMIG

Instaled the elevation control tonight so thought i would add a few pictures.Cut out a piece of sheet plastic a little larger than the exsisting hole up into the turret.Super glued it in place,and removed the gun.I cut off about 1/4 inch from the bottom of the tab on the gun that will ride on the cam on the elevation control.Did this so I still get nice elevation control after fitting the control under the gun.
Drilled two holes for wires to pass through to the lower hull,all the turret wiring will go through these two holes.Pretty basic but there it is,pictures to follow--BIGMIG

Going off topic here a bit==I started working on the my tank today and one of our tech-guru's showed up and wanted to help get a machine going in the shop that will soon be going out the door.Think you can have a electrical problem on your tank,you should try working on these guys.My job for the last 15 years,lucky though when I have the shop at home and don't have to commute back and forth to work. A few pictures below,back on the tank tomorrow( I'm supposed to be retired,sure don't seem that way sometimes)
BIGMIG

P.S. these are used machines and a lot of wires hanging all over the place,putting stuff in and taking stuff out so we can test run everything.Then I go back and reorginize everthing and make it look as neat as possible.

Back on the tank today along with trying to watch a little football.Removed the main hatch off my parts tiger tank and took off the (not sure what to call it,the tower looking gadget on this Panzer)and replaced it with the hatch off the Tiger.Cut a hole out under the hatch so one of my tank figures could be placed in the hatch.Think this makes it look a lot more apealing,anyway I like it.Color don't quite match but I used what I had for now and it looks better than gray.My next job was on the machine-gun.Have been reading on here about guys using fiber-optics in their guns to make them more realistic looking while shooting.The gun on this tank is pretty big so I did a lot of trimming on it to get rid of as much stuff as I could off it and still have it look like a machine gun.Cut the barrel off and drilled a hole all the way through the main gun body so the wires for the machine gun LED would be able to pass through the gun and hidden.
I cut a piece of (for you airplane guys==the outer tube of a golden rod,just a perfect fit for the LED and the size is about right to use as the barrel I cut off)then slid the wires and LED into the tube and the wires through the gun and out the back of the gun.Next put the barrel in place and used sewing type thread to wrap aroung the barrel and the portion of the gun left in place to attach the barrel to.
Put a little CA on the thread and a piece of shrink tube on the exiting wires from the back of the gun and into the hatch.Painted the new barrel black,then sat back and admired my up-graded machine gun.I think it turned out pretty good.Still haven't tested it yet,waiting to put all the other stuff in the turret and test it all at one time.Pictures to follow---Work bench was getting a little messy,had to do a little clean up before I started on the turret work. BIGMIG

The rotation thing on the front left of the turret is the commanders viewing sight (M1A2 only)...

EDIT: and the gun on these is waaaaaay overscale M249-looking thing (it's like 1/8 scale)... not that it matters when your putting tiger cupolas where viewing sights were

In the field moddifacation,And the gun is very big and way out of scale.And my tank personel is for the 1/16 size tanks,used what I had on the work bench.Test fired it last night and it does look kind of neat with the flashes coming from the end of the gun barrel instead of just the front of the tank.Being a used tank that I'm redoing I had checked the cannon to see if it fired,it shoots but it wouldn't shoot BB's.Took it apart and the rubber seal was jammed in such a way that the BB's coulden't feed into the gun.This is the first time I have taken one of the gun units apart,and when I got it back togeather and test fired it I striped a gear.Didn't have something right when I put it back togeather.I have other gun assemblys but this gun on the panzer is built a little different than the ones on the HL models,but some of the internal parts are the same.Took a gear out of one of the other gun assemblys and installed it,but still trying to figure out how this rubber seal goes into this unit.The gun now fires but without this seal it will not shoot any BB's.
Will try to figure this out today.When I get the gun working right,only have some wiring left to finish off the tank.Then I'll do a bunch of test running. BIGMIG

It looks like your tank is being comandeered by Oompaloompas

Cheers Mario

Thought i would share some info on the cannon for the Panzer(please note==there are differences between the gun on this panzer and a typical HL cannon gun mechinism.) the breech on this Panzer gun is different than one for a HL tank.I haven't worked on any for the HL tanks so the following only applies to the Panzer cannon,the other's are slightly different.The rubber gasket took me a little while to figure out.It goes inside the breech from the end the BB's feed into.It serves as a seal and also would keep the BB's from just falling out the barrel if the barrel was tiped toward the ground.When the internal plunger propels forward it pushes the BB through this seal and at the same time this plunger goes into the seal a ways when it shoots.without this seal the gun will not shoot a BB.When it is in place you can still see just a little of it protruding where the BB's go into the breech.Now my gun shoots perfect and with a good deal of power.As stated above in this post I had striped a gear when testing it after taking it apart after finding the seal jammed in the breech.
When I opened it up the first time parts went flying,when putting it back togeather I discovered wraping string around the spring chamber would hold everything in place while putting the two halves togeather and getting all the gear post lined up.Then after everything starts going togeather the string can be cut and pulled out before tightning all the screws.Took me a bit to figure out the string method is the easy way to do this.I did use a gear from a HL gun mechinism and some of the gears can be inchanged,but some may not work.Also the original motor has the gear on the shaft in a different length from the motor than on the one from the HL gun.
So these will not just interchange with out some addjustment having to be done to the gear or the depth of the motor to be installed.
Hope this may be helpfull to anyone else who may have to work on one of these. BIGMIG

Just an additional note==Some members have stated the guns on these panzer's shoot harder than a HL tank,after taking apart the gun mechinism the reason for this is obvious because the internal plunger spring is a lot heavyer than one in the HL guns.They do shoot harder. BIGMIG