Follow up my idea of using twist-free phone adapter to make the turret rotate in circles. Here is what I did on the HL Tiger 1.

Material used: Twist-free phone adapter, phone socket (from an old PC fax modem), phone jack with cord, floppy drive cover from a PC case.

Thanks to Pwrwest for the idea of paper pattern to make the gear ring tab-free, and also his "easy internal antenna" (I used 9 feet Cat.5 network cable wrapped around a hot melt glue stick).

I have to relocate the controller board and the smoke unit switch, resolder and lengthen the wire from motor.. so on to the controller board in order to accommodate the adapter.

The socket from the turret would snap in to the adapter when put the turret on.

I put the finished Tiger on YouTube.

[link]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd1OQF_ghlg[/link]

I also used some fishing thread and heat shrink tube to make the machine gun, the fishing thread was folded several sections and wrapped by the tube. (do not have optical fiber or rod, but works similar).

This Tiger 1 is also powered by a 7.4V 2250maH Li-Po battery.

P.S. take the battery off before moving the electronics around, I learned a lesson. I will post whether it is possible to fix the smoked controller board.

Edited: The first twist-free adapter there is too tall and the turret cannot be risen to its highest position. Rush to the store and get another one, this adapter uses a cable instead of a solid plug. This one works very well now.

Cool idea! Why not mount the rotating jack next to the terminal block in the upper hull? Using sheet styrene or cutting that one up you can make its bracket much smaller.

Superb idea, thanks so much for sharing I have been looking for something to achieve this for quite some time

WOW! I'm impressed - very innovative work. [sm=thumbs_up.gif] Good job on the video, too.

is the twist free adapter 2 or 4 core because all of the phone connectors in my home town that I can find are two core

Awesome and great to see some new innovation on the forum, thanks for sharing!!!

The Blitz[sm=shades_smile.gif]

Giving this a bump for the new guys... great idea!

Things like this really should be stickied.
Unlikely Patpat hangs around here anymore, but credit is due when it's due. Great work!

This was a totally brillant idea !!!<div>Wonder why it didn't spread like fire ...</div><div>It may be that at the time , the only option available was the air-soft gun and it was bulky enough to make the modification complicated ....</div><div>But for some of you guys using the more compact Asiatam recoil system with the high voltage flash unit ; It's rather easy and 4 wires is all you need ....</div><div>I decided to give it a try ...</div><div>I had to trim down the swivel quite a bit due to space restrictions and do some fancy weldings ; but everybody can do it ....</div><div></div><div>Here's a short video and some pics ....
<a target="_blank" href="http://youtu.be/-SaVCVwuRc0">youtu.be/-SaVCVwuRc0

<br type="_moz" /></a></div>

Ooops !!! My pictures didn't load

Let's try again

More pictures ....

I replaced my noisy turret motor this morning ....Much better ...

youtu.be/Yu-I5Pk5CZA

Were you able to get an MG leads for the coax gun?  Doesn't look any of the battle system wiring would fit, either.  What we really need is the same thing but with up to 8 wires. 

No ; I am limited to 4 wires only ...In order to get more wires ; you need to look for "slip rings " ; but they can be expensive ...

<a href="http://shop.ebay.ca/i.html?_from=R40&amp;_trksid=p3902.m570.l1313&amp; _nkw=slip+rings&amp;_sacat=See-All-Categories">http://shop.ebay.ca/i.html?_from=R40...All-Categories
<br type="_moz" /></a>I wonder how hard it would be to make our own .....<br type="_moz" />

I thought about something like this some time ago but here we have cheap ready solution. Thx for this. I plan to add this in mine tiger 1.

Looks good.  A couple of questions:

How much space did you find that you have inside for the slip ring?

What are the conical springs for?

In my Panzer IV ; I had to make sure that the swivel didn't stick down in the chassis because I have a custom speaker mounted in the chassis under the turret ....That's why I had to trim the top of the swivel and do some fancy weldings on the terminals ....
But if you have a bit more space , you don't have to trim the swivel ....
Here's some extra pics to show what I was planning to do in the first place ....

The 2 coil springs are there to hold the swivel flush to the turret while living some play ...
I left some play in the system to reduce the stress on the wiring since it's hard to get the swivel a 100% centered ....

I have given some toughts on how to operate a H.L. infrared battle system in a bigger tank ( like a tiger 1 ) using a 4 wires swivel like this one ...
I'm testing part of the idea on my panzer IV right now and will be posting the results soon ....

I've considered doing something like this for my tanks. But, I like to keep them airsoft tanks. The slip rings look like decent ideas. I have to check to see if I need 6 or 8 wires, though. The other concern I had was their depth and stick too far into either the turret or the lower hull. May just have to get the most shallow one and try it out.

5 days ago , I said " no " to your question ...<div>But after further experiments like on this thread :www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_10548068/tm.htm</div><div>I beleive it would be possible to have a 360 degrees rotating turret ; with infra-red battle system ; using a $1.50 , 4 wires , telephone swivel ....</div><div></div><div>If I had a tank with a bigger turret ; (let's say a H.L. tiger 1 with the infra-red battle system ); I would put an extra receiver and RX 18 board inside the turret ....</div><div>The 2 receivers would use crystals of the same frequencies ( same crystal # )...</div><div></div><div>The system monted in the chassis would power : -The drive motors</div><div> -The lights</div><div> - the turret motor</div><div> - smoke unit</div><div> - any other accessories monted in the chassis ( machine guns etc..)..</div><div></div><div>The system mounted in the turret would power : - The gun elevation motor</div><div> - The recoil system ( including flash unit)</div><div> - The speaker</div><div> - The I.R. battle system</div><div> - Any others acc. mounted in the turret ...</div><div></div><div>As for the 4 wires phone swivel ; I would use 1 wire for the power supply ( +7.2 Volts ) ;</div><div>1 wire for the "Ground" ; and the 2 extra wires for the speaker ....</div><div></div><div>One good side effect of that mod. would be to cancel the annoying tracks recoil of the H.L. ; while providing a realistic 360 rotating turret ....</div><div></div><div>This would cost around $50.00 ( including RX-18 , extra crystal ;swivel and material )</div><div></div><div>If I had a H.L. tiger 1 ....( Soon or later I gonna have to get one of these ....)</div><div></div>

hmmm...interesting idea. That would also require finding a way to fit an extra antenna into the turret as well.

Some members on this forum are using the main gun as an antenna ...( It's made of aluminum ) ...