wsn123

I had an old HL Panther. Recently Ive bought "second hand" Tamiya Jagdpanther lower hull
I added metal road wheels from rctank.de (for Tamiya Panther), metal tracks from Matorro, ball bearing axle support, stronger black M02 long cans motors to original Tamiya gearboxes , Elmod ECO and Benedini TBS Mini sound. The upper hull and rear side was taken from Heng Long Panther , but I added Tamiya recoil and the flashing diode at the tip of the gun.

Everything was good except one thing - the Panther tank with all metal upgrades (wheels, tracks) was v.heavy - 7 kg - and the turning curve was very high. - I reported it in another thread

In the begining I was using Elmod ECO - 1.07 firmware and Tamiya Panther gearboxes . Newer firmware didnt solve this problem too

As I said the tank turning curve at low or higher speed was v. big . I tried Graupner and Futaba RC and the problem was the same. When the tank is stopped and then became to turn - all was correct , tank was turning sharply

But the problem was when tank was moving (at low or higher speeds) and then became to turn the inner chain is moving practically with the same speed as the outer - especially when tank was moving on the surface having a bigger friction (carpet).

I tried to change all possible parameters in ECO configuration but with no any effects- especially three listed below responsible for minimazing tank turning radius:

Outer chain overdrive
Inner chain overdrive
Inner chain brake limit

Later I changed original Tamiya motors to stronger Graupner speed 400 and in the end
to long can M02 black motors from ETO Armor , its better but still not good

In the meantime Ive received information from Thomas /Elmod/ regarding this problem with big turnig radius of heavy RC tanks : as he said : the friction of the chain on the floor could be enough to overcome the inhibition of the gearbox. It depends on the floor conditions, weight of the tank, weight of the chains and the ease of motion of the gearbox.

There is a difference in the motor control between the old Tank Module and the ECO/PRO modules. The old Elmod Tank Module actively brakes the chain motors. The current modules just lowers the voltage to zero. Elmod have in plans to correct this problem in ECO/PRO too but in the future....

And its true! - I checked the same with my heavy Panther tank (weight about 7 kg) and with older Think Think Tank Elmod v1.02 - moving tank is turnig very sharp - significant better than with Elmod ECO . However older Elmod is not so strong as ECO/PRO and heavy tank with standard Tamiya gearbox is not moving so smooth (sometimes a little "jerking") Later I orderd two types of Jamara 480 motors for further testing with Elmod ECO

Jamara Lipower 480 7.4 Volt
Jamara 480HS/BB Pro 7,2 Volt

Jamara Lipower 480 seems excately the same motor like ETO black long can M02 type - so the tank behaviour was the same as previously.

Jamara 480HS are stronger , tank was moving with bigger speed but still it wasn't enough to reduce significantly the tank turning radius.

In the end I solved the problem in my heavy Panther tank using Mitosal/Impact TU with DDG and with black M02 ETO motors. Now Tank is turning v sharply. Mitosal/Impact TU are made full of metal (steel) and have removable Drop Down Gear - DDG

Standard Tamiya gearboxes have gear ratio= 59,77
Mitosal/Impact gearboxes with DDG have gear ratio=105,47

Using DDG gives two advantages
-tank is moving slower and more realistic than with standard Tamiya TU
-the TU momentum is significantly bigger

http://mitosal.com/Transmission_Unit.htm

I used also the big visaton 10cm speaker with very good bass , Benedini TBS Mini sound and Benedini 6W amplifier - now the tank is moving and sounding great.

P.S I uploaded some photos but they are not available on RCU

philipat

Great information!  I just acquired a lower Tamiya as well to try to build one of these hybrids.  Did you do a build thread?  I'd love to see some step-by-step details of how you blended them.

TIA.

wsn123

Sorry, I have no building thread prepared - only some informations was posted in this thread
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_11...m.htm#11382805

philipat

good photos...I remember seeing those.  Nice work, too.