Okay wife got me an all metal Tiger for Christmas which I was aloud to start building early. Anyway switch everything over from a Henglong tank I had. Here is the first issue, when the tank ran the Rx-18 board lasted about 3 minutes and actually burned by one of the motor plugs inside the board. I got a new board with 2.4 set up and tank runs for about a minute then almost goes into fail safe where it won't do anything, just stops responding . Shut off restart and it will start to move again but struggles like it is too heavy for the motors to handle.
First there is no binding anywhere on either side concerning road wheels or motors and gear sets, all smooth and turn easily with your finger. The battery pack I have is a 7.2 pack unknown milliamps but it is the original battery pack that came with the original tank. Battery pack could be 3 years old but did take a charge to 7.4v.


At this point the tank after failing to move and having to be restarted runs fine if supported in the air everything seems good except now the turret rotation stopped working but the motor is fine and I think it maybe the new Rx-18 board. Any suggestions I would like to get the tank up and running to be reliable because it really is a nice looking tank. Could it all be related to a possible bad battery pack??

Any help would be great. Thanks

There's a big difference in motor draw under load and that metal is much more load than a typical HL. The FETs get pretty warm in a standard HL, I would think as the weight went up, it would become an issue. RX-18s aren't really engineered with a lot of space for growth. I know there have been issues with wire length and draw, which kind of shows very little tolerance for change.

Okay what is the next style set up to run? I would like to keep all the functions that is has like BB cannon, smoker....

It sounds like your motherboard is bad. I personally would upgrade your motherboard, even if it wasn't broke. Our Taigen kit comes with a new transmitter, receiver/motherboard, and speaker in one package that is meant to be a drop in upgrade for HL tanks. This will allow you to keep all your stock functions including the smoke unit. There are also plenty of other motherboards around here that are pretty nice as well. The Clark board is quite nice too.

Taigen kit, this sounds interesting, upgrade in what way? Thanks in advance.

I upgraded my HL with the Clark TK-22 and love it! I have the old RX-18 that you can have. It still works.

Bulldogger Ok so you have a problem. Find the issue before you going doing stuff or you may find that the issue will continue. Look for shorts ( metal tiger ) then as you said is the drive train running smoothly? are any of the pins coming out of the track as this has been known to cause driveabilty issues. The power draw on the fets would be high and if you did any turns BUT here is the issue - the metal tiger comes with the Mato's 3 to 1 gears. Their should be plenty of torque from those. Are the motors good?
All in the cost of an RX18 is pretty low but then all you get is a toy controller.
Take a hard look at everything before you move forward though just to be safe.
More than likely it is the board but I can't see the tank or what it is doing so take my advice with a grain of salt