Good day all,


I would like to introduce myself.. My name is Nick and I have been involved with RC for the last 26 or 27 years. All the way from just a hobby to owning a hobby shop and race track.

As I type this, UPS is out to deliver my package from Matomart. I picked up a Henglong Panzer lll. This will come apart as soon as I get the box open. I need a project lol

I am very interested in IR battles and will be looking into starting a club here in Edmonton. If there is anyone from Edmonton looking for the same, shoot me a DM and we can chat.

I cant wait to get started and look forward to chatting with all of you.

Knock on wood, you don't check the tracking number and it says Delivered... and you don't got it
Happen to me.

Well I hope not.... That wouldn't be a good end to my workweek lol

That is why we use signature verification on all our tank packages! That way the sneaky neighbor staring at your very expensive tank doesn't get any bright ideas

I'm not worried.... lol UPS has a locked room to drop the package in at my place. It should be all good.

Like I've said before, those are the three most beautiful words in the English language.

Welcome to the forum.

Hey Nick. Welcome.

Don't take it apart right away! Play with it for at least an hour or two before you open it up. In my opinion, the HL PIII is a much overlooked little tank. They're great fun inside the house, and do great outdoors as well. They're lots of fun to upgrade, but my advice is to at least take 'er for a spin before you get to work.

Sounds like you got the IR version?

And it's an unwritten rule that if you tell us you're gettin' a new tank you have to post pics for us, and preferably video. I've seen video of a zillion HL PIIIs and I can't wait to see a zillion more.

Welcome Nick,

Glad to see another Canuck here. Sorry my friend, a little bit much of a commute to get to our club but I believe there are a couple of guys in your neck of the woods...:-)

Well You are 450 Km SE of me. What kind of a race track did you run? I have a whole bunch of old 1/24 scale slot cars.

Cheers

Dan

Well I have to pick it up from the UPS store in the morning. Thanks ausf, Max-U52, dgsselkirk and YHR for the warm welcome. I will power it up when I get the box open tomorrow. YHR I owned CANTRAXX RC Raceway and pro shop back in the early 90's. I had a 4000 sq ft indoor track, but up the road from me was the Raceplace and they were Edmonton's only slot car track.

I have spoken with Steve at Matomart and I will be placing an order for the Mato Panzer III metal lower hull for my HL. And I have been emailing YHR and I will be going thru him for a 2.4 radio system and sound.
I just dug out my airbrush compressor and all my other N scale weathering gear..... what a mess!!

Waiting for toys in the mail is worse than waiting for xmas.... lol

Hey Nick,

Have you looked at the lower hull from Imex? Just my opinion, but I think if I were just getting the hull I'd go with the Imex. I have the complete Mato all metal Panzer III and it's a great tank, but if you're not going completely metal I think the Imex has a couple advantages. First, I like their roadwheels a lot better as they're held in with posts and setscrews, which means you don't have to super glue the outer half of the roadwheels in place, and it makes getting them on and off a LOT easier. Second, the Imex has a lift off top system much more suitable to a plastic top. And the Imex sprockets and idlers are definitely much better than the Mato. Don't get me wrong, the mato is a good tank and Steve is cool, and I just ordered the mato TX/RX/Clark package for my PIII, it's just that the Imex is much better (in my humble, in-experienced opinion) and it's also a LOT cheaper. AND you'll get Erik and that's customer service like NO OTHER!

Anyway, here's my Mato PIII and you can see I changed the headlights and LEDs and added the cupola MG (that was a nice piece, just $10 for gun and mount, and very easy to install). I haven't painted it because I really like it in bare metal. Once I paint it I think it will be very hard to tell it from any other plastic tank on first look. I can see you have tons of experience in RC, but if you'd like to see how I ran everything on the interior let me know and I'll post some pix of the guts. It was running on stock HL electronics, now it's on Taigen 2.4 GHz and I've added lipos for power. Like I said, I ordered the clark package, but I'm still not 100% sure I'll put it in the PIII. I might put it in my favorite Tiger and order another package for the PIII. I think the clark package is a good deal at $149 for my first (because I already have a mato tank) and $199 after that but I've asked Steve if I can leave out the wires and switches and stuff and just get the RX/TX/Clark and how much that would cost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojWH099q6SQ

Just to be clear the Taigen hull is plastic with a metal insert?? I think the only all metal hull Taigen makes is the Sherman.

More then one person has purchased these Metal tanks to find out only parts are metal, and depending on your reasons for buying what you think is a metal tank, this can be a disappointment.

Cheers

Yes all our current metal chassis are metal aluminum tubs with plastic tubs bolted together except for our Sherman which rocks a solid metal lower chassis. Due to the great demand and response we are getting from it, expect more like the Sherman in the future

And I still think the Imex is the better way to go. Of course, it's not my money so I guess whichever you like better is the way to go, right?

The word metal gets thrown around a lot. When you are active in the hobby, you learn what is what, but for newbies, a Tank advertised as metal, and then arrives with a fair amount of plastic can be disappointing.


RE. I use blue locktite on the Mato metal wheel halves. Holds firm enough, but they pop apart when you need them to.

Ok.... So the HL Panzer lll is here.... Nothing was broken or missing and everything works.

More to come as soon as I get the meat off the grill!

What did you think right out of the box? Did it drive well?

Well I will say that I have my work cut out for me..... But It's going to be fun. I put small charge in the battery and was very surprised how noisy the gear boxes are.They are the HL zinc gears and they are garbage. I am stripping everything out and its all heading to the garbage. I also did find the stock HL ESC and sound also just as bad as the gears.

From an N scale train perspective... I can understand why having a plastic upper hull is important. Being able to model upper hull damage or making large changes would be next to impossible with a metal upper. But looking at the HL lower.... well it has to be full metal.

There needs to be some sort of standards set in place with 1/16 tanks. Maybe they would see more people getting involved if these electronics and IR systems worked together instead of against one another??

Just my two cents.

I know it has plastic for detail, but I'd call this a metal hull.


And Loctite wasn't enough to keep me from scouring the tank trail looking for roadwheel halves. I don't care what anyone says, those Mato roadwheels are a poor design and while I love my mato PIII and I intend to get the M36 when it comes out, I still say if I was getting just the PIII hull I'd take the Imex over the mato any day of the week. But again, it's not my money so in this case I fall into the old saying about opinions. They're like butts - everyone got one and most of 'em stink. I'm pretty sure Nick will do the research and really doesn't need my help, I'm just pointing out an option, as most of us like to have all the options before spending the hard earned coin.

Max-U52 please keep your opinions flowing! I do not mind one bit. I have always liked hearing what everyone thinks.

LOL If I didn't..... I should not be on an internet forum.

I have the Taigen T-34 hull and I liked it a lot when I first got it, but found that the hull did flex and the suspension splayed out. This was fixed with some epoxy, and was documented here.

I was hugely into Nscale trains, and said the same thing about IR standardization when I arrived on this board. The hobby, for the benefit of all, needs to develop an IR standard, so all brands play well.

Most of the third party developers have adopted the Tamiya as a Basic standard. Heng Long went their own route, and then Taigen went a completely different route so that Taigen don't play well with HL. This is very unfortunate as you isolate a like minded group into different camps of IR.

Very similar to the old coupler discussion back in the day before the NMRA made a standard for Couplers. This allowed different cars to be hooked together regardless of brand. It would be nice if all manufactures could agree on going one way on this IR thing.

As an N Scaler from Edmonton you should enjoy this CNR GMD1



Or this N Scale Steam meet.



The Yellow Head Railway( YHR) is alive in my basement

Dan I did follow the in your link in your email and your N scale work is fantastic.

I know how the hobby industry works... I know there is a need for entry, mid and pro level products. Only they should all be able to work together.

I am very interested in getting my hands on both a Imex and a Mato lower for this build.

Here are a few pics of the new toy.

I look forward to your new project.

Makes me want to buy another Panzer III

Nein! Next, the Jagdtiger!!