Finished upgrading the drivetrain in my Heng Long Tiger. I made custom gearboxes which I added another 3:1 reduction gear. I used all HL metal gears and made the sheet metal parts. Adding the extra gear reduces the strain on the motor which I hope will let me use bigger motors without blowing the electronics. These are Speed 400 motors, 7.2 V. Added a heat sink and fan to the HL elec's to give them every chance. rest of the drive train is metal tracks, arms, rear axle and new springs.
Great torque and a more realistic speed. Let you know how the elec's hold out.
Perry

Take her out and thrash it Perry! I love those Speed400 motors. My Pershing with the Graupner's left the Tiger in the dust with those motors. Unfortunately when the going go rough in the sugar sand I blew a reverse transistor on one side. There was no cooling back then and the motors were pulled and sit in a drawer waiting for a project.

Thanks for sharing!

Why do you guy's want to use speed 400 motors? they have more RPM and less tork than a stock motor they are ment for speed not power?

I get my torque from the gearboxes like one should, since I have a 3:1 reduction I need the higher speed. I wouldn't say 400's have more rev's and less torque across the board. Many different variations depending on magnets, windings, brushes, etc. THese ones have more torque and speed than the stock HL 380's

Forgot to add, anytime you replace a cheap Chinese knock-off with a Japanese or German motor, expect huge differences.

Only one thing if those speed 400 have advanced timing on the endbell wich i think they might then your tank won't run properly when turning and spinning the motors will be turning at much different RPM and it will cause the motors to fight against each other causing one of them to draw much more current... May blow something out?

Shen, might be right about the timing but I just made it through my 3rd charge and everything seems to be holding together. Hard driving too. No trim needed so I think I will be alright on the timing issue. Let you know how long it holds out.

Impressive work for those gearboxes

Wow Perry... its beyond me... maybe I will venture into such things on my next tank.

KT

It wasn't really that hard. The CAD model helped get the gears in the right places. Just a little sheet metal cutting and bending with hand tools. I've seen your work and it's definetely not beyond you.
Perry

Hi Perry,
very good job you made; i'm in the conditions to slower my HL Tiger as you; could you exaplain me which gear you modified and how to obtain this result?
Regards,
Alex

Alex,
If you look at the CAD model above you will see that the first two gears off the pinion are the same. The first one is the modified one. I had to cut off the 'stand-off' part then push the pin through the gear and re-add the standoff to the other side. If you look at the pic's you can follow what I am talking about.
Hope that helps.
Perry

ok Perry, now it's clear;

Perry,

If you had the CAD drawings and were willing to share, perhaps you could convert/scale them to size and release a PDF of the sideview of the two sides of each gearbox. Then people could print it out (and hopefully it will print out at the right scale being a PDF), tape them to a piece of sheet metal, and have a template for drilling, cutting and bending.
Might not fit every tank, but it would save some others having to experiment with dimensions themselves.

David

Darkith,
I need to make some changes to the CAD models as I made some on the fly changes. In the mean time, here is a side view of one of the GB's. If someone is really interested in trying this I will have to spend a night getting the drawings in proper order. You should be able to print it to scale. I put a dim on it so you can check.

Absolutely! Need info on how to make that gear and its specs too.

I'd be interested in any drawings (rough, polished, what you've put up already even) for a future project. I have one of the older clutch Tamiya KT kits and am planning on putting HL gearboxes and electronics to make it dual drive with some sound, but figure the weight of the KT with metal tracks would be hard on the board. Lower gearing, more torque, and a more scale speed would be nice!
No hurry though, I won't get to it for a bit.

Cheers,
David

oooooo...i found it & love it man, lots of expandability...you could stuff 2 reductions if you wanted to. to cool...that is awesome with the cad design. that looks bulletproff[>:]
do you have this in your king too? or t*amiy* stock...as those are incredible too!.
keep up the ingenuity man...always -mailedfist[sm=thumbup.gif]

Hi Perry,

Have you seen the inside of a PZIII? I just tore mine apart and was thinking about the gearboxes. Yours might be too tall, mailedfists' might be too long. What do you think?

I had mine installed in my P3 for testing prior to putting them in my Tiger. They're a drop in.
Perry

Ok, What do I do? Do you have a set of plans? Think they can be made with a Dremel and bench vise?

Nice GB's, I liked the idea of posting the template for others, great stuff here Perry !

Perry where are you at?

still here. A little burned out on the board lately.

I know, it's either been bash Mato or me and Pzrwest talking about Afrikaner Tigers!

Would like to build some gearboxes! Took my daughter's Pantiger out and it didn't like the rough stuff at all, too heavy with the Mato Running Gear! Also need to do my 13lb Pershing, my probably even heavier Tiger when it's done, but first the PZIII.

I think mailedfist's gearboxes would hit the screw posts in the hull and you said yours weren't too high and dropped right in. Should work nice with some black capped motors of Speed400s don't you think?

Can they be built with a bench vise and a dremel?

I'd like to see someone figure out a way to turn a Airsoft gun into a recoiling unit. It seems we have the mechanism right in front of us and all we need to do is engineer a few changes to it There should be a way to turn the airsoft travelling chamber into a recoil unit. I have been thinking about this for the past few days, but have not come up with anything yet, but I believe it is doable.

A thread about a mod like that would be way better then bashing someone.