My Pershing with metal gears and tracks is substantially slower than my Panther with plastic tracks and nylon gears. Yet when I look at the gearsets, the gear ratios seem the same (but I didn't actually count gear teeth).

I was inside my Panther to put an internal antenna- love that mod!


Dmon1996

Look at the sprockets...

Yup, what he said.

It's all in the final drive.

DUH! Man, how could I have missed that?

And weight.

James,

Is there a difference in the size/ pitch of the sprockets that come with metal equiped tanks as opposed the the basic S&S versions?

Sorry I still have only one HL tank no matter how you may chide me for that.

The smoke discharger just packed up and I've decided to dump that "facility". I'm all ears when it comes to the improving the traction of the vehicle though. Any input will be welcomed, of course.

It's nothing to do with the type of gearbox is the fact that the real tanks have different sized drive sprockets.

Weight doesnt so much influence the speed in this case, the weight difference between plastic and metal gearbox is fairly minimal. Moreso unbroken-in metal gears vs plastic will have a big effect on speed. Then theres the motors, black (fast) or white (torque).

Chally: which tank do you have, and what surface are you slipping on? (that you need more traction for)

Nope.

Weight will increase traction as will properly balancing the tank. A tiger's center of gravity was at it's 4th road wheel. Smoker's are a pain. I've had one or two that lasted, all the rest crapped out after the first couple of hours. Presumably this is because the smoke oil burnt out and the heating element broke. Clear Smokers help solve this. Many guys have adopted model railroad smokers or modified the original one with a fan making it much simpler and reliable. A search will turn up a couple of examples from 2006-2007.

Wacky,

I run my Tiger 1 mostly on a cobble stone lane, it’s been there for 150+ years and the stones are worn and shiny. There’s not much problem with traction when the lane is dry and I doubt metal tracks would provide better grip than the plastic ones. The extra weight of the metal bits might make it a bit less skittish though.

James,

My smoke unit was poor from day one, very little smoke and only noticeable indoors. The unit is very noisy and drowns out the sound of the speaker even at full volume. I have two choices, repair/ modify or abandon the smoke unit. I’m certainly not going to buy a replacement that may only last a couple of hours, though I may try to repair the original if I get bored enough. I may use the power connector the smoker leaves behind, probably for a large LED searchlight so that I can see where the tank is on a typically dull English day.

Sure, weight plays a role into slowing a tank down some, especially when it's all at the drivetrain area. Resistance & friction plus the amp load will slow a tank some.

What makes the smokers noisy is the motor and pump. Those can be replaced by a fan instead. They are quiet and draw less energy from the battery.

Yes, the chuff'n'puff is a noisy method of creating the pulse of air to get the smoke out of the tubes, some smokers seem are worse than others for noise. You "could" restrict power to the motor and not the element, slightly less noise and probably not that much difference in smoke.

I nailed a few 25mm ex-laptop fans and will convert a few over, see if I can do an easy guide (with detailed pics, as usual) to modding these puppies for better output and reliability. Gonna have to dismantle one of my good smokers to do the guide, all 3 I have in use have worked perfectly since day one lol, and I also run only RX14 boards.... coincidence? Who knows...

You forgot to mention you run plastic gears and tracks and never break them either!

Wacky,

That’s a great idea and I hope everyone appreciates you sacrificing a working smoke unit to do the how to guide. Great attitude mate.

James,

Wacky has the luck of the Irish and I hope some of it rubs off on me, though, I think the basic drive train and tracks are perfectly usable if you don’t try to drive a HL tank like an Austin Healy 3000 through a ploughed field. I doubt a real tank would put up with that kind of abuse, but if HL tanks cost bugger all where you live then don’t worry about it.

I contacted the dealer who sold me the Tiger and he has spare smoke units and at a good price. He is a tank runner like us, but doesn’t hold much score by the HL smoke unit, if one breaks in his tanks he doesn’t bother to replace them, and advised me to do the same. At least I know he isn’t just trying to make a sale and has some integrity, I like the cut of his jib, to be honest.

I was wazzing the Tiger around on the cobble stones again today, it doesn’t like to turn on them, it skids in turns and fails to grip properly. I’m not blaming the Tiger of course, but I think it’s time we got rid of all this old rubbish that some people see as part of our heritage and paid more attention to how our tanks work on our paved lanes and roads. How long are Roman roads going to haunt us in England? We deserve something a bit more up to date![X(]

Just joking of course, I don’t want to see any cobble stones torn up or valid links to the past harmed. I’ll make my Tiger more in tune with its environment (at some point).

I’ll be sticking tiny rubber pads to the tracks of the Tiger in the near future, to improve their grip, but only in my dreams.

Forgive my Monty Python humour, it rarely travels well.

I did put some of that spray on rubber grip stuff on my BullDog's tracks once. It wore off in a couple of hours but it did allow the tank to grip like crazy. you could buy a spray can and spray your tracks every once in awhile.

The Tiger models handling characteristics and reliability of its running gear is much like the real life version, it wasn't very good. The chevrons added in '43 and ice cleats helped out. The Tiger runs much better when it's weight is up over 8lbs. Our 211 Tiger is currently 11lbs still about 1/3 of what its scale weight should be but it runs much nicer. The stock Heng Long Tiger suspension springs start to compress around 13lbs or so.

Didn't spot this before (I have now!) and its true - all plastic in most of my tanks, and no track damage on any when checked last, though a Tiger I bought secondhand came with spare links that were broken (the ones he'd broken).

Pattoncommander scratched on this the other day: its when you start adding all the metal bits and pieces that they start breaking, then theres driver ability/attitude....

Well for me it was the plastic stuff that was breaking; gears and track links. You know the story, it's repeated here for the new guys. We (my children and I) don't run our tank exclusively in scale terrain. The tanks are driven through mulch, pebbles, sugar sand, mud, muck, puddles, off curbs, shells, clay, rocks, high grass, weeds, etc.

The final drive plastic gears split when attempting to pivot in sugar sand. The plastic track links broken in all sorts of terrain, even on pavement from picking up rocks and the rocks getting between the sprocket tooth and track. Sprocket always wins! Metal parts eliminate this reliability issue for us.

I took the smoke generator out of the tank today, without breaking anything else in the process.

I managed to open the casing, though I did crack it a little bit, nothing that JB weld couldn’t fix. Looking at the element it was clearly burned and needed to be repaired, then I came to a realisation. The wire is just too thin for me to see properly, my specs are up to prescription and under a year old, but these old eyes are just not up to the job. I need a desk magnifier, but in the mean time I threw the smoke unit out and if I get the urge I will buy a new one.

No big deal, but at least I gave it a try and I’m now clued up as to how the smoke generator fits into the tank.

I took the smoke units out of both of my tanks (HL tiger 1 & M26 pershing) they both broke/burnt out the element

Getting a good one does seem to be pot luck. I was looking at videos of the Bovington Tiger (133) today and it only seems to make noticeable smoke when starting from cold, there was also evidence of Blue smoke on occasion indicating that the engine may not be factory perfect. Not to worry, it's a running example of a great tank, enough said.

All praise to those people who got Tiger 133 to run under its own steam, a very worthy achievement.

The stock smoke units can be made to work and rather nicely at that with just a modicum of effort. I think the basic mechanism (the heating element) is ok but it needs to be fed a constant supply of oil to keep it going. The piston pump is too noisy and can be replaced with the ubiquitous CPU fan still utilizing the unit's housing/reservoir.

There's much mention of improving the smoke generator on this forum over the years... check it out.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_4681563/tm.htm
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_5911084/tm.htm
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_5800130/tm.htm
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_4562562/tm.htm

Thank you, that's much appreciated information.

for one closer to home check here this guy has some top stuff http://www.tanksandtrolls.co.uk/smokintiger.htm