New to Tanks
 

Hi,

Just bought a M41A3 Walker Bulldog tank from Heng Long through ********.

Hoping for some help.

I charged the battery, installed the battery.

I also put the AA batts in the controller.
I installed the antennas.

I turned on the controller, got the red light on the controller, extended the antenna.
I then switched the power switch on the tank underside.

The headlight blinked and continued to blink. The instructions, which are not clear at all, said to wait 5 minutes.
I waited 5 minutes, the entire time the headlight simply blinked and nothing else happened.

Any suggestions? Is there a way to bind these to the included transmitter?

Thanks in advance,

M

You push either the key with the engine symbol on the transmitter or you push the key with the padlock symbol. Hold till tank starts.

In the instructions, it says to wait 5 minutes.
Should I hold that button for 5 minutes? That sounds a bit long.

Nope. Never saw that on a henglong and I have had 3 generations of them. The controler with the slide out antenna has an engine button that you push a few seconds. The 2.4ghz controller that doesnt have an antenna has a lock symbol you push.

Does the tank have an ABC frequency or a frequency crystal? Sounds like the same issue my panzer 3 had.

If it has crystals, try pulling them out and reinstalling - sometimes that can clear the problem.
5 Min wait sounds like a bad translation - you should be able to hit the engine start button, wait 5 seconds for the engine start up sound to play, and then you should be working.

It has an A-B-C switch on the tank. It is red. Weird though that there is only two positions to that switch. Not 3. Its also in the spot that the directions say should be the smoke switch. There is only two switches total on the bottom of the tank. Power and the red switch that says A-B-C.

I has a frequency crystal tab of paper on the transmitter. It says 01 and also TX on it. The same sticker is under the tank.

Hit the engine start button for a few seconds? I will try that and report back. I was only hitting it momentarily. I thought the flashing light on the tank was supposed to stop flashing. I'm used to planes with the binding process.

I will report back soon.
M

Hi, The early HENG LONG Tanks that used crystals had a particular way of starting ,
Switch the Tank on first,
the lights should flash,
Now switch on the hand held controller,
Wait a few minutes for the controller to bind to the Tank,
The lights should now be steady,
Your Tank should now work.
If that does not do it then reverse the process, and Switch on the Controller first then switch on the Tank, BUT I am pretty sure it is the first way, but it is years since I had a crystal powered Tank.
Good luck.
Shaun.

Why would it have a two position switch that says, A-B-C?
Is there supposed to be a switch for the smoke?

This is one with the metal tracks and gear box, not sure if that matters but thought I'd mention it.

I turned on the controller, then turned on the tank. The lights were flashing.
Then I held down the engine button on the controller for about 10 full seconds and all of a sudden, the engine noise started.
However, still no action at all. (And now I can't remember if the lights stopped flashing or not) There was no movement. I tried moving it. It didn't move.
Then after what seemed like a minute, the engine noise seemed to change.
So held down the engine button again to get it to stop and it would not. It just kept running.
So I switched it off instead, then turned off the controller.

OK, maybe I can clarify. When you push the start button, the motor on the tank starts. It will make a lot of rough sounding noise that is simulating the sound of a diesel engine starting. As soon as the engine sound smooths out, the tank is simulating that the diesel engine has warmed up and is now ready to go. Just move the right stick on your transmitter in the direction that you want to go and it's off. The red switch on the bottom that says A,B and C is actually a two position switch that turns your smoker on and off. Hope this helps.

That does help.
So after I get the motor sound started, about how long does it take for it to simulate the diesel is warmed up and hence, able to move?

Thanks,
M

The start process should be:
Turn on radio and check red light on the handset
Turn on tank, and check for flashing headlights
Press the engine start button on the radio (do not hold, just press)
Tank should immediately start making something resembling an engine cranking noise (check the white volume knob poking out of the underside of the tank if you don't hear anything).
After 5 seconds delay the headlights should stop flashing and be lit continuously, the engine sound should switch to an idling noise, and moving any stick or button should result in some kind of movement or sound being played.

If the start sound plays and the headlights stop flashing then the receiver board is getting a signal, and the crystals should be seated properly in their holders.

How long did you charge the main battery for - a few mins or a few hours? It could be that either the battery isn't charged properly, or isn't taking a charge?

I charged the battery for 60-90 minutes but not all at once. The charger is just an adapter that plugs into the wall. There is no indicator on the charger to tell if its fully charged.
How long should I put the battery on the charger for?

1st post in the FAQ thread: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-t...-tank-f-q.html

Sounds like poor battery charge is your culprit (assuming that you are using the stock wallwart- its a POS that will charge at the same rate forever).
Try charging your pack for the recommended time, and see what happens (usual caveats - never leave unattended,etc, etc. NiMH and NiCD are usually pretty tame, but I've had a couple overheat and start fizzling over the years..)

Is it an NiCD or NiMH battery pack? (it will be printed on the battery's plastic cover). NiMH will survive being under charged without problem, NiCD not so much :(

When I was living in the US, I used to swear by Tenergy NiMH packs from all-battery.com down in LA - some of them are still going 10 years later despite heavy use followed long periods of not being used (which apparently does them more harm). Might be worth a look if you need a replacement and a cheap peak charger?
http://www.all-battery.com/72v3800ma...umorobots.aspx
http://www.all-battery.com/nimpackcharger_01025.aspx

Hope this helps,

I will charge for 2 hours.
I did notice the wall AC adaptor got warm. And you say it charges at the same rate constantly? That sounds a bit scary.
If it is charging hard like that even though it is full or nearly full at the end of the 2 hours, I'm worried.

I just need to get an adaptor plug to use with my Icharger. Which I will once I know this tank will work as advertised.

M

2 hours doesn't sound like much, unless HL's stock charger has improved significantly? :confused:

Its a crap charger tho, even just buying the peak charger I linked to will make an improvement on charge time and will shutdown when it thinks its done.

I dont recall the output of the cheap little henglong charger and dont have one to look at as i just through them away, but if your yellow pack is the old 1700 mah nicad, read the charger output and divide it into the 1700 rating of the pack and that should give you charge time. If the charger is say 100 mah output (hypothetically) then it would take 17hrs to charge. 200 mah would be 8.5 hrs etc.

2 hours doesn't sound like much? So how long do you recommend I charge with the stock charger?

I will definitely be using a better charger in the future. However I just want to make sure it works right before investing more.

M

1st post in the FAQ thread I linked:

Q: How long should I charge my battery pack with the supplied wall charger?

A: Add 15% to the battery pack's rated capacity, then divide the sum by the charger's output amperage to get charge time. For example, if you have a 2000mAh battery pack and a 400mAh charger, then the charge time is (2000 + 0.15*2000)/400 = 5.75 hours or 5 hours 45 minutes. If your charger's output is 500mAh, then the charge time is 4.6 hours or 4 hours 36 minutes. However, you can charge the battery pack for 5 hours initially.

This seemed to work out back in the day, but I must admit its been a long time since I used those stock HL chargers.

Wow!
I see now. Yeah it says 400 mAh on the charger.
BTW- The charger feels pretty hot. The battery is feeling warm. Been two hours now.

Let it charge 4.5- 5 hrs and see how it runs after that.

I will report back the results.
Thanks so much,
M

No dice.
I charged for 3 hours. I just plugged the battery back into the charger.
Same symptom. It will start after multiple pushes of the start engine button but it just idles and does nothing else. No turret, no movement of the tracks, no gun elevation, no machine gun sound. NOTHING.
So I'll charge it for 2 more hours that will make a total of 5 hours.

Nah I now think something else is wrong. Time to unscrew the tank and open it up and check to make sure that all the pugs are firmly in place
Henglong tanks are not known for their reliability. I had one that one side would not turn the track. It was a bad circuit card in it. Sometimes that is how it goes.
I wish you luck. Open it up and see what you find.

I have no idea how to get into it and how to work on these things.
And if it is a bad circuit board, how would I know for sure?

You say all the pugs to be in the right place, what does that mean? Is there a chance something could need adjusting or there is something I can do that won't require the purchase of a part?

I ordered this from ********.
Anyone order from them? Do they back up the product?

M