Hooben 1/16 Merkava 4M
 

I know this release has been discussed here before, but I found pics of it on Facebook for those that don't do the FB thing. Here they are:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...f601d0bd21.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...88f532f365.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...c2769ec2c5.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...fa6c2e7d51.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...c5adf40d21.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...04b41dcb39.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...5245f38a98.jpg

Yep seen it on FB I'll wait tell someone here gets it and writes up a review on it before I think about it .
Thanks
Jimmy

I know there were a few contemplating buying it so I just thought they might want to see it. I took a gamble on the ZTZ-99A from Hooben so maybe I'll give it a shot since I do like modern tanks. I might wait just a hair longer to put my pre-order in though. It seems they have pushed the date of delivery to Sept now for the pre-orders.

Nice looking tank. I hope Hooben can deliver something decent.

Worried about some of the solidness of the Hooben parts and mountings, especially if they do their rather not-good adjustable idler thing, but that otherwise looks decent enough to give a shot. Add some extra weights to the inside and a bigger heavier NiMh battery to keep bumping that weight up and you might be good. The suspension is rather complex too, and if they keep the bushings they used in the ZTZ-99A I think this will be a worthy contender. So long as you're good throwing out the electronics and replacing them, lol. And since I don't know anyone who has a good Merkava sound kit yet, that'll be a harder find. This has me leaning more into buying than not buying though, especially because it's a new unique hull and I'm always ready to celebrate that. Curious how this will compare to their Cromwell too!

I hope that Hooben is bringing their quality around a bit. They're slower at listening to customer feedback and don't seem as eager to take it in as some makers do, but Heng Long was practically a decade-long transformation into where they're at now so maybe I should be a little more patient with Hooben too (but also seriously, they gotta give us a better route for feedback and they gotta be willing to take it in! it's how you make a better product and secure your niche! Haya has been 5/5 stars about that, and it's why I'll be buying their Centurion even though I don't even like the Centurion lol)

Hope they follow through as they did the same thing with the E-100 and the Maus. Although they did finally release the Maus as an all metal kit.

They did release the E100 with both the Krupp and Porsche turrets.

https://www.hooben-shop.com/collecti...per-heavy-tank

How did you hear Hooben pushed back the release date on the Merkava? I preordered one and paid for it and have not received any notice from them... no surprise but that is again, bad customer service to do that and not notify prepaid order holders.

They keep changing the dates and prices on their "pre-order flyer". See the new dates below. I guess they didn't get enough pre-orders so they extended it. They extended the Cromwell also, but even though the date is passed they still have the pre-order open and it's $20 more in the buy it box than on the flyer.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...e23aad13d1.jpg

Great..... that doesnt build my confidence that I am going to get my model.....

Do keep an eye on your Paypal order dispute validity, so that you don't get strung along past that date. Worse comes to worst, inform them that you are raising a dispute due to a shifting delivery date, and making another payment in view of the revised date, so you remain protected. If they refuse to do that, then you should take your money and run as quickly as possible.

That being said, it looks like a proper and pretty serious effort for this tank. I like what they did with the lower hull.

Would anyone happen to have a picture of the brushless gearboxes they are advertising? Unless you have a sensored brushless motor there is going to be cogging at low speed (mainly startup). I'm sure you could get past this with low enough KV motor, but I have not heard much from anyone on this one. I run some pretty advanced ESCs and only had so-so luck getting scale speed and realistic movements without too much investment.

Classic Ark / Hooben. Some things never change. :rolleyes:

Erik, they are taking their CNC enclosed gearbox that looks very similar to the HL CNC enclosed gearbox and then just slapping a brushless motor on it.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...93925d0221.jpg

They don't specify what type of motors they are, but from other pics I've seen they look like sensorless. Here is a pic of them on their gearbox for the 1/10th vehicles:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...e58099cd57.jpg

Figured I get the updates away from the Cromwell thread and into the Merkava thread.

On June 15th, Feng posted a vid of the Merkava prototype running on the "Lillian Twin-Horse" FB page with the caption below:

"Updating of Hooben 1/16 Merkava. It runs perfect except a little bit light because the sample without ballast and use a very small battery. In productions will reach a correct height. We need some time to correct all Flaws so please just wait a couple of days."

Finally, today they sent a parcel with my order! I am very happy! I look forward to her arrival!
Weight - 7.4 kg. The size of the parcel is 67x34x30 cm.

Have to let us know how you like it once it arrives.

Nice. Post pics

I messaged them last week on FB and asked the status and they got back to me Monday and said mine had posted that day. Who knows how long it will take it to arrive in America. I didn’t receive any tracking info, just their note via PM.

I made an order through the store - "Twinhorse-model". The package was sent by FedEx. They provided a tracking number and everything is being tracked. On the website of the store where I registered when placing an order, everything is also visible.

Yeah I preordered mine in March and dont have a login on their site, I dont even remember which site I bought it from, they have a few. They just told me it had shipped.