4 inch speaker mounting

[Patrick O'Donnell]

As you can see on the gallery I have fitted the speaker with Meccano in front of the batteries near the front of the 222, but I do not like it there. It all seems very flimsy.

I know nothing of speakers and I was wondering if I could make use of the strong magnet at the back of the speaker to mount it directly to the steel body? I was thinking of fitting it right at the front facing aft.

Would it magnetize the whole verhicle causing unknown problems and would it have a bad effect on the speaker?

[Ad Wouterse]

Patrick,

You should better not use the magnet to mount the speaker.
First of all this will influence the performance of the speaker. The magnet is used to convert electrical signals from the amplifier into vibrations to move the speakers conus. This conus then transfers these vibrations to the surrounding air which our ears interpret as sound.
Only when a speaker should be magnetically shielded (stereo set or PC speakers) the speakers magnet is mounted onto another (compensating)magnet.

Most likely the magnetic field created around the steel body parts will create some kind of interference with the electronics and/or radio.

[Patrick O'Donnell]

Ad,

Thankyou for your prompt answer. Just shows you how little I know about this subject. I will have to think-up some other place to fit it. I noticed at Beltring Hop farm that Mark/Armortek had managed to squeeze it in so some of the speaker was facing outward through the grill behind the turret.
Have you got your option pack 2 yet?
Have you replaced the original springs with the softer ones and shock absorbers you mentioned on the old forum?

[Ad Wouterse]

Patrick,

I have recently ordered option pack 2, but I understood from Gill that the smoke generator will not be available until the end of this month.
I have gathered various sets of springs in the meantime, both softer and progressive versions. I will do some testing when I have finished the model. Shocks prove to be more difficult. The space between the lower and upper wishbones is so small, that a functional shockabsorber will not fit in. But I haven't given up yet.

At the moment I am working on the 222's tail section. I will post some pics of my progress soon.

[Patrick O'Donnell]

Ad,

I seem to remember on the old forum that you had an extra servo rear steering fitted? Does it have the same steering ratio as the front and have you fitted another servo-saver at the rear?

Could the rear steering on the 1:1 full-sized sdkfz 222 be controled in this way. Was the rear normally left in the straight ahead mode or was it allways in operation?

[Ad Wouterse]

Patrick,

Your memory is still 100%
This is what I did.
I left the rear steering as it was and only mounted a servo saver from a "Jumbo type" servo directly on the Hitec servo.
I disconnected the front tie rod ( CJ0418 ) and mounted a second servo in the free socket on the servo plate. After that I moved the front servo saver to the left hand side and rotated the top arm 180 degrees. Finally the long and short tie rod ( CJ0437/438 ) were also rotated 180 degrees and the front tie rod ( CJ0418 ) was reconnected between the servo saver and the new servo.
So the "real" work was limited to drilling and tapping one new hole for the original servo saver.

On the real SdKfz 222 the rear wheel steering could be engaged/disengaged as well. According to the drivers manual the use should however be limited to low speed and difficult terrain situations.

[Patrick O'Donnell]

Ad,

I think I understand your excellent description of the modification. Did you fit one of the special tungsten toothed servos or just an ordinary one? Please could we have some snaps of your very interesting modifications?

You talk of the "Driver's manual" do you have one?

I take it from your answer on "42 KPH" that the rear wheel steering should not be used at faster than slow speed?

So I think your method of driving is to leave the rear wheels in "Straight ahead mode" and only make use of the rear wheel steering in slow and difficult situations.

I have relocated my speaker to a face-up position, under the grill just behind the turret. Snaps will be put on the Gallery soon.

http://www.armortek.co.uk/gallery/main. ... itemId=223

[Ad Wouterse]

Patrick,

For testing I used a standard servo on the rear wheels, but I will replace it by another Hitec one.
As my wife has taken the digital camera along on a trip, it will take a couple of days before I can post any pics

Some "Dienstanweisungen" are incorporated in the Ryton book on the SdKfz 221/222/223. That is my source.

You have correctly interpreted my "method of driving" . Field testing will prove if any adjustments to the rear wheel geometry are necessary. For the moment the toe-in/out on the rear wheels is set at zero.

The new location of your speaker looks much better.
Two tips I would like to mention. Make sure that no metal parts are left free to move. Movement between any metal parts may lead to radio interference.
If you want to hide the internal parts below the grill, you can glue a piece of black felt underneath the grill. An aditional advance will be an improved quality of sound. Just my two cents.

[Patrick O'Donnell]

Ad,
Thankyou for the advice regarding the felt, I did not realize that putting felt between speaker and ear would make an improvement in sound quality.

I have heard of this problem of metal to metal movement causing radio interference. If it was as bad as all that why do the 1/6 tanks run without much interference from metal to metal tracks.

1/6 scale tank tracks have got to be the worst example of metal to metal movement and should cause massive amounts of interference, but we hear very little of this problem.