Chieftain Build No.17

[Youngjae Bae]

It reminds me of a very difficult process.
If this part goes too deep into the housing, it will not function as a recoil due to servo force.
I've replaced several servo motors here with overload.
I think it would be better to try to install it a little bit inside the turret.
However, too loose a installation was accompanied by rotary motion rather than simple forward-reverse.
This is purely my personal experience, so it doesn't seem to be very helpful.
I look forward to your great conclusion.

Youngjae

[Armortek]

Question about the nylon bearing for the main gun recoil - does this bearing slide with the gun barrel or does the gun barrel slide inside it? As it’s a tight fit onto the barrel and appears to slide in the housing, I’ve assumed this way round. But it seems to make more sense for the barrel to slide inside it? Anybody else at this stage yet?

The bush should be loctited into the housing & the barrel should slide inside the barrel.
If the fit is tight then use some emery cloth - grade 180 or higher - to smooth the barrel.

[Mark Russell]

Ok thanks Kian I’ll have another look at this. My nylon bearing is only 23mm in length. Is this correct as it looks a lot longer on the assembly drawings?

[Mark Russell]

Motion, sound, recoil and smoke option packs arrived today. Test run on the bench and all 100% ok first attempt
Really pleased as I was expecting at least a little fettling!!!
A short video clip of her running in the garage

[John Clarke]

Nice driving Mark, looks like you've got plenty of space in the hull, looking forward to seeing the full monty when you get the turret fitted. It'll be great to see the traverse, elevate, recoil and flash for the first time

[Mark Russell]

Oh dear I knew it was too good to be true! Had real fun today with the Red modules and the drive motor gearboxes...

Went for a run up the road, managed to get some video clips of the recoil and elevation working but...
The RH side drive motor gearbox started slipping, too much end float by the looks of it, causing the teeth on the bevel gears to skip past each other, will contact Armortek on Monday as this will need replacing.

The recoil works fine, but when connected you loose power to the drive motors. If you disconnect the trigger lead from the sound module to the recoil unit, then you have drive, but no recoil? Any ideas guys? When I tested the recoil on the bench I didn’t try the drive motors after connecting it so it was probably the same fault on the bench. So for some reason the recoil unit when connected to the sound unit, kills the power to the drive motors. You do still have the engine sounds accelerating proportional to stick control. As soon as you disconnect the trigger lead, all is ok in respect to power to the drive motors.

In addition occasionally when the power is turned off ant then back on, I have the turret rotation and gun elevation servos moving on there own out of control. If you turn it off and back on it’s ok? A bit worrying really, again any ideas? I see others have had this issue. Any assistance appreciated?

[Manny Leung]

Hi Mark: just been testing the recoil servo and everything seemed to work fine, still have drive on the motors.although the servo is not mounted yet.

[Mark Russell]

Thanks Manny. If I remove the 5 volt power supply to the recoil unit then the drive motors operate proportional to the sound but of course the recoil and flash don’t work as no power supply? Anyone else seen this issue?

[Adrian Harris]

> Anyone else seen this issue?

Variations of it.

Kian will have the answer when they open again tomorrow.

Adrian.

[Richard Goodwin]

For the modules, I suggest its a return to Armortek!

Wrt the motor, have you taken off the gearbox cover plate and inspected the brass bush?

[John Clarke]

Oh Mark, And it was looking so good. I was hoping to see so much more too. So sorry to see the motor/gearbox in such a state.
Professionally speaking, I guessing it's cream cracker'ed. But like the real Chieftain easily repaired, just hope it's not as common as the real thing.
It would be interesting to see the internals, but I'd wait for Armortek's autopsy if your sending it back.

[Chang]

Hi Mark,
From your short film in Youtube, I can see one of the motors labelled 10:2. Is the other one labelled the same?
Is this the gear ratio? If yes, I wonder why isn't it shown 10:1? If no, what is it?

Regards,
Lerh Chang

[Andy McMath]

Thanks Manny. If I remove the 5 volt power supply to the recoil unit then the drive motors operate proportional to the sound but of course the recoil and flash don’t work as no power supply? Anyone else seen this issue?

Mark, check through the following viewtopic.php?f=32&t=8105&start=45#p76219.

I was having problems setting it all up with my DX8 but sorted it all out in the end. Page 4 I think.

Good luck

Andy

[Mark Russell]

Thanks Andy but the instructions now state to connect the recoil to audio output 3. I have the recoil working but this then disables the power to the motors? If I disconnect the recoil then I have motor drive!

[Mark Russell]

A few pictures for you to enjoy from my short test run on Saturday...