Armortek

Hi Brown

The two holes in the drive case clash with the hull fixings. They can be left vacant or a dummy bolt bolt can be fitted. The fixing of the gear case to the hull side is under considerable stress. Armortek tigers that have run for a number of years have been known to work the gear cases loose. The turned steel bolts that you have used look great but are not up to the job. They are less than one quarter the tensile strength of the cap head screws that are supplied with the kit, and will almost certainly fail under load.

Mark

Mark,

I guess I'll have to get better bolts before I install the motors. The stock capheads will be used as a last resort.

Thanks for the tip,

Brown

Hi Brown . I saw your post this morning and Marks reply . So I check out my King tiger this morning and when the sprockets are on , You can't see any of the bolt heads at all , So if I where you use the kit cap heads You don't wont the gear cases to come off .... Dale

I am having issues getting some of the motors and sound to work. Both the turret rotation and the gun elevation motors are only turning in one direction. I got the sounds to work for a minute then did something to the rc radio and can't get the sounds to work now. Note the big a** batteries in the background (12v 24ahr). They will fit on the Armortek battery tray, barely. Anyone in the US I have a good source for these (http://bigtimebattery.com/store) @ $35 each. I'm impressed with the speakers; fairly heavy, sound good, make in the UK.



I know it is only operator error as the setup of the electronic has been amazingly easy. I am using a Futaba 2.4GHZ T10CHG radio. This is extreme overkill for a couple of tanks, but I also want to try my hand at fighting gliders too.

Anyway, I work best by emulation. If I see it I can then repeat it. This whole RC gig is new to me, but if I can get one tank set up I can do it again without too much trouble.

On a different note, I have completed a bit more on the tank:

Loader and driver hatch mods including counter sinking 9BA bolts and filing the bolts down to the appropriate height. I could only find 1" long 9BA bolts, go figure. 8BA were too big, 10BA too small. Still need to add cuts to the nuts for castle nut appearance.




Also tapped the hole in the front deck for a 4mm bolt to hold the front vent.
I have to locations marked for the hatch stops (brass 3mm rods).

Cut out the tabs in the rear vent grills and ground down. This took a lot more time than expected.

Working on the rear deck covers. Tapped these for 3mm bolts to be used with aluminum retention bars until I feel they are ready to "weld" into place. Also need to drill the holes in the tops and make the small welded cover plates. I used a bunch of washers to lift the bolts to the central vent until I make the armored coverplate. Got a thin washer to make the screen retention ring held on with 10BA bolts.



I've ground the sides of the turret track link holders flat. Gill sent me another full set of track holders that will be used for the additional track links I plan to attach to the turret. Need to finish the hull before moving to the turret.

Lots more to do.

Brown

Lots more to do.

Hi

On your electrics, why have fitted a switch in the supply to the radio receiver. This is completely unnecessary and will mess with the safety delay timers in the speed controller. Best without it really. Your other issues sound like transmitter settings, try restoring factory defaults on the transmitter.

Mark

hi brown,i could'nt get my motion pack/ sound, single stick control of the tank sorted,it is simple but i had the benefit of phoneing mark at armortek and he talked me through the set up, guess what it worked,as he said it would.you can get all sorts going on with the tank if its not right, regards simon manning.

I'm getting a hum through the speakers when I turn on the electronics. When I push the Link/mode switch the hum will go away for a moment.

I have reset the rc radio and tried to link the sounds to the unit. No luck. I hear the beats when I first turn the unit on, then push the sound card button and hear the sounds cycle to the final fast beats. Then I turn everything off. When I turn everything back on I hear the beats again as though radio and the sound unit have not linked up. Am I missing something? I have a 3 position switch tagged for channel 5. My receiver is a Futaba R6014 HS. Do I need to set the receiver for normal or highspeed mode? I would think normal, but I'm not clear on how to tell which mode it is set to.

Help anyone!!

Brown

I have engine sounds working! That's all. I flipped the 3 position switch and got the engine sound to start and respond proportionately. How do I get other sounds?

The turret rotation and gun elevation motors are having difficulties. Turret motor only goes one way and the gun elevation prefers to go in one direction but will hesitantly rotate in the opposite direction.

Brown

Hi Brown . I have the 7c set ... I could not get all the sounds to work for a while .Then I worked out ,to get the engine sound on I push the three way switch down one then back up to get it to work ! for all the other sounds it was down three time , then down 4,5,6,7,8 times then back up to get all the other sounds , let me know how you get on ...Dale

Hi Brown

Mine is set up the same as Dale describes. I believe it needs to be on a momentary, 3-way switch(meaning it returns to neutral) and not on one of the 3-way switches that do not return to neutral on their own. Someone can correct me if I am wrong. I tried the later on channel 5 or 6 when I was first setting it up and I never got it to work. Your nice radio might have that type of switch up top but mine doesn't. Dale, what switch are you using on your 7C for sound selection and activation?

Once I switched to the left joy stick (left and right for sound), the sounds worked perfectly the first time. Not sure, off the top of my head, which channel this is on my 7C. It's an odd setup but it got the sounds working on mine. Hope to change to a proper rotary switch some day.

Once you select the sound by pushing the stick in the "select" direction the number of times to correspond to the sound you want( 4 times for sound #4 as an example), it will make that sound each time you push the stick the other direction until you select another sound using the same method.

I hear the three beats every time my power is turned on. I assumed this was normal and had something to do with what mode the sound card was in.

I apologize if I have completely confused you.

good luck
Kind regards
Tim

Hi Brown

Unfortunately there are known issues with the receiver that you are using. This unit only produces a standard output on channels one and two, all other channels are output at a lower voltage. Futaba say that this is to prevent overheating. All the new Armortek modules are digital pulse counting devices, and as such are known not to be compatible with this receiver. I'm afraid your only option is to use a simpler unit with fewer channels.

Mark

Mark,
Are there any Futaba 8 channel digital receivers that will work? I want to have as many remote options as possible.

I now have LOTS of smoke (Richie's smoker) and figured out how to make the sounds. Are the gun elevation and turret rotation supposed to have sounds when activated?

Should be test rolling tomorrow!

Videos to come.

Brown

Hi Brown.

I'm not really an expert, I knew that there was a problem with the 14 channel unit because that has come up before. Lee Sellars might know. He has used multi channel radios on some of the builds he has done for others.

Regards
Mark

What is considered a proper ride height? When I have the turret and batteries on the hull the suspension arms are almost parallel to the ground. I'm thinking I may need to make new suspension arms with an angle in the 40+ degree range for my setup.

Also, the tracks make a popping noise occasionally. Is this normal? Am I making too hard of a turn?

All in all the tank is working well. The neighbors are impressed.

Brown

So how do you set up the extra battery lead and charging lead? Can I use my 12 volt charger to charge both batteries at once?


Here are photos of the current ride height:





Here are a couple of videos of testing Richie's smoker:


I like that I can adjust the amount of smoke.

More to come...