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MadInventor

Vintage King Tiger Upgrade

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Here's some mods I've done to my vintage tiger to improve the performance of it. The main alteration was to modify the gearbox to use twin 540s to drive it. I was quite surpised at the speed when I first used it, as the gear ratio is lower than the standard gearbox, but of course having twice the motor power it allows the motors to rev higher, and so it is slightly faster than a standard model. Tight turns are easily achieved, even on long grass, thanks to the massive grunt of the 540 in comparison to a 380. When I first fitted the gearbox the front end sat too low thanks to the extra weight of the aluminium blocks and the extra motor in the gearbox. I machined some weight out of the aluminium blocks, and also replaced the front 4 springs with heavy duty versions made from hacksaw blades. I knew these would be ok as I used the same design to support my 8.5Kg 'super heavy' King Tiger. This then cured the ride height problem a the front. I then decided to fit a plate in the back of the tank to mount the battery and radio gear on. Whilst thinking about this I also worked out I could mount the turret rotation gearbox on it as well. In the normal position, the turret gun flash servo gets in the way of neatly fitting a 7.2V battery in it, so I did some maths and fitted the gearbox in backwards, so that the servo is at the forward end of the tank. (I've got room to do this as the twin motor gearbox is shorter than the standard item by quite a degree.) I'm just waiting on a new turret clutch from ebay and I can get the turret rotation mechanism working again. At the moment there's no flash unit it so getting the gun flash servo operational is not a priority. Anyway, I'm very pleased with the mods, the tank drives great on the 2 540s, and the rear end is much neater with the radio plate in it, and I am able to strap in the battery with 2 re-usable cable ties. I've used 2 waterproof Mtronics eco 27 speedos to drive the motors. Anyway, enough blurb, here's the pics:

First bit made, a large block of aluminium machined to support the bevel drives

img33435_10022011225443_2.jpg

With bronze bushes fitted, need to change these for ballraces at some stage.

img33435_10022011225443_3.jpg

Home made drive shafts with TT01 spur gears

img33435_10022011225443_6.jpg

img33435_10022011225443_5.jpg

Fitted

img33435_18022011002115_1.jpg

Too low at the front

img33435_18022011002115_3.jpg

Heavy duty hacksaw blade springs

img33435_18022011002115_6.jpg

Ride height now ok when comapred to a astandard KT

img33435_18022011002115_7.jpg

Lightened

img33435_18022011002115_2.jpg

Radio tray mounts, 20mm long for a 2mm thick plate

img33435_18022011002115_8.jpg

Completed radio tray with turret rotator fitted in backwards to standard

img33435_18022011002115_9.jpg

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Nice job! It looks like it came from the factory like that.

How do the two speed controls work? One for each motor?

Is your local hardware store suffering from a hack saw blade shortage now?

Steve

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Nice job! It looks like it came from the factory like that.

How do the two speed controls work? One for each motor?

Is your local hardware store suffering from a hack saw blade shortage now?

Steve

Hi Steve,

I use one speedo for each motor, and use aileron / elevator mixing on the 2 channels on the rc gear to give throttle and steering. Throttle acts as elevators and the ailerons act as steering. using the elevators moves both speedos in the same direction,and using 'ailerons' reduces the throttle on one speedo whilst increasing it to max on the other. It means you can turn the tank just by operating the steering channel without having to apply throttle..

I can get 3 springs out of one hacksaw blade, so I didn't have to cut up too many to make the springs. The hacksaw blades are ideal as they are the same thickness as the standard tamiya springs, but are a stiffer spring, and also I make the blades fatter at 10mm which gives them extra strength. Now this tank is nearly finished I can get back to the 'super heavy' model. I've got some ideas coming together for the gearbox, so once I've finalised the design I'll crack on and make it.

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I'm getting some good use out of this tank now. The gearbox has proved to be uber reliable, I am extermely pleased with it. All I have done to it is to machine some more metal out of the big home made plate at the front of the gearbox to make it a bit lighter

You can see in this link, the tank has bags of power. This was towing 9kgs of steel tank up an incline.

http://www.tamiyaclubmovies.com/movies/33435/mJ0PU28J82S.AVI

Shortly after this I came up with the idea for mounting a rotatable camera in the tank commanders cupola, to give a commanders 'eye view' . Fisrtly, I machined a machind a boss to fit in the cupola, and drilled a hole through the bottom of the cupola 6mm diameter. 2 other holes were also drilled so that I could screw the boss securely in place.

img33435_01072011190330_1.jpg

I then made a rotator, and linkage to connect to a servo horn,

img33435_01072011190330_2.jpg

Finally I made an adaptor to accept a GoPro Hero HD cam, it bolts directly onto the boss below, which allows a great deal of adjustment for tilt angle.

img33435_01072011190330_3.jpg

This was then all assembled ont the tank, and a servo was held in place inside the turret to provide the swivel capability.

img33435_01072011190330_4.jpg

The first test of it was filming the video below. We noted that there was quite a lot of camera shake, as well as a persistent rattling noise.

So I carried out some modifications to the system, by mounting the rotator directly onto a servo horn and mounting the servo directly below the turret cupola. I also fitted a small piece of foam between the aluminium boss and the plastic camera mount, to help dampen any rattle.

img33435_01072011190330_5.jpg

This has improved the situation enormously, the camera is much more stable, and no more rattles. Here's a good pic of the tank with the camera mounted on it, and a short clip showing the rotator in action.

img33435_01072011015110_4.jpg

http://www.tamiyaclubmovies.com/movies/33435/mJRD03J5J5Y.mpg

I'll be adding some footage shot from the camera in the next few days, in the mean time, here's a quick vid showing the power of the tank with 2 540s, anyone who has a 380 powered tank will be able to spot the difference.

http://www.tamiyaclubmovies.com/movies/33435/mK3873G744D.mpg

Here's one from the onboard camera:

http://www.tamiyaclubmovies.com/movies/33435/mKGN22PN0SO.mp4

I'm just thinking now about whether or not to modify the servo to give 360 degreee rotation on the camera to make it easy to spin from a front view to rear view, and vice-versa.

Edit 04/07/2011, latest movie footage:

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