Tamiya 1/16 RC Panther (resumed after a long hiatus)

[tr1ckey66]

Two steps forward and three back...

Finally I've got round to fitting the electronics. However, this did not come without some mishaps along the way.
First up the minor hiccups... Somehow, one of the links to the gun crutch chain has come loose and departed company. This isn't too much of a set back as I have spare links, it's just adding more build time to an already long build.



Second calamity. A couple of rivets from the front, left-hand fender have taken a leaf from the chain link's book and also made a run for it! This is slightly more problematic but not insurmountable...



Third hiccup (but fixed). Although I mounted the gearboxes with the utmost care I still managed to cross thread one of the mounting bolts. This was fixed by fitting a supporting nut inside the tank and thus straightening everything up.





And finally, to top all this off, I managed to break the super detailed Schumo antenna base. This was fixed by removing some of the detail rebuilding the base from plastic card and adding new bolts. I'm fairly happy with the result.



A pic of the complete lower hull...



Mishaps aside I feel progress has been made and the hull now has a belly full of electronics...



Unfortunately I'll have to remove the gearboxes once again to properly fit the transmission bearings. Holes need to be drilled into the aluminium hull to accommodate these.



Before I do that though I think I'll test the electronics and ensure the Panther's ready to go. The battery pack is on charge and once that's ready we'll see if this Big cat runs!



And that's it for now. Hopefully this thing will soon have some life breathed into it and I can start adding all that photo etch detail ready for my favourite part - painting!

Cheers
Paul

[boatman]

Two steps forward and three back...

Finally I've got round to fitting the electronics. However, this did not come without some mishaps along the way.
First up the minor hiccups... Somehow, one of the links to the gun crutch chain has come loose and departed company. This isn't too much of a set back as I have spare links, it's just adding more build time to an already long build.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1112400[/ATTACH]

Second calamity. A couple of rivets from the front, left-hand fender have taken a leaf from the chain link's book and also made a run for it! This is slightly more problematic but not insurmountable...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1112401[/ATTACH]

Third hiccup (but fixed). Although I mounted the gearboxes with the utmost care I still managed to cross thread one of the mounting bolts. This was fixed by fitting a supporting nut inside the tank and thus straightening everything up.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1112402[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1112403[/ATTACH]

And finally, to top all this off, I managed to break the super detailed Schumo antenna base. This was fixed by removing some of the detail rebuilding the base from plastic card and adding new bolts. I'm fairly happy with the result.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1112404[/ATTACH]

A pic of the complete lower hull...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1112408[/ATTACH]

Mishaps aside I feel progress has been made and the hull now has a belly full of electronics...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1112405[/ATTACH]

Unfortunately I'll have to remove the gearboxes once again to properly fit the transmission bearings properly. Holes needed to be drilled into the aluminium hull to accommodate these.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1112406[/ATTACH]

Before I do that though I think I'll test the electronics and ensure the Panther's ready to go. The battery pack is on charge and once that's ready we'll see if this Big cat runs!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1112407[/ATTACH]

And that's it for now. Hopefully this thing will soon have some life breathed into it and I can start adding all that photo etch detail ready for my favourite part - painting!

Cheers
Paul

MISHAPS APART Paul great work im lookin forword to seein her go over the tank assult course an lovely to see all that lovely coulored wirein an gearboxs an motor i'll be bloomin glad when im that far on tigers electronics
chris

[tr1ckey66]

MISHAPS APART Paul great work im lookin forword to seein her go over the tank assult course an lovely to see all that lovely coulored wirein an gearboxs an motor i'll be bloomin glad when im that far on tigers electronics
chris

To be fair Chris the electronics for Tamiya tanks is fairly straight forward, simply follow the colour coding and it’s plug in and go. Your build has a bespoke wiring loom and some doubtless planning into what needs to be done. I guess you’ve done this before with a few previous builds but it’s still impressive to me!

Thanks for the continued support.
Paul

[Steve Jones]

Wow! What a project Paul. I learn so much from 1:12 and 1:16 builds with all the detailing you guys do. I will look on in admiration. Great stuff.

[JR]

Paul just found this sorry to say, impressive build. Will take a seat with Chris .

[boatman]

Paul just found this sorry to say, impressive build. Will take a seat with Chris .

:thinking:HI John if youre takein a seat with me I hope you brought some bickkies like choclate hobnobs my fav lol:rolling::smiling::smiling::smiling:

An paul ive been studyin your eletrics workins in your tank an it seems to me you only have one main drive motor or have you to fit another ? or does that gearbox work both tracks independenily ? so that the tracks can go opposite ways so the tank can turn. I ask this as I have built some a bit smaller tiger tamyia kits that were remote control an they had two main drive motors in them but just wondering as it looks like you had fun fittin it all togeather an does it all work an the sound systems ?
chris

[tr1ckey66]

:thinking:HI John if youre takein a seat with me I hope you brought some bickkies like choclate hobnobs my fav lol:rolling::smiling::smiling::smiling:

An paul ive been studyin your eletrics workins in your tank an it seems to me you only have one main drive motor or have you to fit another ? or does that gearbox work both tracks independenily ? so that the tracks can go opposite ways so the tank can turn. I ask this as I have built some a bit smaller tiger tamyia kits that were remote control an they had two main drive motors in them but just wondering as it looks like you had fun fittin it all togeather an does it all work an the sound systems ?
chris

Hi Chris
There are 2 motors, the left-hand motor is slightly behind and below the right-hand one in the picture. The motors are arranged so that they sort of slot together (making most of the available space). One motor drives the right hand drive sprocket the other the left both have their own gearbox.
The speaker is connected to the DMD control unit which controls the sounds - engine, gun, MG, turret-turning whir etc. I’ll give a demo when this is complete.
Cheers Paul

[tr1ckey66]

Hi Chris/John, thanks for dropping by. I’m glad you like the build so far and thanks for the support.
Cheers
Paul

[boatman]

HI Paul Sorry my mistake lookin an studyin at some earlyier pics I now see that other main drive motor its hid up beneath some wirein I dint notice it when I first looked so please ignore my question above
chris

[tr1ckey66]

HI Paul Sorry my mistake lookin an studyin at some earlyier pics I now see that other main drive motor its hid up beneath some wirein I dint notice it when I first looked so please ignore my question above
chris

No worries Chris
I’m working at the moment so there won’t be any progress for a while. I’m hopeful that at the end of this month the running gear will be finished and the lower hull can be seen running. I’ll try and post a video.
Cheers
Paul

[boatman]

No worries Chris :smiling3:
I’m working at the moment so there won’t be any progress for a while. I’m hopeful that at the end of this month the running gear will be finished and the lower hull can be seen running. I’ll try and post a video.
Cheers
Paul

OH A VID that will be great but we still got to wait oh the suspence aaaahhhh
chris

[boatman]

HI Paul what you still waitin on them gears for your panzther or are you to busy on other things
chris

[tr1ckey66]

HI Paul what you still waitin on them gears for your panzther or are you to busy on other things
chris

Hi Chris
Yes, still waiting on the gearbox upgrade. Decided to completely replace the standard gearboxes with ’ETO Armor’ heavy duty units which have more realistic scale speeds. These should be here in a week or 2 (shipped from the U.S.) and then it’s all systems go!

In the meantime I’ve been planning on sculpting a few figures to go with these large scale armour projects. More on that a little later in the build.
Cheers
Paul

[boatman]

Hi Chris
Yes, still waiting on the gearbox upgrade. Decided to completely replace the standard gearboxes with ’ETO Armor’ heavy duty units which have more realistic scale speeds. These should be here in a week or 2 (shipped from the U.S.) and then it’s all systems go!

In the meantime I’ve been planning on sculpting a few figures to go with these large scale armour projects. More on that a little later in the build.
Cheers
Paul

OK Paul lookin forward to this resumeumin hope you are well
chris

[tr1ckey66]

This is heavy duty stuff...

Finally my new gearboxes arrived from the states., and what mighty fine pieces of engineering they are too. You can see the comparison in the next shot. The original Tamiya g/boxes on the left and the new ETO Armor units on the right (Armor and not Armour as these are from our American cousins). You can see that, not only are the gears much beefier and arranged linearly, the housing is much more substantial too.



I have to say it wasn't a straight forward swap and I did struggle (a bit) to fit the new g/boxes and Schumo bearings. First up, two new holes needed to be drilled into the aluminium chassis to accommodate the new mounts. Then, four of the original holes need to be filled, I simply secured these with short bolts (the underside is now peppered with loads of bolt heads and 4 more won't make a jot of difference). The left-hand drive shaft was then removed from the new g/box and secured into the chassis. The drive shaft was then threaded through the chassis and reattached to the left-hand drive. All that was left to do now was fit the Schumo bearings on the outside - easy enough, or so I thought... Four hours and a lot of expletive language later I finally had everything in. And here they are...



Time to fire this baby up...
Unfortunately, I think I may have fried my new battery by charging it too fast. When connected to the tank the charge was only sufficient to power the DMD for about 20 mins. In that time I was able to get drive to the wheels and sounds from the speaker (wow, I'd forgotten how loud they are), however more time will be needed to set up the transmitter as the control is not as it should be. I have ordered 4 more batteries (I'm going to power up my Tiger 1 as well) but until these arrive I'm kinda stuck again. That said, I have some time off from Thursday of next week and I should be able to really crack on with this, maybe even finish it!
Till then
Cheers
Paul