The Nitroholic Panzer III project.

[Nitroholic]

A while back, I bought a tank to mess about with. It's a basic HengLong Panzer III, because I didn't want a Tiger.....and I have a liking for the little beasties.

 

It was OK .... but really not that inspiring....so I started the slow transition from standard to something a bit better.

 

So far, it has gained:

 

Metal tracks, drive sprockets and idlers.

This gets rid of the rather weak plastic tracks, and also gives the track a more realistic sag due to the extra weight.

 

This made the tracks fall off when you turned....quite a lot.....so

 

Fitted proper threaded track tensioners.

This solves the problem and looks good too!

 

The tank was too fast though, so I binned the plastic geared drive units before they shredded under the load. I found a nice set of 4:1 reduction steel gears ( not the HL horrid ones....but nicely machined steel gears!). This lowered the max speed to something a lot more scale, and made the tank a lot nicer to drive....

 

but....

 

The HL electronics were still annoying.

 

When you fire it has a 'spasm' recoil, that jerks the hull backwards. Even if the gun points to the side.....

It also had high speed spin steer, and interference prone 27Mhz toy town radio gear.

 

All of this was solved by the addition of a Clark TK22 control board. I can now use my DX6i with Orange RX, has much better control, and loses the need for a long antenna. It also adds the facility for servo controlled recoil, corrects the silly up/down cycle for the barrel, and loses the recoil silliness.

[Tamiyacowboy]

didnt they run the same barrel mantel as the Panzer IV.

 

if thats the case i did see a panzer 4 barrel and mantel for sale in ebay i think.

some short work with a dremel and glue would have it sat perfect depending on if that barrel mantel mount needed

some work to make things fit. 

[Nitroholic]

Nope...the mantlet was the PzIII one. They dropped the space armour on the mantlet for weight issues, though I have seen a couple of references state some retained it. Not found a credible picture to confirm. The guns came from early model PzIV and Stug's being returned for overhaul and up-gunning. As the III was found to be ineffective against T34's etc. in Russia, even with the L60 50mm gun, they re-equipped them for use as support tanks providing fire support to heavy tank units. The short 75mm was actually more effective as an anti tank weapon than the long 50mm too!

 

I have got hold of the Tauch Panzer turret from HL, which is a direct fit and has mantlet without the space armour which is a close match for what I want without glue or Dremel. This will be coupled with a short 75mm barrel, which is on it's way from Germany which will fit directly into the PzIII mount.

 

This is my main online reference aside from my library of books:

 

http://the.shadock.free.fr/Surviving_Panzer_III.pdf

 

Most of the surviving N's ended up in Norway....rather than getting chewed up by the wars closing phase

[Nitroholic]

Started work on the turret....cleaning it up a bit and adding the weld lines. Not too bad for a first go with the milliput

 

[.AJ.]

Where did you order the Clark board from?? I'm going to treat the KV1 to an upgrade and found a few sellers but not all have the KV version

[Noj]

Following

The up/down main gun cycling needs rectifying on the AWOL Panther.

[Nitroholic]

I had to buy the Clark from....Tankzone

 

Owned and run by a complete zero, but he has the sole UK distribution rights. If you buy from there....e-mail first and get confirmation of stock. Wait 2 weeks and open a PayPal dispute, and the goods turn up right away.....

 

The Clark unit plus a little re-wiring ( the instructions tell you what needs doing ) and up is up and down is down for the barrel. It also removes the silly hull recoil, has proper sampled sounds and servo recoil. Another big benefit to me was the fact that it uses a normal 4 channel+ receiver ( not included..... ) so I could run it from my DX6i. Orange RX unit has a tiny antenna.....so it was a doddle to fit.

 

I like the sounds. On the PZIIII traverse and barrel elevation were by hand, so you get the sound of gears. The main gun sound includes breech opening and a fresh round going in before you can fire again.

[.AJ.]

I've found a company in Singapore which does them for a decent price and I've been speaking to the owner on FB so I'll probaly use them, been doing a fair bit reading on the Clark board today and I'm going to convert the barrel elevation to a servo as well as the recoil, that way it really is plug and play with no need to change the wiring, while I'm at it im also going to order the programming kit and full fitting kit, works out at about

[.AJ.]

Radio wise I'm going to get another RX for my Planet T5 so I'm sorted on the radio gear front

Edited November 26, 2014 by .AJ.

[Nitroholic]

yeah...you do need the Chinese knockoff Sony remote to program the board ... and programming it is a must to swap from default settings.

 

I'm a fan of the Clark board.... but then again, I've only got the stock electrics to compare it with...and it's in a different league

[.AJ.]

Yea bet it's a big upgrade over stock, I'll be able to do good comparison between Clark/Taigen/highend Tamiya when it arrives, also been watching a few vids and I'm really impressed with the sound, tbh the Taigen board ain't all bad, just the sound lets it down big time.

[Nitroholic]

Been a busy little tank builder this weekend

 

Saturday saw the arrival of a little box of bits from Tank-Modellbau.de containing the bits I really needed to get moving with the build:

 

 

Contents...1 short barelled 75mm gun and sliding mount for recoil, plus a bright LED for gunflash. Also included one neat machined turret MG with LED. Not sure if this last part will actually go on, as it depends if I can fit it behind the little armoured barrel cover on the mantlet. If I can fit in in and drill out the plastic to suit, it's going on.

 

The barrel fits really neatly into the Tauchpanzer mantlet, and I have also blocked off the warning light LED hole, as there won't be one fitted here.

 

 

Next job on the turret was a bit of modding! The early tanks had hatches on the sides for the loader, but these were deleted from the J models on. These had to be sanded off and the section smoothed. I also removed the chunky grab handles on either side of the turret roof and made up some replacements from steel wire. Drilled some tiny holes and poked them in with a dab of superglue. I also scribed lines across all the round recesses on the top surface of the turret. These were large sized screws on the real thing...not just round recesses.

 

 

 

 

With the turret pretty much done..... I started on a few jobs on the main hull.

 

The auxiliary lights, convoy lamp and horn had never been fitted...so these went on. I also added some wiring for the side lights with thin copper wire. I drilled through the light base to seat them in the maps, then ran them back to the main headlights. These will soon be removed and replaced with a set of Taigen ones with the correct slotted light covers....not the bug eyed LEDs HengLong fit!!! I also filled in the holes left from the stock spare track mounts. New ones are being fabricated, and they will employ the spare plastic tracks I took off to fit metal ones.

 

 

Last thing I did was to tidy up the interior layout a bit. I have moved the on/off switch to under the rear deck, so I can fill in the holes in the lower hull. I need to also re-site the smoker controls....but that can wait. I am planning on doing something about the exhaust setup, so that will get done later. The RX area has been sealed up as there are holes where the suspension pivots....so it now effectively sits in a box inside the hull rather than just stuck to it. I also fitted a bulkhead behind the motors to keep them out of the way. The programmer pickup for the Clark board is also in the front section. Space is tight inside the hull....but it's already less cramped than stock with the custom electrics.

 

Last thing I have done was to butcher a spare airsoft unit to remove all the lower section and make a mount for a micro servo. Got an HXT900 which should do the job. Will just have a simple link to the barrel to operate the recoil. Hope to get that working tomorrow.

[.AJ.]

Nice, does the Heng Long HV flash fit in the barrel? I've fitted on to mine and it's pretty good for a tenner and it will be lot brighter than a led

[Nitroholic]

The barrel kit I bought comes with an included flash to go in the barrel. 10,000mcd LCD.

 

How big is the HV unit? If it's intended to go in the 6mm BB barrel, it's not going to fit if it's a snug fit

[.AJ.]

Yea it's 6mm diameter to fit in a bb barrel, I wish I could drill my barrel out on the KV so a Tamiya HV flash would fit, but it's well too skinny

[Nitroholic]

Today...steps forward.....steps backwards....

 

On the plus side, I got the barrel fitted up and the recoil working very nicely using the carcass of the spare BB unit I had.

 

 

The barrel is fixed to a simple linkage, and the servo mounts directly through the side of the BB casing. All the lower section is cut away, and it works really well. Here's a quick video

 

 

Now...I also setup servo elevation on the gun barrel. I made up a plate to fit where  the stock unit sat, and fitted up a servo there. It also had a simple linkage attaching to the rear of the gun barrel. Now....if you listen to the lovely noise in the video .... that was the sound of the brand new servo expiring. The whine ...coupled with no up/down on the barrel and a rather hot servo wasn't too tricky to fault find.

 

Annoying really, as I had spent a while playing with the linkage to ensure the elevation didn't stress the endpoints, making sure there were no snags or catches....and it fails within seconds of me bolting it all up and trying it out. No trapped wires etc.....just a failed servo. Will be contacting the supplier and airing my views on the servo lifespan!

 

Another micro servo required before the top half can go together.

 

Gives me time to sort out the gun flash though

 

Starting to like the way it's looking.... which is good!

[.AJ.]

Awesome work, the barrel recoil works brilliantly

[Nitroholic]

Wahey!

 

New servo arrived and the barrel elevation is now working as it should. Only issue now is the noise the traverse motor makes Now the elevation is so quiet.....it really grates! Not much I can do about it though.

 

Fitted a shorter servo horn on the elevation servo to make sure it didn't hit the end points as I can't actually set them through the TX without causing other issues. The same control does other things!

 

Running nicely now though.

 

Just waiting on my new headlights.....and solving one more issue!

 

I need to source a connector for the gun flash LED ... the 2 pin ones HengLong use as standard. Seen them elsewhere on LED sets in various sizes...but don;t know what they are called or where to get them. Need to sort that before I can fit the LED in the barrel.

[Noj]

Cut one off summat else and resolder to the led wires?

[Nitroholic]

Been looking in my pile of spares, and not found anything yet.

 

Otherwise...it's down to the last resort option. I got a couple of servo female pins that I will solder on and heatshrink over. Then I make the 'block' with hot glue cut to shape to fit in the connector block.

 

A way will be found .... but I would still like to find where to get the things from!

[Noj]

Tried the component store?

[Tamiyacowboy]

Been looking in my pile of spares, and not found anything yet.

 

Otherwise...it's down to the last resort option. I got a couple of servo female pins that I will solder on and heatshrink over. Then I make the 'block' with hot glue cut to shape to fit in the connector block.

 

A way will be found .... but I would still like to find where to get the things from!

 

 

lots here in maplin, component connectors (micro JST ) is what your wanting nodoubt

 

http://www.maplin.co.uk/search?sort=%3DMaplinProduct.price%7C0&text=Connectors#

Edited December 4, 2014 by Tamiyacowboy

[johninderby]

Do you mean one of these that plug into the RX18?

 

If so PM me your address and I'll pop one in the post.

 

    John

 

[Noj]

Like buses...nowt or all at once!

[Nitroholic]

They are smaller than the ones on the RX18 connectors....but thanks for the offer John. I got a couple of those on old motors.

 

I think TC may have hit the target with the Micro JST .... I got a dead 1S LiPo with one on, so I will rip that off and try it for size.

 

 If the LED I got with the barrel isn't good enough, or won't fire at the right time...then I may just do without, so I don;t want to spend money until I am happy it's going to make the tank look better.

 

I got more enjoyable tasks to do like making new rear sand-guards with cutouts for the tail lamps and seeing if I can fabricate an exhaust with a pipe through to carry the smoke output from a smoke unit. Oh...and waiting for the new headlights still!