What's in a Heng Long static tank?

[SoCalBobS]

I am in some very early stages of gathering resources for a Vandra M3 Lee modification of a Heng Long Sherman. Not having experience with this type of mod, I want to keep the costs at a frugal level to start with. With that in mind, I was intrigued with the eBay offers of "HL static tanks, no r/c, for collectors only" by Toucan and their affiliates. So I ordered one. I haggled it down to $78 including shipping. Here's a first impression of what I found:

The kit includes the shell and plastic wheels and tracks. Inside are metal gearboxes with zinc (gray metallic, non-magnetic) gears. The motors look like generic 380 size. The motors are hard-wired to an old generation 27mhz main board, which I believe includes a receiver, given the antenna wire that snakes up into the turret. There is NO transmitter! There is a turret traverse setup, motor and ring. There is an Airsoft gun and an elevation motor. LED headlights and taillights. There is a full set of separate accessories, and the ever-present airsoft pellets. No smoke generator. There is an LED bulb in the turret, I believe for the machine gun function.

There are a number of spots for external switches, one with the on/off switch. This is a mold of the early HL products, as those other spots are for switches no longer used. It does not have any accommodation for IR - no socket for a receiver, no IR bulb in the mantlet.

So, is it worth it for my purposes? Absolutely! The upper hull will be discarded. I may be able to use the traverse mechanism, or at least parts of it for the Lee turret. I can use the airsoft mechanism for hull gun elevation. I'll be eliminating the pellets in favor of an IR bulb in the barrel. I have a loose 6.0S main function board graciously donated to me for this project. I guess I could add a smoker, but I don't think so. I don't intend to thrash it, but I expect to be driving it around eventually.

So now you know. If these static kits meet your needs for modifications, or just want the body and some guts, it's there for you.



The M3 kit is somewhere between the builder in Hungary and the USA, so this is as far as I can go for now.

I know they have M26 kits, and maybe Panzer IV's and others?

[Sureshot]

Hi Bob,
I have bought 3 of the static HL tanks so far, a King Tiger with Porsche turret, a Stug III and a Sherman.
The KT had a 27mhz board with plastic gears and everything but a smoker and a speaker plus no IR. I converted it to 6.0s with all the normal features. Easy to do and the only way to get a Porsche turret these days.
The Stug was a 2.4ghz model with no board, no IR, pot metal gears , and no smoker or speaker. I converted it to 6.1s with servo recoil, servo elevation , muzzle flash and IR. Lots of wires in that little hull. Works really nice though.
The Sherman is for a M3 Lee project same as yours but I have not even taken it out of the box.
I think you will like your M3 kit when you get it. Very nice castings and looks easy to assemble. The hard part will be getting everything moving like you want. Might be my first project with a Clark system. Got a couple projects to finish first though.
Steve

[SoCalBobS]

SS, I like your ingenuity in getting a Porsche turret! I guess if you wanted to, you could transplant that turret on an upgraded chassis with metal gears, wheels and tracks. Either way, very cool.

[Vaseline]

I just got my Dickermax kit from DAK earlier this week, have to keep my eyes peeled for a good deal on a PzIV. Pretty impressive kit.

[Sureshot]

Here is one. Only an hour left and no bids...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Stock-HengLong-Static-Tank-1-16-3858-Plastic-German-IV-F-Collection-Model/224345321028?hash=item343c05ee44:g:kXUAAOSwAfVb7daX&redirect=mobile

Steve

[UltraVargen]

Thanks for this Bob, I've been wondering what's in these static kits. Seems like they are near complete units, which is nice.

[sakuraba216]

Hi there, I am an action figure collector and wanted to get some of the static tanks to go along with my 1:18 figures (think 3.75 gi joe figures) because there aren't many accurate modern tanks in this scale other than the Tiger tanks and Abrams that came out years ago. I was interested in getting some T-90 Russian and Chinese tanks to go along with my figures and was wondering if the turrets could rotate and traverse on the static tanks without any electronics inside.

I messaged Toucan and he basically said I could make an offer on any of the tanks for static versions of any model not just the ones being offered on ebay.

[SoCalBobS]

If you remove the turret rotation motor unit the turret will rotate freely. If you remove the elevation motor the barrrl should move freely, but you might have to put some friction on it for it to keep the angle.

[sakuraba216]

If you remove the turret rotation motor unit the turret will rotate freely. If you remove the elevation motor the barrrl should move freely, but you might have to put some friction on it for it to keep the angle.

Ok, thank you so much for this information. I was thinking you would still be able to move the turret and the barrel because there were still gears and stuff inside and the electronics just allowed you to control all of this with a remote. Sort of like how you are able to push a remote control car along the carpet and the wheels would still rotate, but there would be resistance because it wasn't meant to be played that way. However, I was watching a Heng Long tank unboxing video on Youtube and the video creator showed that the tanks were shipped with the turret turned 180 degrees around and he needed to power everything up to turn the turret to its rightful position.

[sakuraba216]

Also, I am not very familiar with these tanks and have never seen one in person and was wanting to get the Russian T-90s to go along with these JoyToy figures:

https://www.lockertoys.com/key/index.php?route=product/product&path=171_210&product_id=782

Other than the gunner seat on the turret, is there anywhere else that one of these figures could sit? Also, the figures included with most HL tanks appear to just include the upper body so if I did try to stick one of the JoyToy figures in the gunner seat would I need to remove his hips and legs first?

[SoCalBobS]

Received my second static tank, a Panzer IV F1. It has a different suite of components in it. My inference is that HL is simply cleaning their shelves of old inventory. Good for us though! More details on my Mobelwagen thread.

[Sureshot]

I guess the HL static tanks are "like a box of chocolates" eh Bob
I've got a static Jagdpanther arriving this week.
Steve

[Barmonkey]

I just received a static Panther G. It has the same internals as SoCalBobS Sherman...27MHz board, no smoke unit or speaker, and Zinc gears.

I am thinking about installing a 6.0S board. Does the 8 pin connector on the upper hull work with the 6.0S (or other 2.4GHz) board, or will it need to be modified?

[SoCalBobS]

I am thinking about installing a 6.0S board. Does the 8 pin connector on the upper hull work with the 6.0S (or other 2.4GHz) board, or will it need to be modified?

You bypass that connector, eliminating it and plugging directly into the 6.0S. Toucan sells a set of cables to go with the board which will make it easier.

[Barmonkey]

Thanks, I will look for the cables then. I guess it will make more sense when I have everything I need.

[SoCalBobS]

You’ll need the board of course, but this along with it. eBay search or ask Toucan for it, using that term. The cables are the same for any of the v6 boards. Credit to Karltrek for showing me this.

[Barmonkey]

I found a similar set on ebay. It does not include # 1) 6.0S smoker, 2) generator cable (?), or the IR mushroom.

I am not too concerned with the smoker unit or the IR mushroom right now.

Do you know what the "generator cable" is used for? Probably for the turret?

[SoCalBobS]

I'm guessing it's for the smoke blower motor. Depending on price, sounds like a deal if you don't want smoke. Also, if you intend to play IR at a later date, you'd probably be upgrading from the stock apple anyway. If you can, let me know who's selling it on eBay. That kind of info is always a good resource.

On my "StuG III, don't do this at home kids" thread where I upgraded a Stug III to 6.0 there's a lot of info pertinent to your project. Scroll 'til you find it. Unfortunately this forum doesn't have a way to search within our sub-forum.

[Barmonkey]

Thanks, I will check that thread out. I know that I have looked at it before...I am new to the RC Tank world and have been doing a lot of reading at various places and can't remember where I saw what. LOL

PM sent

[Seanohal]

Received my second static tank, a Panzer IV F1. It has a different suite of components in it. My inference is that HL is simply cleaning their shelves of old inventory. Good for us though! More details on my Mobelwagen thread.

I just got one too. Mine came with a TK-RX18 V7.0 board in it. I've built many RC trucks and airplanes but I'm new to RC tanks. I got a HL T-34-85 and the Walker Bulldog upgraded RTR 7.0 versions. Can I bind the one of the controllers that came with the RTR tanks to test what works on it? If so how do you bind it?