Modellspiegel / ETO / DKLM gearboxes

[DavidN]

Can any senior member spare a "little" time providing a brief course for me on these 3 types of transmission? Thank you!

[Rubicon99]

DLKM is the same “cross drives” that Heng Long sells and they a quite good. ETO are also quite good but expensive.

Which to choose all depends on the brand of tank and what you are looking for overall.

ETO are typically used as Tamiya replacement gearboxes.

DKLM/HengLong are best used in HL and Taigen tanks.

In a HL or Taigen/Torro I would stick with the two gearbox configuration because there is very little gain from the DKLM/HL “cross drive” especially now with the newer 6.0-7.0 MFUs.

[DavidN]

And Do you have any information on the Modellspiegel gearboxes? I see that it is also similar to ETO’s too.

[RichJohnson]

Modelspiegel is similar to eto. Eto are only for Tamiya tanks. They are about 300 bucks. I have a few Sherman ones. The standard version is much slower than a stock tamiya tranny and used a 380 motor with reduction unit. I have had one fail sadly, the motor gear is fibrous and it just disintegrated on first use. For now he is having trouble getting replacements because of COVID and the ukrainian stuff going on. They are made in Crimea Russia.

the modelsmiegel ones are faster and use 540 motors I believe. Jeff has some of these. he complained that Roland jammed the set screws in corss threaded and caused him much grief.

i believe the the tranny in your elephant is a custom made eto unit one of a kind,

as wil all things custom, much money and time is spent on them and the makers make what they make.


if I could put taigen trannys (or HL Ultimates) in every tank I would do it. I’m much happier with them and their design.

[DavidN]

if I could put taigen trannys (or HL Ultimates) in every tank I would do it. I’m much happier with them and their design.

Do you mean this kind from HL(pic)? I do have a few installed in my HL IR battle tanks. I will stock a couple more of those then.

In regard to Taigen tranny, Is the V1 the one comes inside the tank with all the NIB tanks from them? Is the V2 good enough for upgrading? Or the is the V3 one you are talking about putting in all your tanks?

But I battled with the elephant and I liked it very much how smooth the tranny went. I would like to have 1 more. I will wait to learn more about both Modellspiegel and ETO and then get one. Or one from each :-) Thank you!

[RichJohnson]

The ETO tranny in your elephant would be similar to any other ETO for a Tamiya tank. ETO and Spiegel are only for Tamiya tanks.

FYI, Tamiya trannys are pretty good. Unless you drive them as hard as I and Rubicon do, you don’t even need to consider an upgrade. Seriously it would just be wasted money in every respect. I’ve only blown a few Tamiya tranny gears driving really hard and they were heavily used tanks I got second hand. Tamiya also offered rebuild kits that fit the v2/3 trannys in all the full option kits. I’ve used them to repair the gears that I blew.
realistically, I like the Tamiya trannys over the eto / spiegel design. But, I like the HL or taigen design better. It’s stronger and more widely serviceable.
live been working on redesigning HL tranny to fit in a Tamiya Sherman, I can do it, just haven’t finished it.

But, with even more than average driving, you won’t damage Tamiya trannys. Unless you drop the tank and bend a shaft or really get a bad rock jam or drive in course sand a lot like I do, it those trannys were already worn well.

I would really just stick with the trannys you have in your tanks, no need to upgrade.

FYI, Tamiya trannys are 5 versions.
V1 has white plastic gears, only used in pre full option tanks.
V2 was a new design and is pretty standardized with a shift lever un top to open it up and swap a gear around to a lower ratio.
V3 looks the same but no tab and no ability to gear shift, mid 2000s this change happened and continued with nearly all the tanks still.
V4 can be considered the cross drive tranny like Abrams and leopard 2 use.
V5 is the new build it yourself tranny that is in the Sheridan and Centurian.

overall, for your use, leave your trannys alone till you break one if you do, then seek advice. Likely it will be just repair it, not replace it.

[DavidN]

Thank you for your post. I only started getting Tamiya tanks since last December. Therefore, many of my Tamiya tanks are still new. It’s the used Tiger I that I got and brought to the battle day last week. It didn’t perform well as I’d like. I think it had been battled a lot in its past. But Ok, I will keep running and continue testing it then.

The next question is for my HL and Taigen tanks.
Upgrade to Ultimate II or Metal Red for HL?
Upgrade to V3 or High Low 4:1 for Taigen?

[DavidN]

Thank you for your post. I only started getting Tamiya tanks since last December. Therefore, many of my Tamiya tanks are still new. It’s the used Tiger I that I got and brought to the battle day last week. It didn’t perform well as I’d like. I think it had been battled a lot in its past. But Ok, I will keep running and continue testing it then.

The next question is for my HL and Taigen tanks.
Upgrade to Ultimate II or Metal Red for HL?
Upgrade to V3 or High Low 4:1 for Taigen?

[RichJohnson]

If your tanks are running fine I don’t see a need to upgrade them.
the older henglongs had crappy metal trannys, they were cast gears that ate crap quickly. Upgrading to the red ultimate trannys was necessary. Not so with the newer releases. But if you have older ones or buy a static one, you will eventually need tranny replacements.

Now, taigen trannys are geared slightly lower ratio, meaning they have slightly less speed but more torque. But, the taigen shafts tend to only fit taigen sprockets not henglong. They are different sizes.
The taigen 4.1 trannys are ver very slow. If you understand gear ratios at all, the 4.1 is an 89:1 ratio of motor turns to axle turns. Vs the standard taigen 3.1 tranny of 39:1 ratio which is a great combo for speed and torque.
By contrast the henglong trannys are a 33:1 ratio, slightly faster.
but it’s difficult to mix henglong and taigen trannys between brands. Same with Tamiya.

since you have an issue with your Tamiya tiger, let’s discuss that, what is the issue? Does it run fine until it takes a few IR shots? If so that’s normal for that tank.
If you perceive tranny problems like clicking, jamming or motor turning but tracks not, the you have developed some worn out or bad gears. A 25$ repair kit from AAF will rebuild 1 tranny to near new condition. Kit does either side but not both, you have two trannys so if you have issues with both you would need two rebuild kits.

[Evan D]

I'd like to ask a question, I have recently started in with these. I have bought all these in the last few weeks, all from Toucan... In order, T-90, Abrams Leo, Challenger, Bulldog, T-34. The Abrams was the base plastic version with plastic gears. All the others are metal gearbox, road wheels, drive/ idler, tracks.

The question, the Bulldog is much faster than the others and they all have the MFU set to high speed. All run with the same battery. The gear box look the same but is it? I know there are four basic gear boxes but I thought they were all the same gear ratio?

[DavidN]

It seems to me that the M41 is the smallest or lightest in all of your tanks. Or maybe your M41 is a 7.0 🤔

[Sureshot]

The diameter of the drive sprocket will make a difference in the tank speed. My Kv-1 is very fast due to it's large sprocket. Not sure if that is the case with your Bulldog or not.

Steve

[Evan D]

All except the Challenger are V7.0. It is significantly faster than all, even the T-34 and both have the same level of metal… it’s not weight or battery. Both have about the same size drive sprocket. I see a high amperage thing on the controller paper work, other than a different gear ratio that’s all I can think of. Do the basic HL have different ratios?

[Rubicon99]

I'd like to ask a question, I have recently started in with these. I have bought all these in the last few weeks, all from Toucan... In order, T-90, Abrams Leo, Challenger, Bulldog, T-34. The Abrams was the base plastic version with plastic gears. All the others are metal gearbox, road wheels, drive/ idler, tracks.

The question, the Bulldog is much faster than the others and they all have the MFU set to high speed. All run with the same battery. The gear box look the same but is it? I know there are four basic gear boxes but I thought they were all the same gear ratio?

In ref to the Bulldog. There are A LOT of factors that can come into play. The most common for the basic stock plastic tank is simply you just lucked out on the motor batch used that day for it.

HL basic 380 “silver” motors range widely in quality and performance. Like your Bulldog I have T34s where one is simply faster then the other and T72s were one is faster then the other. Swapping the motors around and then having the slower ones now faster and the prior faster ones.

Also HL has made a few different speed algorithm changes along the way to the HP and LP performance. The 6.0 to 6.0S to 6.1 to 6.1S to 7.0 to 7.0S to 7.1 are all similar but different.

[Evan D]

Thanks. As I said they are all the up grade versions but yes all have the plain motors on the metal gear boxes (except the red 390’s I put in the T-90).

By noticeably faster I’m saying probably 30% at least…

[DavidN]

When it comes to Chinese products, there are many unknown factors, lol.

[Evan D]

You can say that again!

When it comes to Chinese products, there are many unknown factors, lol.