The basic about Heng Long RC tank battery packs

[megawatt40]

Ok finally got my new connections for my more powerful batteries Tamiya to XT -60 !

[keilau]

I started my spot welder shopping by reading/viewing reviews. Some off-brand ones are so weak in power that they hardly weld at all. I spent several days debating whether to get an inductively triggered welder or a foot switch controlled one. The former is more convenient and the later is safer. My workbench is always somewhat disorganized that could allow the inductively triggered welding pins to touch each other accidentally, causing figure burns or even small fire. I finally decided on an inductively triggered welder and promised myself to use it super carefully. (price is not a factor in the decision.) The welder will be here later next week.

I will report back how well this welder work for me later. For the mean time, you can check out this review on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmXrwUhd9e4

[quitcherbitchen]

Your spot welder is more then double the power of mine. But twice the price too.

[cmdrcody]

With those larger EBL 5Ah batteries in the Leopard 2A6 battery bay it took a bit of imagination to come about on how to manage the battery plugs since room was quite compromised. Decided to make a through hole in the battery bay for the female battery plug to mate into the male power plug inside the tank body. Still accessible to plug into and remove the battery pack without having to open the tank up. I did purchase a Seesii 11000mAh Battery Spot Welder with LCD Screen on Ebay for $60 shipped and it worked very well on setting No.6 for welding the nickel strips to the EBL battery pack for my T90. Waiting on wiring to complete the assembly of the battery packs.

[quitcherbitchen]

You have the right idea and are doing it the right way from the beginning. While the silver solder works in my battery pack, the soldering process is a real pain to manage. I am starting to look for a spot welder too. After some research, I learned that many of the cheap welder on e-bay were so weak that they hardly work. A BIFRC DH30 welder was reviewed and recommended by several person on YouTube. When I started looking for this welder on e-bay, several seller used the pictures of this welder, but are selling something of unknown quality. Others were asking $75-80 which I will consider excessive. What welder did you get and how it worked out for you?

I know several battery seller website from the past. All are asking $18-20 for a Pansonic 18650 battery, making it prohibitively expensive to make the pack. Good luck with your adventure.

Here is what I purchased. BatteryStore.com I bought the 15C 18650 pink cover batteries. $5.99 each All were fresh and held a 7h discharge. I also bought the spot welder and it helps to have a helper to fire the spot weld while you hold it. The level I set was almost 13 to spot weld the 1.5mm nickle I bought.

[keilau]

Full power ahead! Well as soon as I make up my new battery power packs, that is.

Wow! With a Bonafide 10,000 mAh battery pack, you can win every battle day when your tank continue to roam around after all other tanks exhaust their fuel. Ha! Ha!

Let us know how much your pack can hold after you finish building it.

[cmdrcody]

Full power ahead! Well as soon as I make up my new battery power packs, that is.

[keilau]

yeah the bottom of an 18650 cell and the sides are all the negative terminal of the cell and its only the little button at the top that is the positive. so if you rip that plastic sleeve you pretty much just make a second negative terminal.

use to use them to make battery packs for electric longboards.

i would also suggest those that dont know what their doing to not mess with these batteries. if what you got doesn't work dont modify them to work.

Lithium battery has built-in danger because it elevates rechargeable battery voltage from 1.2 to 4.2 and can provide much higher current up to several amperes. It is very easy to handle them safely. Building battery pack using hard lithium Ion battery cells is safe. It is even easy if you invest in a good spot welder.

The rechargeable battery market is a jungle out there. Most mail order seller/manufacturer inflat the battery capacity 3 to 10 times. RC tank battery packs are no different.

Recently, I need a replacement battery for a 20V Black & Decker portable drill. The original 1.5 Ah pack had reasonable run time. I don't wamt to pay the $50 for the OEM replacement. I tried 4 different 3 Ah replacement from Amazon at $20 each. The first 3 had half the run time of the OEM 1.5Ah. The 4th (ORHFS store brand) one has good runtime and measures 1.8 Ah. I kept it. I have a 6 Ah pack for the 20V Black & Decker which runs much longer. I don't use it much because it does not balance the drill well (too heavy). I have a B&D 2A fast charger for these packs.

I use the SkyRC iMAX B6 smart charger to check battery performance. I download the "Charger Master" software from SkyRC and found it very versatile and easy to use by connecting the charger to my PC. I really like the B6 charger. With the software, it is much easier to access its programing function. But I don't need the PC connection for regular battery pack charging.

[Delta_19]

yeah the bottom of an 18650 cell and the sides are all the negative terminal of the cell and its only the little button at the top that is the positive. so if you rip that plastic sleeve you pretty much just make a second negative terminal.

use to use them to make battery packs for electric longboards.

i would also suggest those that dont know what their doing to not mess with these batteries. if what you got doesn't work dont modify them to work.

[keilau]

Next, I will try to rearrange it to the HL pack configuration. If successful, each of this pack can last a full battle day.

I need to separate the upper 2 cells from the lower 2 cells and add an extension wire to the negative pole. I need to be careful not to damage the sleeves of the individual cell batteries. Folding them to make a long pack and rewrap should be easy. Please, stay tune.

I will discourage others trying what I did.

I successfully separated the cells in 2 of the packs. The glue used are strong enough to tear the individual cell plastic sleeve open and exposed the bare metal cell surfaces. On the third pack, I allowed the bare metal skin of 2 adjacent cell to touch and create a shortcircuit. It burnt holes on 2 of the metal skin. I blew out the fire immediately. No smell or burn mark left on the bench. I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous this is when the protective plastic sleeve of a lithium battery cell is torn open.

My idea of rearranging this battery pack doesn't work.

[keilau]

Thanks for posting. I bought a battery spot welder recently to make my own packs and bought the batteries Panasonics. Rebuilt my black n decker hand vacuum that died and now it has tons of power. The old cells in the vacuum only lasted on the discharger for 4 hours. In the vacuum. 1 minute. New batteries tested on the discharger lasted almost 7 hours. So I guess mine are honest. I wouldn't trust Aliexpress for batteries. I bought mine from some place in Florida that a friend recommended. I bought extra cells to make tank batteries. 15c rating 18650 cells Need to buy wrapping to make the tank batteries. FYI I tried to solder before the spot welder. It was more hassle then it was worth. I took it all apart and got the spot welder. I got nickle 1.5mm connector foil and it worked great in the vacuum.

You have the right idea and are doing it the right way from the beginning. While the silver solder works in my battery pack, the soldering process is a real pain to manage. I am starting to look for a spot welder too. After some research, I learned that many of the cheap welder on e-bay were so weak that they hardly work. A BIFRC DH30 welder was reviewed and recommended by several person on YouTube. When I started looking for this welder on e-bay, several seller used the pictures of this welder, but are selling something of unknown quality. Others were asking $75-80 which I will consider excessive. What welder did you get and how it worked out for you?

I know several battery seller website from the past. All are asking $18-20 for a Pansonic 18650 battery, making it prohibitively expensive to make the pack. Good luck with your adventure.

[megawatt40]

Yeah they were the wrong gender on both ends lol! BOught them from Amazon so no problem returning them .Found a xt 60 connector that will fit the tamiya connection and fit into both tank and battery I hope, just finished charging the two new batteries…one took 1 hour the other took about 4 .

[ccarley]

Hello there megawatt40,

I have been using these batteries in my M1A2 and my daughter's Leopard. They fit most of the tanks except I think the T-72 and T-90 as they have small battery holds.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082TSDDRB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Being that they have the Tamiya connector, I have been able to use an adapter to convert to XT-60 with no problems. Those batteries are rated at 5600mAh.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09XK8C7H3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That set is *not* 2 of the same adapter, but one of each; it's what I ordered and one of those does work. I totally thought I had 2 and was bummed to find the wrong gender on the 2nd one.

Clay

[megawatt40]

New to hobby have a new M1A2 and a king Tiger from Heng long have tried for the last 3 weeks to find li-on batteries that have more power then the 1800mah that came with them only thing I could find on Amazon was these.7.4v 2800mah Li-ion Battery for Heng Long RC Tank MJX RC Aircraft with L6.2-2P Plug 2 Pack and 7.4V Balance Charger https://a.co/d/0RoCqG3 ,problem was it had a tamiya connection,I bought the adapter that was recommended by someone here in the group was totally wrong did not fit in the new battery or in the tank .Why can’t I find a high power li-on battery with xt-60 connector?

[quitcherbitchen]

Thanks for posting. I bought a battery spot welder recently to make my own packs and bought the batteries Panasonics. Rebuilt my black n decker hand vacuum that died and now it has tons of power. The old cells in the vacuum only lasted on the discharger for 4 hours. In the vacuum. 1 minute. New batteries tested on the discharger lasted almost 7 hours. So I guess mine are honest. I wouldn't trust Aliexpress for batteries. I bought mine from some place in Florida that a friend recommended. I bought extra cells to make tank batteries. 15c rating 18650 cells Need to buy wrapping to make the tank batteries. FYI I tried to solder before the spot welder. It was more hassle then it was worth. I took it all apart and got the spot welder. I got nickle 1.5mm connector foil and it worked great in the vacuum.

[keilau]

This was the seller I got mine from. The do state they are NCR18650GA which are Sanyo or Panasonic cells, but the pack I opened was LGs. I chose these because they had the XT60 connector on them and have a balance plug for charging.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256801093189430.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.13.71431802Ql7nOv&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa&_randl_shipto=US

I ordered 3 of this KLUOSI 2S2P Lithium Ion battery pack just before Christmas. I received the package yesterday in a thick foam box wrapped in plastic bag. The package is good and shipping took less than 4 weeks. I paid US $46.43 including free shipping. The drawback is that it doesn't fit the Heng Long battery compartment as is.

The packs arrived fully charged as indicated by the 8.14 volts after unpacking. I discharged it to 6.2 volts and let them sit at room temperature overnight. The discharge took more than 6 hours at 0.7A. A good sign that the capacity is good. I cannot verify that the individual cells were NCR18650GA. You can see the marking on the cell purple cover on the picture above. I weighted each cell at 46 grams which is another very good sign. (Cheap, low capacity Li-Ion cell usually weights less than 41 grams.) I guess that these are higher quality home grown Li-Ion cells of 2200 mAh from China. My better imported Li-Ion usually weight 47-51 grams.

This morning, I started charging the fully depleted Li-Ion pack. It charged to 3640 mAh at 8.2 volts and 3984 mAh at 8.4 volts. It is an honest 4 Ah pack, but not 7 Ah as claimed. At its price, it is an excellent buy.

Next, I will try to rearrange it to the HL pack configuration. If successful, each of this pack can last a full battle day.

I need to separate the upper 2 cells from the lower 2 cells and add an extension wire to the negative pole. I need to be careful not to damage the sleeves of the individual cell batteries. Folding them to make a long pack and rewrap should be easy. Please, stay tune.

[keilau]

My first magnetization project for the HL tank is a complete failure. I picked the Pershing as my first experiment because it had 7 attachment points. I choose the rear center and 2 middle forward for initial installation. Mechanically, it worked perfectly. The tank closed tight with perfect alignment. When I turned it on, I first noticed the engine sound to be strange. It fired up (RC link) ok. Then, the head light started flashing. When I ran the tank, it moved slowly and the turns were intermittent. Something is NOT right. And I have a suspect.

The right magnet is very close to the speaker. Both magnets are too close to the 6.0S MFU.

I removed both of these magnets (upper and lower), but left the rear center one in place. I close the tank and it runs normally. I am greatly relieved. No permanent magnetization of the MFU!

Some of you may remember that this 2005 HL Pershing has undergone a series of upgrades. I removed the original speaker to make room for the MFU at the tank front. A new smaller speaker was put to the middle side.

Now, feeling confident about installing the magnets, I plan to do it on the Leopard 2A6, T34 and Sherman where I do not expect the same problem as the Pershing.

The second magnetization project for the HL Sherman tank (3898-1) is a reasonable success. It is a late HL production with XT-60 connector. It has only 4 connecting poles, but has the best upper and lower chassis fit among 5 Heng Long tanks that I have.

The Sherman chassis is relatively small so the lower posts are part of the lower chassis wheel well wall. I cannot remove the fence ring on the lower post. I have to remove 7.5 mm from the upper post, compared to 5.5 mm on other tank. I added a dope of CA glue to the lower magnet base for insurance. I am very happy with the overall result. Thank you, tank_me and evan D.

Originally, I wanted to use the cut-off piece of the upper post for the lower post push rod. It does not work. The lower post well is tapper down to 3/16" which is smaller than the upper post. Drilling the pilot hole for the screw on the push rod is difficult. I drilled out a 3/16" hole on a 2x4 as the push rod holder. Any easy trick?

[keilau]

There is few doubt that Heng Long used the Tamiya tank kit to save cost of injection mold design and launch a successful tank series using low cost mechanical and electronic parts. Tamiya call their kit "M26 Pershing T26E3". There was no mention of the Pershing name anywhere in the Heng Long manual, only Snow Leopard.

If you have a late model HL Pershing, I will be interested in exchange PDF copy of our manual. PM me if interested. The inside of a 2005 HL Snow Leopard using TK-27 RC looks like this:

[keilau]

As the story goes, the HL product development department had a Korean war picture of the Pershing with the word "Snow Leopard" painted on the track skirt. It was probably a field batterion nickname. HL copied the photo and had been using it on all their early packaging.

[tank_me]

I've never had the magnets interfere with my electronics, but they are powerful so I can see how they could. I guess with my Pershing not having the battery box, the electronics get mounted on the floor of the hull pretty far from the magnets. Your hull does have a different arrangement of the magnets than mine does as mine only has 6 (two rear, two side, and two front). My Pershing is much newer though. My guess would be yours is one of the older "Snow Leopards" they marketed. Not sure why they called them that as I've never heard the Pershing called that...EVER or anything even close to that.