I have received my Leopard 1a5 yesterday.
Packed extremely well as Hooben does. Everything was braced very well and nothing was damaged even though the very strong box took some hits.
I ordered an extra set of track so they cut a section out of the white foam to fit that in the box and keep it secure from floating around and breaking anything.
The only part that was off the tank and in the bottom of the box was the driver hatch which is not retained on the tank, it lifts off to be rotated open and can be taken off.
The turret hatches both open gently they are very tight fit and you dont want to be rough with them. The commander hatch lifts all the way out as well, it is not retained.
Hooben now supplies a TK26 radio control system. I havent gotten to drive it yet. I did power up the tank and test out the functions. The screen does nothing. It does not light up, it for fpv only. Figuring out the buttons was a bit tough to learn what did what. There is an instruction sheet included which labels all the ports on the MFU in the tank if you need to unplug stuff for service.
I powered it up and found the turret would not rotate all the way around, the gear would spin but the turret would stall half way around. I took the system apart a couple times and fiddled with it and somehow seem to have solved the alignment issue with the turret and the rotation motor gears so I got the turret to rotate normally without issue.
I operated the functions and the sound system had some great unique sounds but it has a junky speaker so its over driven and raspy.
There are a decent engine sound and throttle rev, two machine gun sounds, one operates the coax MG and the other does nothing, it sounds like a MaDuce .50, and then the main gun sound that operates the main gun. Its decent but has some extra sounds in the file and is a bit overkill in my opinion.
On the rear of the tank the tool box is magnetized and under it is the power switch, a plug to charge the battery if you use the HL type Lithium Ion battery, and a tube to fill the smoker up with.
Personally I do not have a use for smoke at all, I think it looks lame, and it just sucks your battery down fast so none of my tanks have smokers. I plan to remove this system as well. Especially since the smoker tubes all get in the way of getting the top of the tank back on properly.
Accessing the battery requires removing the 6 screws from the bottom of the tank. Its a pain to say the least. I have tested using just the two middle screws holding the tank together enough to drive and I suspect that will work. Thats why they include the charger cable built in but I dont use those batteries in my tanks. Well I do in my M5 Stuart because its tiny.
I ordered the metal control arms and sprocket upgrade. I scratched the back of one arm and verified that they are metal arms. I assume the sprocket is as well. This was a weak point on the merkava and I only resolved the 3d printed arms from breaking on that tank by modifying their 3d design and removing a nut cavity that was the weak spot causing the breaking. On this tank, with metal arms that will never be a problem. The upgrade was worth the charge for sure.
I confirmed the idler is adjustable. I can see the metal arm, its designed just like the HL tank idler adjusters.
The track is not the same width as Tamiya. I suspected that hooben copied tamiya while designing their tank but I think they did not. The track is narrower than the Tamiya track so the aftermarket metal track with rubber pads will not fit. I also do not think there is enough clearance to use a tamiya sprocket on the hooben even if it fit the shaft and had the proper backspacing. The sad part of the track is it has no pads. It is just like the metal tamiya track I have on my other leopard tanks after the rubber pads rip off.
Below I have a picture of the hooben track on a tamiya sprocket for comparison.
In test driving it on the bench I discovered that when you turn left or right, the turn signals automatically flash front and rear. Sadly if I scrap the TK26 I will loose that function.
In bench driving it, I found that as you turn, when the stick gets past a certain point in a linear turn curve, the inside track slows down, then reverses itself. That kind of algorithem is in the DK tank and I cant stand it becuase it creates a slow turn and as you get tighter it suddenly reverses that inside track and sends your tank into a violent super spin turn and you wind up facing the direction you just came from. Its a very terrible stupid algorithm. With a proper modern tank algorithm the inside track should slow down until the point that it stops but even then it would skid steer so you would have to be ready for it, a better way yet is for the outside track to speed up before the inside track would stop so you would have a continous curve not a violent change. Any way we will see how it drives when I get it on the field, maybe today.
To nitpick a couple things, The hull mounted lifting lugs front and rear are way too thick. About 3 times as thick as tamiya ones. That is the ones near the top on the back and the two on the front side glances of the glacis. Man I would love to break them off and sand them down because they attract my eyes and look horrible.
The canvas on the mantlet is amazing, it is held on the way the real one is with a loop and wire fasteners. I love it.
So far overall I am quite satisfied with the look feel and operation of the tank. Driving is just a function of the mfu which will get replaced because I cant battle right hand drive. I will put my ibu2 from my abrams in this tank and a battle system.
I think thats it for now
Packed extremely well as Hooben does. Everything was braced very well and nothing was damaged even though the very strong box took some hits.
I ordered an extra set of track so they cut a section out of the white foam to fit that in the box and keep it secure from floating around and breaking anything.
The only part that was off the tank and in the bottom of the box was the driver hatch which is not retained on the tank, it lifts off to be rotated open and can be taken off.
The turret hatches both open gently they are very tight fit and you dont want to be rough with them. The commander hatch lifts all the way out as well, it is not retained.
Hooben now supplies a TK26 radio control system. I havent gotten to drive it yet. I did power up the tank and test out the functions. The screen does nothing. It does not light up, it for fpv only. Figuring out the buttons was a bit tough to learn what did what. There is an instruction sheet included which labels all the ports on the MFU in the tank if you need to unplug stuff for service.
I powered it up and found the turret would not rotate all the way around, the gear would spin but the turret would stall half way around. I took the system apart a couple times and fiddled with it and somehow seem to have solved the alignment issue with the turret and the rotation motor gears so I got the turret to rotate normally without issue.
I operated the functions and the sound system had some great unique sounds but it has a junky speaker so its over driven and raspy.
There are a decent engine sound and throttle rev, two machine gun sounds, one operates the coax MG and the other does nothing, it sounds like a MaDuce .50, and then the main gun sound that operates the main gun. Its decent but has some extra sounds in the file and is a bit overkill in my opinion.
On the rear of the tank the tool box is magnetized and under it is the power switch, a plug to charge the battery if you use the HL type Lithium Ion battery, and a tube to fill the smoker up with.
Personally I do not have a use for smoke at all, I think it looks lame, and it just sucks your battery down fast so none of my tanks have smokers. I plan to remove this system as well. Especially since the smoker tubes all get in the way of getting the top of the tank back on properly.
Accessing the battery requires removing the 6 screws from the bottom of the tank. Its a pain to say the least. I have tested using just the two middle screws holding the tank together enough to drive and I suspect that will work. Thats why they include the charger cable built in but I dont use those batteries in my tanks. Well I do in my M5 Stuart because its tiny.
I ordered the metal control arms and sprocket upgrade. I scratched the back of one arm and verified that they are metal arms. I assume the sprocket is as well. This was a weak point on the merkava and I only resolved the 3d printed arms from breaking on that tank by modifying their 3d design and removing a nut cavity that was the weak spot causing the breaking. On this tank, with metal arms that will never be a problem. The upgrade was worth the charge for sure.
I confirmed the idler is adjustable. I can see the metal arm, its designed just like the HL tank idler adjusters.
The track is not the same width as Tamiya. I suspected that hooben copied tamiya while designing their tank but I think they did not. The track is narrower than the Tamiya track so the aftermarket metal track with rubber pads will not fit. I also do not think there is enough clearance to use a tamiya sprocket on the hooben even if it fit the shaft and had the proper backspacing. The sad part of the track is it has no pads. It is just like the metal tamiya track I have on my other leopard tanks after the rubber pads rip off.
Below I have a picture of the hooben track on a tamiya sprocket for comparison.
In test driving it on the bench I discovered that when you turn left or right, the turn signals automatically flash front and rear. Sadly if I scrap the TK26 I will loose that function.
In bench driving it, I found that as you turn, when the stick gets past a certain point in a linear turn curve, the inside track slows down, then reverses itself. That kind of algorithem is in the DK tank and I cant stand it becuase it creates a slow turn and as you get tighter it suddenly reverses that inside track and sends your tank into a violent super spin turn and you wind up facing the direction you just came from. Its a very terrible stupid algorithm. With a proper modern tank algorithm the inside track should slow down until the point that it stops but even then it would skid steer so you would have to be ready for it, a better way yet is for the outside track to speed up before the inside track would stop so you would have a continous curve not a violent change. Any way we will see how it drives when I get it on the field, maybe today.
To nitpick a couple things, The hull mounted lifting lugs front and rear are way too thick. About 3 times as thick as tamiya ones. That is the ones near the top on the back and the two on the front side glances of the glacis. Man I would love to break them off and sand them down because they attract my eyes and look horrible.
The canvas on the mantlet is amazing, it is held on the way the real one is with a loop and wire fasteners. I love it.
So far overall I am quite satisfied with the look feel and operation of the tank. Driving is just a function of the mfu which will get replaced because I cant battle right hand drive. I will put my ibu2 from my abrams in this tank and a battle system.
I think thats it for now
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