Heng Long PDSGS style plastic "Dual Current" gearboxes

[keilau]

The plastic track from Tongde runs just fine. I don’t know why you don’t like it. I have a bunch of m60s and I guarantee I run them harder than anyone else on here save Rubicon99. The TD plastic tracks are way better than henglong plastic tracks. They are not the same. I personally am not a fan of Tamiya tracks for modern tanks as they have real rubber pads which make turning much more difficult because the friction coefficient physics don’t translate down to the size of the tank and you can literally drive your tank off the tracks because they grip the ground so well. Forget about driving on pavement. The Tamiya have better rubber pads than the other metal brands with rubber pads but they still grip the ground too much for my liking.

I like the Tamiya hybrid track the best because it looks realistic in static display and flexes like the real track when running on both rough and smooth surfaces. The very hard rubber pad slides just like metal or plastic track and gives it the weight it needs. (Soft rubber pad is a disaster like RichJohnson describes.) The Tamiya track has the dual pin design to flex properly and has completely closed pins to prevent pre-mature stretching. Not perfect, but better than anything else.

The Tongde plastic track is indeed a huge improvement over the Henglong version with solid back side and closed pin design. The single pin, light weight Tongde plastic track design is not my favorite. I got a second hand Tongde metal track from a fellow member (against his recommendation) and found it too heavy to run realistically and worse than the TD plastic. The M60A1 is now running on the plastic track.

I have received a plastic PDSGS gearbox last month. I will try it on the M60 with Tamiya track soon. It already has metal road wheels. I will use the HengLong sprocket and idler too.

[RichJohnson]

The plastic track from Tongde runs just fine. I don’t know why you don’t like it. I have a bunch of m60s and I guarantee I run them harder than anyone else on here save Rubicon99. The TD plastic tracks are way better than henglong plastic tracks. They are not the same. I personally am not a fan of Tamiya tracks for modern tanks as they have real rubber pads which make turning much more difficult because the friction coefficient physics don’t translate down to the size of the tank and you can literally drive your tank off the tracks because they grip the ground so well. Forget about driving on pavement. The Tamiya have better rubber pads than the other metal brands with rubber pads but they still grip the ground too much for my liking.

[keilau]

I ordered a plastic PDSGB gearbox and am waiting for it to arrive. Yes, the price went up $25 since last year at Toucan Hobby.

Any information on the type and dimension of the metal replacement gears and link to supply source is greatly appreciated.

The PDSGS gearbox arrived on 4/8 which is 2 weeks delivery time.

It is for a Tongde M60 so that I can use HL drive gear and Tamiya tracks. I have both the metal and plastic track from Tongde and don't like either. Any tip on the adaptation is greatly appreciated.

[tank_me]

All of the links are in this thread.

Select 3mm bore version:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808594804884.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1 .5167777cWcdgFb&algo_pvid=b9144824-189f-4bdb-a19f-31a6861da8c9&algo_exp_id=b9144824-189f-4bdb-a19f-31a6861da8c9-0&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22order%22%3A%2213%22%2C%22eval% 22 %3A%221%22%2C%22fromPage%22%3A%22search%22%7D&pdp_ npi=6%40dis%21USD%213.92%213.92%21%21%213.92%213.9 2%21%402101df0e17687293688711533e21c4%211200005111 0223869%21sea%21US%21131078451%21X%211%210%21n_tag %3A-29919%3Bd%3A1e27f133%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895&curPageLogUid=V4wDIxJD9UB0&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A%7Cx_object_id%3 A1005008781119636%7C_p_origin_prod%3A

Select 10T-42T 3mm bore version:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256810531942478.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1 .3f90719923DYGr&algo_pvid=be8de629-10df-42e1-ad3d-b90f14c34a3b&algo_exp_id=be8de629-10df-42e1-ad3d-b90f14c34a3b-0&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22order%22%3A%221%22%2C%22eval%2 2% 3A%221%22%2C%22fromPage%22%3A%22search%22%7D&pdp_n pi=6%40dis%21USD%213.62%213.62%21%21%213.62%213.62 %21%402103212317687301179908521e2f42%2112000053286 758496%21sea%21US%21131078451%21X%211%210%21n_tag% 3A-29919%3Bd%3A1e27f133%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895&curPageLogUid=r2klANjy58cJ&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A%7Cx_object_id%3 A1005010718257230%7C_p_origin_prod%3A

[keilau]

Bump up.

I ordered a plastic PDSGB gearbox and am waiting for it to arrive. Yes, the price went up $25 since last year at Toucan Hobby.

Any information on the type and dimension of the metal replacement gears and link to supply source is greatly appreciated.

[keilau]

I ordered a plastic PDSGB gearbox and am waiting for it to arrive. Yes, the price went up $25 since last year at Toucan Hobby.

Any information on the type and dimension of the metal replacement gears and link to supply source is greatly appreciated.

[tank_me]

Just a quick update. Still going strong with the new metal gears. Hopefully that makes these Heng Long plastic PDSGB style gearboxes a viable option for tankers out there. I also went back to buy a few more gearboxes at the cheap $65 price tag only to find that the Henglongtanks.com site no longer cares them and the Toucan site bumped the price up. I knew I should've picked up a few more while the price was cheap. These cheap plastic gearboxes have been a win for my 3D printed tanks.

The gears that were lost...showed up. Took them over two months to arrive. I guess the saving grace on those is that they were free since they took so long to get here and they had already issued me a refund for them being lost.

[tank_me]

Well I can finally confirm that both gearsets I posted worked great replacing the plastic gears in my gearboxes. Had two of these tanks out on the battlefield today and both ran great with no issues. It took so long to finally test them as the first set of the smaller gears never arrived. I think it got kicked under some table at US customs as that's as far as it got. I ordered a second set of gears and they arrived promptly to it seemed it was just a fluke. On a side note, I found that there are two different sets of plastic gears in these gearboxes for the 3 and 4 stage reductions. One set it thicker than the other. I may look into swapping them out if there is a problem in the future. The metal version also uses a different final gear type than the plastic one. The plastic final gear in the gearbox has a hub on it to accept a bearing and the metal one does not.

[Pilot RD]

Okay Thanks

[tank_me]

Do you print for hire? Id at least like to have that motor mount! And thanks for the help! I just realized how similar the T26 and the PZ38T really are.

I've printed a few things for guys in my club, but it's usually on a barter system. They get something and I get something in return. I don't like printing stuff for others because what I would accept as a decent print that I can work with is different that what I would sell to someone else. Additionally, stuff like that T26 isn't my design. I bought the design with a personal use license. I would hate if someone bought my design and sold it to other passing it off as theirs so the few things I've printed for others I required them to buy the files. I have a day job, two grandkids, and lots of extra curricular activities that I do in my free time. When I print for others, I loose some of my spare time to basically break even on cost.

[keilau]

I didn't even bother trying to see if I could track down someone at Heng Long to find parts. As most of us know Heng Long doesn't really have support except through vendors. I bought my gearboxes a while back so I was pretty sure I wouldn't get any support even on the ones that came to me defective. I think the metal gear solution will serve my purposes better than just having them send me a new one.



Thanks. Just trying to save others some trouble if I can. :)



The side of the gear box you see that I opened is the gear side. The other side of the gearbox does use a belt and timing pulleys even on the all metal gear version. Those belts are fiber reinforced, cheap, quiet, and actually quite strong. I have no reservations about the belts. I like these plastic gearboxes because they are cheap and I can mount them in most of my 3D printed tanks. The 3D printed tanks tend to be lighter than my Heng Long professional, Torro/Taigen metal tanks, or my Tongde tanks. The heavier tanks get the all metal gearbox versions if I decide to put that type of gearbox in them. These gearboxes are definitely not for everyone though. They do require some tinkering sometimes to get everything to line up right. Being that the shafts can be cut down to length by me is a big plus for my custom builds as I can make sure the sprockets are perfectly aligned with the road wheels minimizing the chance of throwing a track. Price is also a big factor for me as I have a lot of tanks in the process of being built (over 20 at last count). A good ball bearing Taigen V2 steel metal gearbox will run $69 plus shipping costs so these are not much more than that pricepoint.

Thank you for all the help and information. The Tongde M60A1 is the first 1/16 scale RC tank that I cannot use a Tamiya track so it is my last TD tank too.

I have one ball bearing Taigen/Torro V2 steel metal gearbox on my HL Pershing. My number one favorite gearbox is still the Heng Xin, but its mounting is a real challenge on some HL.

[keilau]

The drive band is used on all the "high speed" transmissions even the DKLMs version. It is remarkably robust and not usually the cause of any issues. The TD metal version which is low geared is the only one I have seen that uses all gears and no band. The DKLM low speed one might as well but I have not seen one of those opened up.

Thank you for the helpful information. It sounds like the end of my PDGSG project. My original objective is to use the Tamiya tracks on the TD M60A1. I drive both the TD plastic and metal track on the TD M60A1 and don't like either.

[Pilot RD]

Do you print for hire? Id at least like to have that motor mount! And thanks for the help! I just realized how similar the T26 and the PZ38T really are.

[Pilot RD]

They are in a pz38T that im really wanting to buy or build. But that picture could be a different tank. He sent the pic so i could have an idea how it was set up i think.

[tank_me]

Does this motor set up look familiar to anyone? Its on a 3D tank for sale just wondered if it was something you could readily get parts for.

Those look like geared 370 motors. They are all over Amazon and AliExpress in different voltages and RPM ratings. They are very common. I think I have a couple sets of them at home. They should be the 25GA-370 model number. The issue with 370 motors is that they are of course smaller than the standard HL motor which is a 380. The only 370 geared motors that usually have enough power are under 100rpm, but you have to look at what the voltage is that they are rated for. Typically they will say it's a 100rpm at 12V. That's 8.33rpm per volt. At our tank battery voltage of 7.2V that translates to 60rpm which is pretty slow. The do make geared 380 and 395 motors, but it looks like that is in a T26 which is a very small tank. The T26 was the first tank I ever tried to 3D print when I started printing. Maybe I should work on it after the IS-4 is done. :)

[Rubicon99]

It is a dedication that is NOT for everyone. I ordered and received a copy of the plastic PDSGS. When I opened the side panel and saw a flimsy plastic belt instead of solid gear. I closed the gearbox and requested a return.

Burnt once, I am not sure what PDSGS I must order. The all metal Tongde PDSGS is too expensive at $260 plus.

I have been looking for an open case picture of the steel gear/plastic box PDSGS without any success. For now, I just continue to drive the M60A1 on plastic track.

The drive band is used on all the "high speed" transmissions even the DKLMs version. It is remarkably robust and not usually the cause of any issues. The TD metal version which is low geared is the only one I have seen that uses all gears and no band. The DKLM low speed one might as well but I have not seen one of those opened up.

[Pilot RD]

Does this motor set up look familiar to anyone? Its on a 3D tank for sale just wondered if it was something you could readily get parts for.

[tank_me]

Glad to see you were able to repair your transmission. Sadly HL has next to no support in spare parts for those.

Like Bob said finding the gears on Aliexpress is dedication!!

I didn't even bother trying to see if I could track down someone at Heng Long to find parts. As most of us know Heng Long doesn't really have support except through vendors. I bought my gearboxes a while back so I was pretty sure I wouldn't get any support even on the ones that came to me defective. I think the metal gear solution will serve my purposes better than just having them send me a new one.

Hunting down specific gears on AliExpress. Now THAT'S dedication! Great info.

Thanks. Just trying to save others some trouble if I can. :)

It is a dedication that is NOT for everyone. I ordered and received a copy of the plastic PDSGS. When I opened the side panel and saw a flimsy plastic belt instead of solid gear. I closed the gearbox and requested a return.

Burnt once, I am not sure what PDSGS I must order. The all metal Tongde PDSGS is too expensive at $260 plus.

I have been looking for an open case picture of the steel gear/plastic box PDSGS without any success. For now, I just continue to drive the M60A1 on plastic track.

The side of the gear box you see that I opened is the gear side. The other side of the gearbox does use a belt and timing pulleys even on the all metal gear version. Those belts are fiber reinforced, cheap, quiet, and actually quite strong. I have no reservations about the belts. I like these plastic gearboxes because they are cheap and I can mount them in most of my 3D printed tanks. The 3D printed tanks tend to be lighter than my Heng Long professional, Torro/Taigen metal tanks, or my Tongde tanks. The heavier tanks get the all metal gearbox versions if I decide to put that type of gearbox in them. These gearboxes are definitely not for everyone though. They do require some tinkering sometimes to get everything to line up right. Being that the shafts can be cut down to length by me is a big plus for my custom builds as I can make sure the sprockets are perfectly aligned with the road wheels minimizing the chance of throwing a track. Price is also a big factor for me as I have a lot of tanks in the process of being built (over 20 at last count). A good ball bearing Taigen V2 steel metal gearbox will run $69 plus shipping costs so these are not much more than that pricepoint.

[keilau]

It is a dedication that is NOT for everyone. I ordered and received a copy of the plastic PDSGS. When I opened the side panel and saw a flimsy plastic belt instead of solid gear. I closed the gearbox and requested a return.

Burnt once, I am not sure what PDSGS I must order. The all metal Tongde PDSGS is too expensive at $260 plus.

I have been looking for an open case picture of the steel gear/plastic box PDSGS without any success. For now, I just continue to drive the M60A1 on plastic track.

[Rubicon99]

So a while back I took a chance on the plastic version of this gearbox. Here's a couple pics of the gearbox type for those that might be unfamiliar with them. The larger motor is a 550 and the smaller on is 380. The 550 provides straight line propulsion and when the tank turns, the 380 motor kicks in causing the tank to turn. The motor mounting frame gets permanently installed in the tank using the stock HL mounting screw locations. The gearbox then slides in the frame and is secured with two M3 screws locking it in place.




I had heard stories of others having issues with them out of the box. The first one I installed was in my Kranvagn and it worked wonderfully. I've been battling with it for months without failure and I wasn't being nice to it. With that I bought a few more with the idea that if they broke I could cannibalize them to keep a few of the units running. I think I have 6 of them at this point because I got them for right around $70 shipped per unit which was worth the risk for me and it was half of the plastic housing metal geared version. As you can see from the previous images, I installed on in my 3D printed IS-4 build and the first time I started up that gearbox it was making some nasty noises that just didn't sound normal. I popped open the gear side of the gearbox (the other side is the belt drive) and the small first stage gear was already partially stripped.




At that point I started to believe the stories of others saying that the quality was a little questionable. Since I did have a version with the full metal gears in the stash also, I checked to see if the metal gear could be used as a replacement for the first stage gear. It worked and the noise in the gearbox was gone.



That led me down a road of scouring AliExpress for a replacement gear for my metal unit. I was also going to just upgrade the first stage in all of my plastic gearboxes. After counting the gear teeth and calculating the module number I found these gears which should replace the first stage and they were $2.00 each shipped with a 3mm bore:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808594804884.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.5167777cWcdgFb&algo_pvid=b9144824-189f-4bdb-a19f-31a6861da8c9&algo_exp_id=b9144824-189f-4bdb-a19f-31a6861da8c9-0&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22order%22%3A%2213%22%2C%22eval%22%3A%221%22%2C%22fromPage%22%3A%22search%22%7D&pdp_npi=6%40dis%21USD%213.92%213.92%21%21%213.92%213.92%21%402101df0e17687293688711533e21c4%2112000051110223869%21sea%21US%21131078451%21X%211%210%21n_tag%3A-29919%3Bd%3A1e27f133%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895&curPageLogUid=V4wDIxJD9UB0&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A%7Cx_object_id%3A1005008781119636%7C_p_origin_prod%3A

At this point I say "should" as I ordered a different gear and it didn't fit. I should have these in the next few days to finish my testing. I say finish testing as I opened up another one of the plastic gearboxes and found a problem in the second stage gear. This 3rd unit had completely the wrong gear installed. The bore for the shaft on the second stage was way too big. When I pulled the gear out I found that not only was bore the wrong size, but the gear was missing it's second stage 10T gear. The gear installed had a bare hub when it was supposed to have a reduction gear. With no second stage gear, that gearbox would have no ability to turn. You can see the correct gear on the left and the incorrect gear on the right.



That set me on an other AliExpress search for the second stage gear. Initially I didn't find it and got very discouraged thinking it may be some custom gear HL used. I eventually found the gear on Amazon, but they wanted $95 for it in metal. That was definitely a no go, but at least I knew it existed. Having found that one on Amazon, I eventually found one for $35/gear and that was still not cost effective. I did find a gear that was really close to the one I needed on AliExpress so I inquired about getting the one I needed custom made. I never heard back from that vendor even though it said right in the listing they would do a custom quote. Out of the blue I looked again on AliExpress. Sure enough, the gear I was looking for popped up and more importantly - cheap.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256810531942478.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.3f90719923DYGr&algo_pvid=be8de629-10df-42e1-ad3d-b90f14c34a3b&algo_exp_id=be8de629-10df-42e1-ad3d-b90f14c34a3b-0&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22order%22%3A%221%22%2C%22eval%22%3A%221%22%2C%22fromPage%22%3A%22search%22%7D&pdp_npi=6%40dis%21USD%213.62%213.62%21%21%213.62%213.62%21%402103212317687301179908521e2f42%2112000053286758496%21sea%21US%21131078451%21X%211%210%21n_tag%3A-29919%3Bd%3A1e27f133%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895&curPageLogUid=r2klANjy58cJ&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A%7Cx_object_id%3A1005010718257230%7C_p_origin_prod%3A

They ended up being about $3 per gear as I bought enough of them to replace all my plastic secondary stage gears. I did receive these gears today and they work perfectly.



The question someone might ask is why didn't I just buy the metal geared version? Well that was a difference of almost double the cost. For about $40, I can upgrade the weakest gears of all my units and have a few spares. When the smaller 1st stage gears come in I can post a verification that those gears also work, but they are the right bore, the right tooth count and the module (pitch) as the other gear.

I did also find metal replacement gears for the output shafts that stay in the motor frame, but I haven't ordered any as I haven't found any pre-drilled for a set screw. I can always drill and tap one myself, but those gears are the largest in the gearbox with the largest engagement face. I don't suspect that they will fail very easily. The 3rd and 4th stage are also thicker gears with a larger cross section making them stronger than the two that I am replacing. Anyway, just thought my pain might help someone fix their deadlined plastic gearbox. :)

Glad to see you were able to repair your transmission. Sadly HL has next to no support in spare parts for those.

Like Bob said finding the gears on Aliexpress is dedication!!