I'm not very active on this forum because it won't let me stay logged in for very long, and I hate having to re-log in every time.  Maybe about a dozen years ago I started on the forum when I sent some decals and a figure to Strato50 for his Indiana Jones tank; and then a flag flown over the USS Missouri for someone here doing a build.  So, I DO lurk, but just don't comment much.

For painting it, someone suggested buying Krylon camouflage colors at Walmart.  They have a nice green and the can is a whole lot larger than hobby spray cans.  Gotta be cheaper than having it painted by an autoshop.

Yup. The Krylon camo green is what I used for premier. This one will have to be industrial style so couple of those will be good.

I was only kidding about auto shop.

Okay boys. It officially lives.........Running on some Amazon ESCs on 3S lipo. Stock tracks and that's why it is a little clunky. Because of the separate ESCs I will like use dual stick to drive and will use the Clark Tk22 strictly for sounds and turret functions and the ESCs will do the driving. I am using a old Clark board so no separate connections for ESCs like the new fancy ones have. I have to say that even though I have been working in it for the last week, I am still in awe of the scale of it all.

Full functional test......... Still have to work out some ghost in the machine, like turret turning when firing the MG etc. It all has to do with the fact that I am running two ESCs outside of the Clark board control (Tk-22) so have to switch the controls around. Basically a standard Clark board but moved the motor and steering stick so that each stick control one track. 2S powering the Clark for turret function and sound, and a 3S powering the two ESCs controlling each track.

That recoil is nice. So you were able to get the elevation to work properly with the Clark?

Of course not. Nobody has ever got Clark servo elevation working nicely. I mapped it to a different channel and bypass Clark as usual. That's why there is no sound associated with elevation. I might see if I can get it to trigger the sound with a channel mixing.

Have to heck a spray booth in my garage for this beast. Works pretty well. Might do that again for the next big scale project. Overkill for 1/16, but quite nice for everything else larger.

Did I just read "for everything else larger"       

Calm down. Everything larger than 1/16, like 1/10 or 1/6.

This is not my first rodeo on the larger size just never bother with painting them.

Wow does that 3s 5200 battery look tiny in that hull! That paint booth setup is perfect for what it is. Looking great as always. 
You mentioned splitting up the Clark functions and that reminded me of how the winch works on the Blizzard you built. It is set up on channel 4 for the turret rotation. That is basically is a winch controller that works great! Maybe you can send a split input to the Clark from the receiver but have no output. That will give you the sounds.

Shoveler74 wrote:

Wow does that 3s 5200 battery look tiny in that hull! That paint booth setup is perfect for what it is. Looking great as always. 
You mentioned splitting up the Clark functions and that reminded me of how the winch works on the Blizzard you built. It is set up on channel 4 for the turret rotation. That is basically is a winch controller that works great! Maybe you can send a split input to the Clark from the receiver but have no output. That will give you the sounds.

Basically that's what I am doing. I move the Clark Forward/Reverse and Steering to the two sticks (well forward and reverse is already on the right stick. I just move steering to the left stick going north south). So the two sticks control the tracks similar to how a real tank driver drives with the two stick control. I tried to then just split the input from the receiver like you said, one going to the Clark and the other one going to the ESCs but I think because the ESC is also pumping power back to the Y split back to the Clark  board it was doing some funky stuff to the Clark board so I couldn't do it this way. 

So the motor ESCs are plugged into their own channels and I just mapped those channels back to the Clark board equivalent channels. It sounds complicated but it works nicely.

The issue with the elevation is that Clark elevation sound is very difficult to map out as it is actually a mix just like the MG and the Engine start. Not to mentioned it is almost impossible to get to it from the sticks. I will see if I can get it into a mix and gets activated by the knob which is what is controlling my elevation servo right now. I could always just revert back to use the Clark servo elevation but like I said before I don't think a living human being actually got the Clark servo elevation to work nicely. It is always very jerky and limited in travel.

MikeC wrote:

Of course not. Nobody has ever got Clark servo elevation working nicely.

I thought that I got Martin's last two tanks to work well with servo elevation on his Clark boards..

Jarlath wrote:

MikeC wrote:

Of course not. Nobody has ever got Clark servo elevation working nicely.

I thought that I got Martin's last two tanks to work well with servo elevation on his Clark boards..

Hey Big Mike what is the trick ? I always find it jerky and also don't have much range ?

I did custom linkages for the range of movement. I tested the servo's operational range by the clark board and designed the geometry (cannon pivot to linkage/servo travel) to give his tanks realistic elevation/depression.

The standard speed is very jerky and fast. But for SBus versions that do not use joystick positions to enable additional features (like engine startup/MG, etc... on non-SBus Clark boards), I was able to change the rates on the elevation joystick to slow the speed down to manageable levels, which removed the jerky/speed operation. I do not recall the exact numbers.

It actually functions like the motor driven elevation. Push up and the servo moves up. Push Down and the servo moves down. But at a rate of travel determined by joystick position. Not at a position equal to the joystick position (aka direct servo control by joystick).

Jarlath wrote:

I did custom linkages for the range of movement. I tested the servo's operational range by the clark board and designed the geometry (cannon pivot to linkage/servo travel) to give his tanks realistic elevation/depression.

The standard speed is very jerky and fast. But for SBus versions that do not use joystick positions to enable additional features (like engine startup/MG, etc... on non-SBus Clark boards), I was able to change the rates on the elevation joystick to slow the speed down to manageable levels, which removed the jerky/speed operation. I do not recall the exact numbers.

It actually functions like the motor driven elevation. Push up and the servo moves up. Push Down and the servo moves down. But at a rate of travel determined by joystick position. Not at a position equal to the joystick position (aka direct servo control by joystick).

Ah cool. I have to think about that. Of course I am not on Sbus, so that takes out a piece of the solution but the other make sense.

Painted it yesterday. Three cans of 11oz Krylon Ultra Flat Olive. So much paint this one still stinks after one day. Also one can of flat soft iron for the tracks which turn out to be much easier than I thought to spray paint. The factory plastic takes paint very nicely. It is an absolutely beast of a tank. Next up is internal wiring. I suppose I can just put everything in a plastic bin and stick the bin inside the tank....................

Also bite the bullet and ordered a whole new sets of periscope from East Coast Armory. Only one of the original one is in one piece and all of them missing the brackets and also the lip of the periscope. I have to stop buying parts for it as the cost keep piling up.

Bite the bullet and upgraded to nylon tracks from Spyker RC. Not cheap but then nothing is when it is 1/6. Basically the price of a 1/16 tank. But now I can actually run the tank without breaking tracks. Will be able to run it on the field at Oshawa !

Here is a video of Ryan from RC Spyker testing the strength of the tracks.

https://youtu.be/3zrjO0A6Zfk?si=f2yy5WVZcuDaRlkP