I have previously installed in my Chally the excellent PDS Gearbox from Carson @ DKLM as it was the only powerful gearbox/motors that will fit into the Chally's narrow lower hull. It consists of one 550 Drive motor and one 480 steering motor. Clark board has to be switched to mode 2 for it to work. I then found out Carson actually sells the base plate and the final drive and drive shaft separately, which means you can simply swap the PDS Gearbox from one tank to another with only two screws, so I decided to get it for my other somewhat under power battlers. Here it is installed in my Panther F with Taigen metal lower:



Here is it with the gearbox removed. The chassis will roll freely since there is no gearbox "braking" with it removed. Two screws and the two motor plugs and the gearbox is off and can be fitted into another tank. Because of the single motor drive, the tank tracks straight flawlessly, and with the 550 motors, runs very smoothly with lots of torque. I planned on sharing this gearbox with three different tanks. (Chally, Panther F and the JadgTiger).

I seen your chally run at previous meet with the gearboxes , was it in mode2 then ? Did the clark want to be programmed for mode 2 or the radio ? Just curious from trying to program my own stuff , you know your my teacher over the last year ! Lol

Mode 2 on Clark, which is the realistic tank control mode (one channel controls the right track, the other one control the left track). I guess the gearbox is setup for that. On the control side it is no different than the usual tank control with the right stick controlling X/Y movement.

Can you actually change that setup on the Clark Board? (I'm still a newbie learning)
I'm thinking for a TD that would be an interesting setup.

There is 8 settings for Clark board drive mode:

Mode 1 - Normal Heng Long type control with Superspin active
Mode 2 - Real Tank sticks drive mode like in Fury - One left track one right track.
Mode 3 - Normal Heng Long type control without Superspin active
Mode 4-8 - Half Track mode One channel controls both tracks, another channel control steering. 5 different settings for turn radius.

PDSGB is setup for Mode 2. Sadly, my IBU2 base does not support that, so I actually have to convert the Chally back to a Clark and anything else I want the PDSGB in. Too cheap to buy the new IBU3 which does support the PDSGB. There is a hack around for IBU2 by using a ESC for the steering directly off the receiver but I am not going to bother with it.

Mode 2 would be interesting for TD, or for all tanks for that matter, you just need to move all multi functions (like firing canon, MG etc) off to the buttons so the two stick is strickly for movement only.

Mike , in mode 2, I assume one could still move the left and right sticks side to side for turret/barrel/MG or barrel control with only one button fire ?

Ed, for sure. You are not using anymore channels for movement, just stick orientation if you think about it, the left/right on both sticks are still available for programming. It just means that there will be some non-traditional control (i.e. Like left stick left for firing, or right stick left to turn on the engine etc). You don't really need the fire button since we are still talking about a 4 channel MFU.

The only thing is that now you really need to have consistent motor/gearbox/radio trim control to go straight, since anything off you will be zig zagging trying to go in a straight line. I guess this is no different now with the gearbox/motors, but you are introducing a human factor on making sure both side has the same amount of input.

The old WSN tanks ran like that, one stick per track, but I think the controllers had buttons for the turret controls.

Fun to drive, but hard to fight with, all thumbs.

I forgot about WSN and yes they were a pain to drive and fight.

Mike I only worry about how narrow that mount is for the drive shafts, I can see it bending especially when Russel decides he doesn't like the front of my tanks anymore. Are they sturdy?

Jordan, the mount is pretty sturdy and also there is ball bearing on both sides as the shaft goes right thru. If anything I think it is stronger than most of the Heng Long style gearboxes that I have seen since it is flange on both ends vs just one side.