After Hours

Cracking Open Shocking Fun's Shocking Tanks

By · November 26, 2007, 6:02 AM PST

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  • Tank & Controller

    By Ken Keesling

    Last week, I reviewed Shocking Fun's Shocking Tanks as part of TechRepublic's Geek Gift series. The Shocking Tanks scored very well--four points out of a possible five on fun factor alone. But the real fun, for this geek, is in cracking them apart.

    Let's see what's inside.

    Read my Geek Gift review of Shocking Fun's Shocking Tanks.

  • Tank

    I started with the tank.

  • Bottom of tank

    There's only one screw to take out to remove battery cover.

  • Battery cover off

    The (obvious) first thing to do is remove the batteries.

  • Batteries removed

    After the batteries are removed you can start taking screws out. There are around twenty screws on the bottom.

  • Top off the body

    The top pried off fairly easily, exposing the circuit board. The two silver ovals, seen here, just slide off.

  • Close-up of the circuit board

    Here's a closer look at the circuit board. You can also see the remaining two screws (one on each side) holding the tank's tracks in place.

  • Detached tracks

    With the top off the body of the tank and the last two screws removed I was able to easily pull the tank's tracks away from the body. Now they are only attached by two small wires on each side. These wires are soldered in place on both ends, but not very well. I broke three solder points taking it apart.

  • Screws holding cannon

    There are four screws holding the cannon on. In this pic, I have already taken out one screw from the bottom that held the two halves of the cannon together.

  • Inside of cannon

    After removing the four screws attaching the cannon to the body, I pried the cannon apart. There were four tabs at the tip of the cannon that were glued together, so I had to break them to get it apart. Should be easy enough to glue it back together.

    Here you can see the inside of the cannon.

  • Removing antenna

    One screw and the antenna was off.

  • Bottom of circuit board

    There were only two screws holding the circuit board in place. Here we can see the bottom side of the circuit board.

  • Plastic off the bottom of tank's tracks

    Prying the plastic off the bottom of the tank's tracks reveals one more screw that we need to remove to get the rest of the cover off.

  • Covers off the tracks

    Here we have the covers off both of the tank's tracks.

  • Tread off tracks

    Next I removed the tread from the tracks. They pull off very easily.

    You can also see the three screws I have to remove next.

  • Little wheels

    The two little sets of wheels closer to the center of the tracks will fall out when the inside is pulled off.

  • Inside taken off of track

    After the inside of the track is taken off you can see the gearbox and the motor.

  • Track taken apart.

    The wheels, gearbox, and motor slip right out of the outside casing of the track.

  • Gearbox parts

    After removing four small screws the top of the gearbox could be removed. Here you can see the gearbox, gearbox top, and motor.

  • Gearbox disassembly

    Here I was taking apart the gearbox

  • Gearbox disassembled

    Here is the gearbox completely disassembled.

  • Tank - completely disassembled

    And the whole tank is disassembled.

    I broke a few solder points along the way, but everything should go back together easily as soon as I get my hands on a soldering iron. I will let you know how it goes in the comments.

  • Screwdriver and screws

    Reassembly should be easy, since there were mainly three sizes of screws. There were only two of the screw on the far right.

    I used this screwdriver for all of the screws. I used a similar, but flat-edged, screwdriver for prying.

  • Controller

    Now on to the controller.

  • Back of controller

    Like on the tank, the battery cover is held in place with one screw.

  • Battery cover off

    After the batteries were removed I could see that there were two more screws in addition to the three I could already see on the back.

  • Controller open

    After the screws on the back were removed I could separate the two halves of the controller. You can see here that there are a number of wires still attached to each half. The yellow and green wires you see go to the metal on the controller to deliver the shock.

  • Triggers

    The trigger buttons will fall out when the two halves are separated.

  • Wire connection

    The hole I'm pointing to in this picture (and its counterpart on the other side of the controller) are where the yellow & green wires connect.

  • Removed metal plates

    I took out the four screws and removed the metal plates. I also removed the four screws attaching the metal on the front of the controller, as well as the four screws holding the buttons on.

  • Disassembled controller front

    Here we see the entire front of the controller disassembled.

  • Back of circuit board

    This is the back of the circuit board.

  • Front of circuit board

    This is the front of the circuit board.

  • Speaker

    This is the speaker. Unfortunately, there is no way to remove it.

  • Disassembled controller back

    Here I have removed the metal plates on the inside of the controller back. This is as far as I could disassemble it without breaking or cutting the speaker out. No matter -- taking the metal off the back would be pretty much the same as on the front.

  • Total disassembled controller

    The disassembled controller.

    For those who are wondering, I was able to reassemble the controller and it does work.

    Read my Geek Gift review of Shocking Fun's Shocking Tanks.

Tank & Controller

By Ken Keesling

Last week, I reviewed Shocking Fun's Shocking Tanks as part of TechRepublic's Geek Gift series. The Shocking Tanks scored very well--four points out of a possible five on fun factor alone. But the real fun, for this geek, is in cracking them apart.

Let's see what's inside.

Read my Geek Gift review of Shocking Fun's Shocking Tanks.
Related Topics:
After Hours Innovation Hardware Tech & Work
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