Beier SFR-1-HL.

This review is complementary of the Beier SFR-1-D that can be found here.

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Beier partially ruined my hobby, lol. After installing the Beier SFR-1-D board in one of my tanks, all the other toys with different electronics were a mixture of outdated, boring and flawed, even including the tanks with an Elmod board. I had no other option than selling all of those electronics for raising funds with the firm purpose of getting more Beier boards that can bring me the joy back.

It was definitely time for a change. Once I sold some of my old electronics, I wanted to start upgrading my son’s favourite tank. He saw what I was able to do with my T-54 tank and he wanted the same… well, and me too. I had a great experience with the SFR-1-D but that board might be too much for his Sherman. I knew there was a little sister board called Beier SFR-1-HL, so I took another long and deep read at the manual here and I confirmed that it was exactly what we were needing.

I contacted Beier and ordered one board for my son and I installed it in no time, as soon as it arrived, and started thinking what to write, which I must say it has been quite hard because almost everything has already been written in the SFR-1-D review, but no worries, this can only be a great thing!

First of all I was kinda surprised Beier claims in their website that this board is only compatible with the older Heng Long tanks because this is not correct at all. Well, it is true that it is faster to fit it in the older Heng Long RX18 tanks, but just looking at the diagram you can see it can be very easily installed it in any RC tank or even in any other RC toy.

In this very particular case, I installed it in a “Full option” Tamiya Sherman. The installation was really easy and fast. The board came with an useful plastic enclosure which prevents any short circuit with the metal hull. Cool, one thing less to worry about. I could have installed it with less wiring but for easier service I decided to make some sort of quick attach harnesses so I can swap this board in any other Tamiya or Heng Long tank in a matter of seconds.

Tamiya tanks are usually very cramped with no space for almost anything. Glad to see this board is so tiny that you can squeeze it everywhere, leaving me enough room for a 7000mah battery, a smoke machine, massive speaker and some more free space for future uses. The board has the same length and width as the old RX18s but with about half of its height, so if needed, you can fit it in vertical too, which makes it perfect for the Heng Long/Taigen/Torro tanks where the airsoft unit overhangs the turret. For those with Tamiya tanks, I’d say the total volume is roughly 1/4 of the Tamiya electronics. Besides to be a super small board it also has direct SBUS receiver capability which makes it the smallest and cleanest RC tank electronics that I have seen so far.

Connected to the Prop 8, a 16ch receiver can be seen. It is a pleasure to see only three short wires for 16 channels, and yet again, with no need of any extra adaptor.

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Sounds.
After wiring everything, it was about time to fit the sounds. The software CD comes with loads of tank sets and all kind of different sounds that range from the needed motor sounds to even animals or rain that will cover most people’s needs. The board obviously plays any motor sound that you might need, and many more that you would not even think that existed, but also loads of additional sounds, which is my favourite function.

I fitted 24 user sounds which include 15 tank commander voices for giving instructions to the platoon, (this is seriously fun!) one siren/horn, and 8 music pieces that vary from movie soundtracks to military marches suiting my taste.

The audio quality is OUTSTANDING. Unlike most boards, this is truly CD quality, with no speaker hissing and if you want, it can be very, very loud. I’d say it is even louder than my computer with an 2.1 system or even my 1:1 scale car, seriously. And there is indeed a big audio quality difference compared with other RC boards, not only in the audio files themselves but in what the board is able to play, which is the most important part. But what I liked the most is it also can play several sounds at the same time. That includes motor sounds, machine gun, cannon fire, tank commander shouting and background music at the same time. I have not seen this in any other brand and I do like it a lot. There is nothing cooler than to be able to drive your tank, shooting machine guns and cannon, with the commander shouting over drama music in the background.

This is an example of my current setup. The software recognizes the name written on the audio files, so it is easy to see what you are doing and what is going to be triggered.

For all those additional sounds, I am using the channels 13, 14 and 15. In my setup, every channel plays 8 user sounds depending of how long you press the assigned push button or flick the switch. Using a logic switch combination programming the radio I am able to trigger the sound I want using only 4 push buttons.

In the screenshot I am showing the channel 13 as an example.

Confused? Well, watch the following video and it will be pretty clear how I trigger everything:

Besides that, there is a random sound bank which can be used to play up to extra 8 sounds where I fitted artillery strikes, planes flying or radio chatting. Those random sounds are played in an aleatory order and time and the function can also be activated at will flicking a switch.

If that is not enough, it also has a .wav player where you can play another 30 sounds. So far I am not using it because I am pretty well served with my current setup, but for those might need it, the option is there.

You can also adjust the sound volume of every sound very easily. You don’t need to edit the sounds with any complicated audio software, just lower the % and done. This is more useful than it might seem.

Gun elevation noise has been reduced to a 25% and turret rotation to a 40% because it was too loud for my ears.

The software comes with an useful “Sound Simulator” where you can test how is the vehicle going to sound. This is more useful than it might seem and will save you tons of time. I just discovered this function and it is just GREAT.

Oh, and last minute edit: The sounds that come with the software DVD can be edited. With all the other boards the sounds come either coded that you cannot edit, or you have to pay for each sound set. In this case not only the sounds are editable, but also in the manual explains how to do it. So feel free of feeling a DJ of the second world war mixing and creating your own sounds.

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Lights.
Once the sounds were ready, the lights were next. This board has 10 light outputs plus a high intensity flash for the cannon. Those 10 outputs are absolutely programmable matching your tastes and needs. Do you want 10 independent machine guns? Now you can. And more, such head lights, indicators, brake lights, spotlights… everything that you might need and more, and unlike others, with no extra boards.

One of the reasons that made me get this board instead of the SFR-1-D is that it has more than enough light outputs for any WW2 tank. So far, besides the main gun flash, the tank where I installed the board has:
Two independent machine guns with different sounds, for hull and turret.
Combined headlights with short and long beam.
Combined rear lights with rear and brake light.
Spotlight in the turret
Electric welder, for field repairs. Mega cool for the diorama.

As can be seen, this makes a total of 6 outputs, leaving another 4 free for posible future uses, which is more than enough for I’d say every 1/16 WW2 scale tank and most (if not all) of the modern ones.

I considered getting one of the Beier resistor clamps, but due to two of those light outputs come already with resistors included, I decided to do my own resistor adaptor for the fun of it. I had excelent results with 330 Ohm resistors when using a 2S Li-Ion battery. If you are not so good at soldering or lack the time, I’d still recommend you to get the AKL-8-W resistor’s board.

I must say I absolutelly love the lights outputs, specially to be able to have short and long beam in the same bulb, the incandescent bulb effect (it takes like a second to fully bright, and another to fully shut down) and the flickering lights when starting the motors. Very realistic.

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Driving.
Not much to say here, but for a good reason. Most has already been written in my SFR-1-D review. This board works as good as it should, it has super smooth driving with ultrasonic speed controllers that make no electronic whine at all. Of course, I can drive the tank the way I want, activating and deactivating the inertias and throttle curves at my will, just flicking a switch. Some of us we really appreciate the FREEDOM (yes, note capital letters!) of driving the tank the way we want. This might sound obvious but you cannot do it with every aftermarket board out there, where you are tied to drive the board the way the designer wants.

In the following pics you can see my current driving settings. Take this like a grain of salt, because I keep changing it constantly.

Here are the virtual gears and the sound the motor makes.

And this is the throttle curve. Backwards speed is not as fast as the front speed like all real vehicles.

For obvious reasons It is not possible to make a video that transmits the great feelings of driving the tank but I can tell you it is a real pleasure and I have absolute control of what I am doing.

Not driving related but also worth to mention is it has two fully configurable servo outputs for whatever moving parts or functions you might need. I am not using them in this tank, but you can use them for barrel elevation, servo recoil, moving tank commander or any other moving part.

EDIT 27.03.2022: I installed another SFR 1 HL in my Tamiya Panzer IV, and I am very pleased with the results. I created the motor sounds too and recorded a night patrol in the heart of Stolzdorf.

Almost everything works perfectly with the exception of the Tamiya recoil, which was complicated to install and program, and does not work flawlessly all the time. I will write the Beiers in order to improve it and I will update this review if corrected. Long story sort, the Tamiya recoil needed some weird rewiring and installation of some diodes and then very advanced radio programming. After all the effort it works 95% of the times fine, but I believe it should work fine the 100% of the times and with less headache for the average user. Anyway, considering that this board is supposed to be fitted in Heng Long tanks and not in Tamiyas, I cannot blame them.

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What can be improved?
The Beier boards are still not Tamiya battle compatible. I don’t battle and I am pretty sure I never will, neither most of the European people… but guys in Asia and America definitely seems to have serious interest on it. I have been asked several times about Tamiya battle protocol compatibility and my answer is always the same “So far it does not have it, but if you write Beier they might add it, is just adding some code” so guys, if you want it, now you know what to do. At least it does have Heng Long and Taigen/Torro protocol.

Turret sounds: The board has plenty of sounds but lacks one small feature; to have two different turret rotation and gun elevation sounds, one for when the tank is with the motor on, and another hand cranked with the motor off. If those sounds were speed dependent, that would be the icing of the cake. Not too important, but I definitely miss it a lot.

The third but last “negative” but not so important point for me is this board uses a different software (which you also have to buy) to the other Beier boards. I’d prefer to have the same software for all the Beier products, but I guess there might be an evident reason behind it. Probably it is because is easier to maintain and update of something similar. Can’t blame them for this decision, lol.

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Final thoughts.

I find this little board to be a marvel. Even when I am cheapman and I love saving and hate paying even for food, I find it reasonable priced and balanced. I am sure it is enough for almost everybody unless very, very rare tanks with more lights than a Christmas tree or bigger scale tanks that need more motor power output. For those cases my option would be the SFR-1-D. But at this moment, this board is the one I want to install in all of my tanks, and I don’t see any reason for replacing it in the the future unless the technology advances so much that we control mini tank crew inside of the tank. So far, I find it perfect and I have no idea of what extra function could be added that is not currently present besides what I have already mentioned. If you order one, just don’t forget to get the USB programmable wire, which is still an absolute must.

If you want one, you can order it at the official website, here.

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Disclaimer: As I usually say, this is not a referral link, I don’t get anything for any sale and all the words written here are my honest feelings at 100% I would not sleep good if lying to you and to myself!

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As a side note I realized since the new Elmod boards have seen the light, I got a lot of visits in my SFR-1-D review. I guess most Elmod customers were so disappointed with the new offerings that are looking for an alternative. Well, I am pretty sure some people will say this is a paid review or something like that, but those who know me can swear that this has been written with 100% honestity, and I will be clear: Don’t get the Elmod boards, get the Beiers. Beiers are superior in every aspect except the price. Even more, I can give you my word (and probably you have already seen in in forums) that I sold my Elmods for raising funds for getting more SFR 1 HLs for upgrading my tank platoon. I think that says all.

Of course there is no comparison possible with any other boards like Clark or IBU, so it is still not worth to even write more about them.