Definitely had fun, and my son had a great 30-40 minutes with it, even if he did struggle to get to grips with the twin stick steering.Son of a gun-ner wrote:Thanks for the posting dude
Shame things didn't work out that well.
And laugh out loud to you and your make shift hand repair
But, the most important thing, did you have fun?
Yes, the plate for ground clearance was my idea, but I will add to it, if you add a plate to what you already have, sadly that would lengthen the tracks needed, making them even weaker and more likely to snap
I'm glad you got the chance to test your handy work
Mick.
I had thought about the length making them even more susceptible to snapping, There's a few ways around it that I can think of:
A: Cut the bottom off, and add the metal plates, retaining the current shape and size.
B: Cheat, dummy tracks fixed in place along the top half, giving the tracks a straight run about half way up the tank, reducing the length a bit.
C: And finally, what I'm more likely to do. Cut out the bottom of the hull, and lift it up 1-2" then refix it. Keeping the angled plate at the front for the looks but this shouldn't be enough to beach it. Then I'd either need to keep a couple of plates at the rear, where the gearboxes are mounted, at the original height. Alternatively, with a lot of redesigning of the front, I could mount the gearboxes at the front, as the foremost wheels, as thats the only other place I think I can get enough track wrapping around the sprocket to get good power delivery.
Excuse the very badly drawn diagram, but it was done very quickly on break at work, on MS Paint... On the right is how it's set up at the moment, on the left is what I want to change it to. Just need to find some suitable metal plate, unsure of what thickness to go for to give me the strength required, but that can still be relatively easily cut to shape.Will01Capri wrote:thanks for sharing, but to stop bolt bending, you need to hold the axles in double shear maybe with the tension you are using!
Currently maybe the wood is soft that is still allowing it to sink in a little possibly!
Its just because your track length i guess and the movement which is why you need such high tension to try and hold it there. Because the bolts are bending inwards with hubload generated from your track tension, the tracks are riding to the point of high tension. But the wheels and sprocket will fight this and cause it to spit out and maybe cause uneven loading across the track width.
You need to be able to compensate the slight variances of the track running the length of the system and then you will also be able to reduce the track tension.
sorry hard to explain, but can be sorted
family beach holidays are always cool
Also trying to think of a way of making a couple of the wheels that are on the curved parts of the track run sprung so they keep the tension on the tracks but will give if the tension increases. a bit like this belt tensioner thats on my motorbike:
