Note quite a Tanker

[LittleTinker]

Hi,
I've done Tamiya RC buggies, have been and still am building drones and learning to fly. Was considering a crawler next but couldn't shake the idea of a tank instead.
At the risk of frustrating tank purists I was actually considering building up a tracked robot chassis such as this
https://www.banggood.com/RC-Robot-Car-M ... rehouse=CN

Considering using my drone's Taranis controller (Frsky). I was absolutely planning to add FPV and I might add the robot claw also, undecided.

I would like first to upgrade motors as much as possible, I want to achieve walking pace on the flat (so I wouldn't need to wait for it) but at the same time I really would like to be able to do a 45 degree slope, so lots of torque needed. Aliexpress has many gear motors which have a 37mm gearbox added to them which look like they would be a good upgrade to these supplied motors. However a different option might be to use a pair of RC tank gearboxes, it would probably then allow me greater motor flexibility (maybe 775 24V motors even?)

Main reason for signing up here was to try and understand more about which RC tanks have the strongest gearboxes, with what ratios, and also to learn a bit more about tank controller / ESCs etc.

Thanks,
Ian

[General Jumbo01]

Hi lan,

Firstly, please ignore my pm just now - having a busy day!

You MAY do better to ask this question on a more open RC forum like one of the Tamiya based ones as we are fairly model tank focused here, mostly 1/16. There are plenty of gearboxes available though most are of similar design. Quality and price vary but was an into you might fancy experimenting with a cheap HengLong model, the bigger the better so you have more space for your mods to fit in. These come with Radios included but if you speak to Dave at Forgebear tanks he might be able to get you one of the newer Taigen/Torro hulls that allow you to fit your own hobby grade receiver.

[43rdRecceReg]

Welcome, Tinker. That's quite an interesting model on the Banggood site. It uses a type of Christie suspension that could almost be adapted for use in modelling a WW2 British tank. I suppose it could also serve as a useful platform for your own design of an upper hull, as well as one for an FVP. In any event, though the mainstream of the Forum is centred on 1/16 armour, it does also encompass trucks, planes, boats and more besides on the fringes. If you look at the general index and the list of Forums, you'll see what I mean.

[LittleTinker]

Thanks guys. That banggood model claims to be all metal. I asked about the hull and they said steel, and yes sir, a working Christie suspension. I'm still toying with various ideas but I do keep coming back to this model as a great looking base to build upon, and maybe down the road if I didn't do something crazy and buy the robot claw attachment then I might look to try and do a ww2 body of some sort, maybe 2 fpv feeds, one for the driver and one for the gunner
Aliexpress has many motors but they also sell what look to be compatible drive gears for this model with different D sizes for the gearbox output shaft 4,5,6mm - and 6mm corresponds to the 37mm sized eccentric gearbox which is what comes as stock I think on this tank I think. The max motor size I found which comes with a 37mm gearbox is 555 brushed and 3650 brushless. Hence to go larger will create a gearbox issue if using such gearboxes, beyond these sizes the gearbox goes to 42mm but the shaft goes to 8mm.

May I ask, what size / diameter is the output shaft on most 1/16 tank gearboxes? are they 6mm, or less or does it vary a lot between manufacturers? Also what motors do most people use as upgrades?

I found an excellent doc in the downloads section detailing many gear ratios: downloads/download.php?file=17&hash=5f0932d2
I also found a really great project which sadly looks discontinued, Open Panzer. Pity those control boards and the project has ground to a halt because it could have been exactly what I was looking for in terms of control. Instead I'm seriously looking at the Ardurover rover project, a fork of ArduPilot, which allows for skid steer rovers. With this as the brain a tank could have autonomous GPS control....
...Early days, so many ideas...!

[LittleTinker]

Just spotted this on e-bay:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Heng-Long-R- ... fresh=true

Seriously thinking about trying to use the body shell on top of the banggood chassis at the moment. The width and length do seem to be approximately correct to hack it together.

Do you think I'm nuts or could this be good?

[HERMAN BIX]

It could be great, but its a real old version and will need a lot of work to get up to near enough.
No matter what, its another tank, at a throw away price, just in case you need it !!

[midlife306]

Hi Ian, welcome along
You don't have to be a tanker but you do have to be a little bit bonkers, I think you fully qualify
Banggood thing is a good starter for 10 but it does have its limitations. Don't waste your brass on an old clearly abused tank body, hold on & get the base you want running just how you want it, at a later date I'm sure we can get you a 3D printed upper hull of the correct dimensions for you.
If you have the motors with the reduction box on the front, make sure the output shaft is 8mm as this is the perfect size to fit onto 1/16 drive sprockets & then options are endless.
Have a look here https://spykerworkshop.com this guys stuff may just be right up your street. Either purchase kits from him or buy the 3D files so you can print the parts at any size/scale you fancy.
Any questions don't be afraid to ask
Cheers
Wayne


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[LittleTinker]

Thanks again guys.

I went ahead and just plumbed for the Banggood chassis, its only money at the end of the day and f it doesn't work out so be it.
I'll wait until it shows up to see what I get and go from there. I will hold off that battered shell, it would be nice to get a shell which is in keeping with the Christie suspension, those tigers were all torsion bars I believe.

I fear the drive wheel on the BG model is only 6mm rather 8mm, as far as I can see the tank comes with a 37mm gearbox (and some randomly small motors), ali-express shows the standard output shaft is 6mm for 37mm gearboxes, which is a real pain because the next size up is 42 (most often with 775 motors) and they are all 8mm output shafts.

I suspect I'll end up searching for a suitable drive wheel replacement. A friend has a lathe, maybe making a pair isn't beyond possibility. Or just settle for a 550 / 555 size motor gearbox combo (that at least might anyway be a short terms thing, gear motors are not that expensive if coming on the slow boat from China).

Once again, thanks all for the warm welcome, I'll look about and develop some ideas and let you know how it shapes up when the model arrives

[TxRx]

I also found a really great project which sadly looks discontinued, Open Panzer. Pity those control boards and the project has ground to a halt because it could have been exactly what I was looking for in terms of control. Instead I'm seriously looking at the Ardurover rover project, a fork of ArduPilot, which allows for skid steer rovers. With this as the brain a tank could have autonomous GPS control....
...Early days, so many ideas...!

Have you made much progress with the Ardurover? Would be interested to see where you’ve got to.
I’ve just started looking into it, running it on a racing quad flight controller with external gps originally just to provide an OSD for the FPV but now looking to combine it with the open panzer software running on an Arduino Mega board (the open panzer tcb hardware is not available but software development appears to be ongoing and it takes minutes to load it onto a cheap Arduino Mega board, I bought an Elegoo clone from Amazon for £13, you just need separate hardware for escs and some components to invert sbus etc). Using an sbus receiver all 16 channels can apparently be sent to both devices for them to process as they see fit.

[Will01Capri]

Hi,
I've done Tamiya RC buggies, have been and still am building drones and learning to fly. Was considering a crawler next but couldn't shake the idea of a tank instead.
At the risk of frustrating tank purists I was actually considering building up a tracked robot chassis such as this
https://www.banggood.com/RC-Robot-Car-M ... rehouse=CN

Considering using my drone's Taranis controller (Frsky). I was absolutely planning to add FPV and I might add the robot claw also, undecided.

I would like first to upgrade motors as much as possible, I want to achieve walking pace on the flat (so I wouldn't need to wait for it) but at the same time I really would like to be able to do a 45 degree slope, so lots of torque needed. Aliexpress has many gear motors which have a 37mm gearbox added to them which look like they would be a good upgrade to these supplied motors. However a different option might be to use a pair of RC tank gearboxes, it would probably then allow me greater motor flexibility (maybe 775 24V motors even?)

Main reason for signing up here was to try and understand more about which RC tanks have the strongest gearboxes, with what ratios, and also to learn a bit more about tank controller / ESCs etc.

Thanks,
Ian

Welcome, don't worry about the Tank purity, some or alot of use here have turned into RC 1/16 truck builders instead.

There is a whole host of experience and inspiration here in everything Tank or not Tank, so please join in and share