Every flavour of T-34

[HERMAN BIX]

Hell of a smart road your travelling mate!
Im now on the lookout for enough H/L T34 donors to cope with the range
Dont suppose a cheeky SU-122 conversion might sneak in there too

[tankme]

Dont suppose a cheeky SU-122 conversion might sneak in there too

Looks great. I haven't finished my SU-122 as I've struggled with the Vantec conversion and how absolutely crappy the elevation works. At this point I would trash the Vantec kit for a GOOD SU-122 conversion.

[Raminator]

A cheeky SU-122 is definitely on the cards, I'll probably look at getting started on one over the Christmas/New Year holidays. I'll do the traverse, elevation and recoil from scratch, I just got in some special ceramic-based resin that's ideal for mechanical parts like gears. I'm doing some test prints to get it dialled in so I can print the racks and pinions for the T-34 recoil and elevation.

3D printing is normally a very iterative process, but I reckon I got this turret's design pretty much right from the get-go. Talk is cheap though (and resin is expensive!) so here are some pics of the stamped turret's first test print:

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Got the distinctive soft shape with the bulges to protect the turret ring under the mantlet and at the flanks.

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I've moved from captive nuts to threaded inserts, they're a lot easier to use and make for a more permanent fixture. Magnets to hold the halves together for easy maintenance and roller bearings for smooth traverse. It fits a standard HL/Taigen turret rotation gear, held on with three M3 bolts.

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This kind of part really shows the advantages of 3D printing; the whole gun cradle (including the trunnions, crew shield and servo mount) can be printed as a single piece! Traditional injection moulding would need these to be about a dozen separate parts.

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Should be compatible with metal T-34/76 barrels (like MK Modellbau's), but the printed one came out surprisingly well too. In fact I'm so pleased with most of these that I'm tempted to give them a blast of primer and paint to see how they look. Unfortunately I don't have any electronics to test them with, I sold everything to buy resin!

[tankme]

Damnit Ram, I'm really beginning to hate you for those design skills of yours. You are really making me want to trash my Trumpeter turret conversions and purchase new turrets.

[Herr Dr. Professor]

Did I see that correctly? The turret halves will hold together with magnets? No doubt the hull will, too. How great to easy access. No wonder tankme is feeling outdone. But, hey, tankme, I feel that way every time I sign in on RCTW.

[Exhibitedbrute]

Can I have one of you first turrets to replace the non functional 1942 one I already have

[Raminator]

Damnit Ram, I'm really beginning to hate you for those design skills of yours. You are really making me want to trash my Trumpeter turret conversions and purchase new turrets.

Did I see that correctly? The turret halves will hold together with magnets? No doubt the hull will, too. How great to easy access. No wonder tankme is feeling outdone. But, hey, tankme, I feel that way every time I sign in on RCTW.

Cheers for the kind words gents, I'm flattered. No need for tankme to feel outdone Herr Doktor, his builds have magnets securing the turret halves too!

Can I have one of you first turrets to replace the non functional 1942 one I already have

Absolutely, I'm hoping to have full kits of both of these turrets available before too long. They'll include servos, bearings, magnets, axles and stainless nuts+bolts.

I'm normally not one to toot my own horn, and I really shouldn't have done it earlier by saying I thought I got the design right straight away. When it came time to assembling the recoil and elevation for testing, naturally there were problems. For starters, I must've confused radius and diameter when I was doing the calculations for the elevation gears, because it had hardly any travel. I'd also forgotten that while it's all well and good that the parts fit together in CAD, you actually need to assemble them in real life and there wasn't enough clearance for everything to go together.

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It took a few days' worth of redesigning, but the elevation and recoil all work as intended now. Got ~35° of elevation and ~20 mm of recoil travel working now, confirmed working with a little servo tester. I'm going to have to invest in some tank control electronics again, it's a pain to test this stuff manually. Getting somewhere, though!

[tankme]

Yeah, I'm so disappointed in that right there...you might need to just send it to me so I can properly dispose of it for you...

[Estnische]

Keep at it Ram! It is looking so good.

[HERMAN BIX]

Once the casting texture is applied by the end user there will be no trace of print pattern.
Top job that man