RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Thanks Gents.

Herr Dr. Professor, I would recommend taking the plunge with 3D printing. I have a pretty basic FDM printer that I picked up from Aldi a few years ago and find it very useful. Besides things like speaker boxes and other internals for tank projects, I've also printed things like tool holders and paint racks for my workbench and fishing rod racks for one of my other hobbies. There are countless useful designs for free on thingiverse and I've found learning very basic 3d design pretty straightforward for the things I can't find like this. I think my next step is to look at resin printers. FDM isn't ideal for fine detail parts and I'm too lazy to do all that sanding to smooth out prints that will be on the outside of a model. I have a long-term plan to build an Australian Matilda II from a Ludwig kit in the future which will require a few parts that no-one makes in 1/16 at the moment.

Much to my surprise, the prototype lid fitted on the first attempt. I wasn't totally happy with the main box though so have made a few slight changes and am printing that up again now.

Slick and smart Mr B
We all could do with things like that at times.
Where did you get the speaker from by the way

Lovely work Mr B! How did you design such a box? A cad program? Looks great

"Herr Dr. Professor, I would recommend taking the plunge with 3D printing."
Today I was looking at my upcoming health insurance costs... 'Nuff said.

Nice Speaker Box design!!!

Thanks all.

HERMAN BIX wrote:Where did you get the speaker from by the way

The speaker came from https://www.australianmodeller.com.au/search?q=visaton. They focus on model railroads but have a lot of tools, supplies and other bits that are useful for our hobby as well. Well worth checking out for those of us in this part of the world.

c.rainford73 wrote:Lovely work Mr B! How did you design such a box? A cad program? Looks great

I used https://www.tinkercad.com/. No doubt there are a lot of better CAD tools out there but this one is free and more importantly, easy to learn for a CAD newbie like me. It does the job for the simple things I need to design.

The updated speaker box print went well last night, although I had to change filament rolls part way through so now I have a two-tone box.



I've added some M3 nuts to the bottom to secure it to the hull. These line up with the holes in the hull that Tamiya use for their speaker.



And I found a use for the last prototype print that will now be used to keep my photo-etch sheets tidy and out of the way.



I will put the .STL for the box and lid up onto Thingiverse in case anyone needs one for a future build. I'm sure someone with more skills than me could improve it further.

Hi Mr B .Love your work .Sent you a P.M. Regards John.

Sorry John, I've been offline for a few weeks, PM sent.

After a bit of an extended break from all things RC tank due to life related complications, I've recently been digging back into this project so it's time for a long overdue update. Designing things in CAD is something I enjoy but it doesn't come naturally so a lot of hours have been sunk into this part. My plan has always been to avoid the expensive and not very good Tamiya parts for main gun movement and I've designed some 3D printed parts that use servos instead. After a fair bit of mucking around and some trial and error I have a fully working recoil, traverse and elevation.









Now that this is out of the way, I can get back to some modelling. Next step is to update the engine deck to a proper G2.

Bravo! You're back, and back at the works. I will be watching again and cheering for you all the way, even if I am quiet.