RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Jeez....this is all taking forever...

Printing the track links as one piece is working, but the printer has been going morning till night printing parts. I should have all of the suspension and wheels fitted but the Ebay dealer sent me flat head bolts instead on the Allen bolts that I ordered, so I will have to wait until next week for those now.

Any how, this is what the front end will look like, but as to whether it will run on printed tracks etc I won't know until its all together and I start it up.

There's some serious work in those tracks. I hope it all works as expected, as I am sure it will.

Wibbly looking excellent. Looks like the track pins are doing just fine and look nice. Getting close now

I should be able to print 20 at a time, which would have made short work of the 180 odd that I need, but it's an old printer and doesn't have full adjustment on the print bed levelling, this means that I limited to about 6 at a time. I have to watch it like a hawk and stop it when it starts printing one badly...then remove the good ones, clean the bed, and start all over again.

I have a new larger printer on the way that will solve all of these sorts of problems.

I gave up on printing all of those track links. They are amazingly strong, once I had the pins in I couldn't even wrench them apart with pliers? The problem was getting decent quality, and that weird single row teeth on the sprocket. What works in metal isn't going to work in plastic.

I am currently printing new sprockets that look similar that will take Panzer III tracks, and will have to re-do the road wheels and return rollers to accept the central guide horns. It won't be scale accurate but the tracks and sprockets will be a whole lot more stable and therefore smoother/reliable.

This is a prototype, they only take an hour to do, so not the end of the world.

Having abandoned the 3D printed tracks idea, it was worth a try, and would 'probably' have worked, I decided to use the PzIII tracks instead, as they will be reliable if I can get the sprockets, roadwheels and return rollers all done to match.

It took a while to redesign all of the parts to match the tracks, and still make them all look like the originals, but I think I managed it. Still waiting for the correct allen bolts to arrive, will chase them up today if they don't. Once I have them I will know how it all bolts together, where the clearances are, and whether I need to reprint suspension arms as well.

wibblywobbly wrote:Having abandoned the 3D printed tracks idea, it was worth a try, and would 'probably' have worked, I decided to use the PzIII tracks instead, as they will be reliable if I can get the sprockets, roadwheels and return rollers all done to match.

It took a while to redesign all of the parts to match the tracks, and still make them all look like the originals, but I think I managed it. Still waiting for the correct allen bolts to arrive, will chase them up today if they don't. Once I have them I will know how it all bolts together, where the clearances are, and whether I need to reprint suspension arms as well.

Excellent job Wibbly

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Looking in Mr Wobbly, nothing I can add except

A shame you couldn't stick with the printed links Rob, but the way you've adapted the Panzer III tracks is brilliant.

Just out of interest, what's the new printer you've got on the way?

I agree about the tracks, I could have tried it but we are talking hundreds of links, pin drilling them, and cleaning up the edges, it was such a chore I gave up!

The new printer is a Creality CR-10. Out of all of the printers out there it is the one that none of the You Tube reviewers have criticised, it has a large print bed, is as solid as a rock, and comes pre-assembled, just two parts to bolt together. It's not the cheapest, but Alibaba is where all of the bargains are. It's a rep-rap printer, so made from common parts, so no problem with spares in the future.

This review shows what the printer will do, for those who know nothing about 3D printers, I can assure you that results like this are truly exceptional.