RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

a few years ago i bought the hobby engine crane,mths later the tracks started slipping and dry rotted.
i also changed boom rope and increased boom travel to go all the way to the ground.and 360 rotation.
at the time i was big into scale rc tugs,and built a pretty epic 30" tug that pulled me n my 14 year old daughter in a 12 ft boat at 3mph for 3 hours,so i took the crippled crane and put her on a big barge for the boat to push around.....but i wound up never finishing her and eventually sold the nice tug.
now im wanting to get her back on track.....lol.
so im modding for bruder excavator tracks,and repairing the cheap stripped gear boxes.
im getting better at tinkercad,so i designed some sleves to resolve my cracked gear hubs.eventually i may build a complete gear without the slipper clutch assembly.
time to pull the crane from the corner of the shed and dust her off.
for a size reference,the barge is 50x20.
once i get all the parts tested n fine tunned ill share all the stl files.
test run after almost 2 years sitting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjZUaGKgF_Y

the cracked gear hub allows slippage and no track movement.
20180304_215034 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180304_225651 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180304_230253 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
Untitled by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180304_193734 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
designing bruder excavator track pads ,test printing one now.
ane new rollers to fit the bruder tracks better.
also designing new front main rollers,once fine tunned n tested ill post the files.all parts will be drop in fit,no mods......except rear sprocket....may build that aswell.

Untitled by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr

Untitled by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
took quite a few prints to get the pads right.
20180318_203930 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180318_203857 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
modded the rear hobby engine drive sprocket to accept the bruder tracks.
the bruder sprocket grabs on every other tooth,the hobby engine teeth are twice the distance apart than bruder,so slight trimming of width makes a near perfect match from hobby engine to bruder.

2018-03-18_11-01-45 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180318_225020 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180318_225011 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
rolling along nicely!

20180319_100856 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180319_100927 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
Untitled by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr

it turns out the pits on bruder and hobby engine arent a perfect match,the hobby engine sprocket is about half mm off,so ill trim untill i can get a correct sprocket built.
she rolls but lots of clicking,if i loosen the track no issues.

20180319_110507 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180319_110448 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180319_110438 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr

20180319_154534 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180319_155200 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr

Very cool, looks good. I am tempted to make the upgrade, but i have some other projects to finish first!

Will01Capri wrote:Very cool, looks good. I am tempted to make the upgrade, but i have some other projects to finish first!

im at a stop due to the rear sprocket kicking my butt in tinker cad,i get the teeth the right distance apat to fit a total diameter of 60mm.
aint giving up on it just yet.

igotit wrote:

Will01Capri wrote:Very cool, looks good. I am tempted to make the upgrade, but i have some other projects to finish first!

im at a stop due to the rear sprocket kicking my butt in tinker cad,i get the teeth the right distance apat to fit a total diameter of 60mm.
aint giving up on it just yet.

You need to know the pitch of the chain and how it fits in the groove. which will be difficult as it will be like a belt and the hinge point may not create the same size pitch circle than the chain contacts on the drive sprocket.
If however you know the offset distance we can calculate for it.
I am trying to image the bruder track and sprocket fit and see how similar it is to the original hobby engine setup!

i dont even remember what my tracks looked like up close,besides brittle grey rubber....lol.

back on the crane,i hooked up track gear boxes to the slip ring/swivel,tested it it no load for 35 mins just fine.while the cranes apart a few pics inside the beast.in the rear i added 1lb steel round bar ontop of the factory round bar.
im trying to find away to get variable speed to the track with the current rc system,but its not possible.
was hoping to find an inline relay that would slowly increase voltage the longer you held the stick....but found nothig.
so all i can do is install a voltage regulator,but no sure that would work either,other than turn down speed of tracks.


20180401_140711 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180401_140932 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180401_141258 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180401_141304 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180401_150548 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr
20180401_150553 by Nick Pellegrin, on Flickr

Looking good.

I just wired mine up for running a 2s Lipo.
Works.great

How long until she is ready for a drive test?
Hope you don't mind, but I took a video of.mine.
Gives a good idea what these are.like standard if not for a bit more oomph from a Lipo.

I agree the speed is just a bit erratic and not easy to control.
For me I reckon it be best to eliminate the drive circuits from.the standard controller.
Get an old 2.4ghz tx and wire in the 27mhz board for the other controls and run the drive off another remote. In effect I basically mean making up my own tx
Think this is easier that trying to figure our how to run the winch motors off a std rx unit.