Russian T-35A

[SoCalBobS]

Progress: Tertiary turret rotation and mg flash added to main gun flash and recoil, headlights. The mg turret animation is achieved with an "RC Geek Random Servo Motion Generator" (RCMG). Travel, frequency and speed can all be adjusted via potentiometers on the RCMG. Each board has two takeoffs which act independently. The secondary turret will be powered from this module. Two modules will be used, one for the front turrets, one for the rear ones. Power is obtained from the HL 6.1S board from the servo recoil circuit via a Y cable.

[SoCalBobS]

Headlights installed:

[SoCalBobS]

I received some major parts yesterday. here a couple progress pictures;

Internals of the turrets and superstructure:



Dry-fitted parts, just sitting in place:

[SoCalBobS]

Project update: received the turret shell yesterday. I added a muzzle flash LED, which I sprayed with transparent orange to shift the color from the bluish white. There were mounts in the turret for servos, so I activated the servo operated barrel recoil and gun elevation. I'm using a Heng Long 6.1S board for this.

Oh, the lights are to tell me if the tank is turned on when I've muted the engine sound on the workbench.

[SoCalBobS]

Drove the chassis around on some outdoor carpet and some dirt. It worked quite adequately, very pleased.

Here's two tiny teasers of parts; not polished or painted yet: Three parts of the main gun, and the lid and hatches of a secondary turret.

[SoCalBobS]

I salute Comrade Gringotuertovavich! However, sometimes the victory parades must go around curves. Here's proof it can.

https://youtu.be/vThGIUpJ-zA

By no means done, return rollers absent, some axles not secured. Just enough progress to test whether it can run.

[Gringotuerto]

That thing is not going to turn worth a darn lol. Impressive work so far Bob.

Comrade, a true hero of the people drives straight at the enemy, and has no need of turning.

[RichJohnson]

That thing is not going to turn worth a darn lol. Impressive work so far Bob.

[DavidN]

:flushed:

[Sappo]

Damn that's a huge run of tracks

[SoCalBobS]

[DavidN]

From your picture posted, that is a very long set of tracks. Impressive!

[SoCalBobS]

I'm back! Gringotuerco and I are still working on this project.

We're about 30% done. The running gear works, which is the most important step. Without that, it's a door stop! Doing this gives me more respect for the $200 we spend for a Heng Long tank.

To this point:

262 track links & track teeth. 262 track pins cut from music wire.
8 road wheel suspensions, incorporating 8 supports, 32 swing arms, 16 3-piece road wheels, 2 8-piece idlers, 2 3-piece sprockets, 52 3mm bolts & nuts cut to custom length.
4-piece lower hull.
12 3-piece return roller wheels and mounts.
Heng Long 2 red motor transmission, 6.1S MFU, speaker & battery.
One heckuva lot of 3D printing material.
So far an ounce of CA glue.






Besides a lot detail work, now we start on the top deck, turrets and guns. The main gun will have standard motorized traverse and elevation. The secondary and tertiary turrets will have programmable random servo motion.

The tracks run fine on pavement. We haven't tried them in dirt, and I don't think they'd work well on carpet for instance, due to their length. No "spinning", that's for sure!

[Rob1970]

I stand corrected. And I feel like I should be standing in a corner...

[Rubicon99]

Weeeelll... I don't think T35's were zipping around the battlefield like they were M18 Hellcats anyway...
I've looked at the files for this beast on Thingiverse and promptly downloaded them. Might run some pieces during my printers "downtime" just for sh*ts and giggles...

TTFN,
Rob

Obviously you have never run 4:1 gearboxes. “Slow” is meant to describe the speed in comparison to the standard HL 3:1 gearbox. By comparison the 4:1 is much slower. It’s not meant to make any reference to the historical speed of the real tank.

[Rob1970]

...you will have no issues with turning torque yet your top speed will still be rather slow even above 9 volts...

Weeeelll... I don't think T35's were zipping around the battlefield like they were M18 Hellcats anyway...
I've looked at the files for this beast on Thingiverse and promptly downloaded them. Might run some pieces during my printers "downtime" just for sh*ts and giggles...

TTFN,
Rob

[Rubicon99]

Rich, I’m interested in that Taigen 4:1 you mentioned. Sounds good for the T-35. Speed ain’t in it, but torque to make this beast turn is important. Do you know if it has the same footprint as HL gearboxes?

Yes they are direct replacement for HL gearboxes. Run them with the 390 motors and you will have no issues with turning torque yet your top speed will still be rather slow even above 9 volts.

[SoCalBobS]

Rich, I’m interested in that Taigen 4:1 you mentioned. Sounds good for the T-35. Speed ain’t in it, but torque to make this beast turn is important. Do you know if it has the same footprint as HL gearboxes?

[Rob1970]

Here's a teaser. This photo is of the four sections that make up the hull. Shows the overall length. I put my PzKpfw 1B in the shot for size comparison. They were contemporaries!

You could use a pair of PzKpfw 1B's as tugs for that battleship... :astonished:

[RichJohnson]

Taigen makes a second gear box option called a 4.1 because it has 4 shafts instead of 3.
FYI Henglong tranny gear ratio is 33:1 from motor to shaft.
Taigen 3.1 is 39:1 ratio, slightly slower with more torque.
Tamiya is 59:1 ratio slower yet with more torque.
Then there is the taigen 4.1 which is 89:1. amazing torque but slow.
Also there is mato, I cant remember their ratio but they are geared very low and slow as well, but their QC on their stuff sucks. I had to buy a spare tranny set for my mato sherman becuase the gears wobbled on their axis just terribly.

I just got done testing the DK board. I think it would work for your tank but right now it needs alot of stick travel to get to near full throttle. It has a few glitches. When you get closer to being ready, he may have the updates done to the board. See my review on RCuniverse.com

I prefer the Spektrum DX8. I love it and all the really cool stuff I can do with it like mixing and making one button make the cannon fire, and another button make the machine gun fire just by setting each one up to make the elevation stick full potential on either end. Another switch I have set to null the throttle to 75% for faster tanks. I cant reccomend the Dx8 or its series of 9 and 10 channel radios enough.

Since your building a battleship on tracks, it reminds me of how I made my HO scale battleship turrets turn. The two forward and one aft all had gear drives on servos but the 5 dual 5" turrets on each side I was not going to make operate separately. I used one servo for all the turrets on one side and cams and rudder linkage on all of them so the servo would turn them all from facing for and aft, to a 45 deg angle from the ship, or to a 90 deg angle broadside. It was quite an impressive set up to engineer. but with all the turrets, you could rig up something similar.