Back on the bench...IS-7

[tank_me]

I just had to order some parts for my latest project so I dusted this puppy off and brought it back to the bench for a bit tonight. I had some issues with track alignment which is why the tracks and wheels were originally removed. The idler was misaligned so all of that got resolved, the wheels got re-attached, and the tracks were fitted. Before I finish the detailing work I think I need to slap some electronics in it and give a test run. Trying to finish my CompTIA Network+ cert this week so it may be a few days before I get back to it again.

[SoCalBobS]

Nice! Tell us more!

[tank_me]

The are two build threads on it...one on RCU and the other on RCTankWarefare.

https://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-tanks-369/11696841-drupelu-rc-7-a.html

https://www.rctankwarfare.co.uk/forums/posting.php?mode=edit&p=324488

But basically she's a 3D printed tank from Drupelu RC. I hooked up with Lukas on Facebook before I had a 3D printer and he sent the kit to me. With my lack of attention span building tanks, as in I get bored working on the same tank all the time, I took a break from this build a while back waiting for mini bolts. The mini bolts are for the canvas around the turret. The kit has been highly customized with weld beads and extra detail. I also modified a lot of the mounting points for the running gear to make them more robust. Lukas designed a lot of the tank with friction fit parts on knurled shafts. I knew that IR combat would probably put more stress on the tank leading to those mounts slipping at some point. It uses off the shelf lengthened KV-1 tracks. The KV tracks are slightly more narrow than they should be, but they more than make up for that with better detail and not having to be printed.

Inkor also has an IS-7 that can be bought and printed out on Cults 3D: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/vari...-7-rc_3d_tanks

I have actually purchased his IS-7 files so I could print the wider tracks if I chose to.

It's taken a lot of work to get it to the point where it's at now.

[tank_me]

So I did make some progress on this guy. I was able to finally mount the barrel permanently or semi-permanently as I used a small hex head screw to hold the muzzle brake on. I drilled a small hole in the barrel by the mantlet to keep the rest of the resin barrel from shifting on the brass inner sleeve. The brass inner sleeve has two holes holding it onto the recoil mechanism. I wanted to ensure that I could take part the barrel assembly if I needed to for maintenance or repair. The mantlet has two fasteners under the dust cover holding it to the recoil mechanism.



The dust cover itself is glued and mechanically connected to the turret via hex head bolts. I do think I'm going to redo the barrel side of the cover with smaller fasteners closer to the original design. The ones on it were the only ones I had at the time. I broke the MG barrel off while messing with it, but it should glue right back on. Plus I have some fiber optic rod I can re-enforce it with.



Made some progress with the interior also. I 3D printed a speaker box and contoured the bottom to the dimensions of the IS-7 hull. I sized it so that the upper hull aluminum supports just clear it. When the upper and lower are mated it keeps the speaker from moving side to side. There is a speaker mount in the turret, but I ended up not using it as the Visaton FRS7S speaker wouldn't fit in there. I've done a preliminary mock up of the electronics as I had a TK-50 with Tiger sound set in the parts bin. I will eventually put a different sound set on the board. The gearboxes were scavenged from my Mato PZ3. I bought some long shaft Mato gearboxes to back fill into the PZ3. All I had to do was swap the short PZ shafts for the longer shafts in the new gearboxes to get everything to line up correctly. Despite being a very long tank, it has a pretty low profile hull. Preliminary motion tests were very good. Now I just need to finish up the wiring, finish a few more details, and finish adjusting the turret ring to line up with my lowering mod I did. I did test the recoil and elevation functions and they are good to go.

[quitcherbitchen]

Impressive, what did you make the canvas out of? The links to RCTANK don't seem to answer my question. Seeing the gap I understand why it is needed on this tank. i would like to copy the idea to my Pershing.

[tank_me]

Impressive, what did you make the canvas out of? The links to RCTANK don't seem to answer my question. Seeing the gap I understand why it is needed on this tank. i would like to copy the idea to my Pershing.

It's a 12 gauge shotgun cleaning patch... :)

Derek