RC 3D Tanks?

[hblake1427]

Hey everyone,

I was doing some searching online and came across this site: http://rc3dtanks.site/

It seems to be a hosting site for plans to 3D print dozens of tank models, most of which are not being made by any manufacturers.

Judging from their Youtube page, they seem to be pretty legit. Some of their pieces are being sold on ebay as assembled sets.

Anyone have any experience with this project? Thanks.

[Sappo]

I've made his Sheridan and am in the process of printing the t54. Had no problems with the process at all. Okay the finish isn't like a injection molded model but if you want something out of the usual line up of commercially available models for a cheap price it's the way to go

[tank_me]

The designer's name is Inkor. He currently resides in Ukraine and it is a legit business. I am also a member of his Discord channel for his tanks. You can join if you need support while building them or just want to BS with a bunch of crazy tank nuts.

I own a majority of his tanks because I like the less represented stuff. Some of the designs are a great jumping off point. As others will point out, the STL files are not of the highest quality as they were designed to be printed on FDM printers cheaply. Some of the designs are a little less accurate than I would like, but may have parts that I can print or resize/modify for my projects.

All of his designs are based around using the short shaft 49mm low/mid gearboxes. The use the standard HL rotation mechanism and all the newer designs have servo elevation/recoil. Some of the older ones were designed around the HL elevation and BB shooter. Your skill with a 3D printer can determine how much detail you can get out of some of the parts. I wish he made them more simple so that I could add the details after removing the print lines, but he is the designer and the STLs are designed to be cheap for everyone.

As to those that sell his designs on Ebay...be careful. Some of them are good prints, some of them are bad. I can't tell you which as I don't know and I print my own tanks on my own printer. Some of them are also not giving any royalties to Inkor so they are stealing his intellectual property and reselling it for their own profit. I wouldn't want someone to steal my work and make money off of it so I don't support people like that. Once again, I don't know which sellers those are as they change all the time.

Bottom line...are they worth it? To me they are cheap enough to print and are worth what you pay. Are they perfect? Nope. If you print them yourself they require a lot of finishing work to get rid of print lines. I do like them as they expand the models of tanks available. If you get on Discord, you can make suggestions for new tanks for him to design. I've been pushing for an American T-29 or American T-34. :) He also likes to design weird tanks over the mainstream ones. I personally wouldn't be buying a preprinted version off Ebay as eventually you will need spare parts. Without buying the STL files from a place like Cults3D, you won't be able to print replacements. His official page on Cults3D is: https://cults3d.com/en/users/RC_3D_Tanks/3d-models

[Rubicon99]

The designer's name is Inkor. He currently resides in Ukraine and it is a legit business. I am also a member of his Discord channel for his tanks. You can join if you need support while building them or just want to BS with a bunch of crazy tank nuts.

I own a majority of his tanks because I like the less represented stuff. Some of the designs are a great jumping off point. As others will point out, the STL files are not of the highest quality as they were designed to be printed on FDM printers cheaply. Some of the designs are a little less accurate than I would like, but may have parts that I can print or resize/modify for my projects.

All of his designs are based around using the short shaft 49mm low/mid gearboxes. The use the standard HL rotation mechanism and all the newer designs have servo elevation/recoil. Some of the older ones were designed around the HL elevation and BB shooter. Your skill with a 3D printer can determine how much detail you can get out of some of the parts. I wish he made them more simple so that I could add the details after removing the print lines, but he is the designer and the STLs are designed to be cheap for everyone.

As to those that sell his designs on Ebay...be careful. Some of them are good prints, some of them are bad. I can't tell you which as I don't know and I print my own tanks on my own printer. Some of them are also not giving any royalties to Inkor so they are stealing his intellectual property and reselling it for their own profit. I wouldn't want someone to steal my work and make money off of it so I don't support people like that. Once again, I don't know which sellers those are as they change all the time.

Bottom line...are they worth it? To me they are cheap enough to print and are worth what you pay. Are they perfect? Nope. If you print them yourself they require a lot of finishing work to get rid of print lines. I do like them as they expand the models of tanks available. If you get on Discord, you can make suggestions for new tanks for him to design. I've been pushing for an American T-29 or American T-34. :) He also likes to design weird tanks over the mainstream ones. I personally wouldn't be buying a preprinted version off Ebay as eventually you will need spare parts. Without buying the STL files from a place like Cults3D, you won't be able to print replacements. His official page on Cults3D is: https://cults3d.com/en/users/RC_3D_Tanks/3d-models

The print lines are a PIA. I don't know why he doesn't fix the resolution it's would not make the files or prints any more expensive.

I printed a few of his files in high quality resin both commercial and over the counter brands mostly for parts to "kit bash". I found it is best to sand the print lines prior to UV curing of the resin. This leave the resin softer and much easier to sand smooth. It's still a lot of work, but the end product looks decent. So yes if people want something different and are willing to put in the work, 3D printed tanks are the way to go.

[Durahl]

With "a bit" of elbow grease one can achieve Factory Quality like Models with 3D Printing...

You just have to get used to a) the concept of a Polygamous Marriage to a bunch of sheets of Sanding Paper and b) a One-Night-Stand with surfacing and epoxy Putty for a Metal like Texture Finish😏 Also being able to substitute some off the shelf Photo Etch Parts and Scale Model sized Fasteners for your Model instead of print in Place Geometry is usually also a plus.

[Sappo]

And quite frankly accept the fact that you are about to go down a very deep and addictive rabbit hole

[JonsRanger1030]

Has anyone made a build post for one of these, I did a really quick search and didn't see anything for his stuff?

[tank_me]

My IS-4 is an Inkor design: https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc...nster-the-is-4

[JonsRanger1030]

Wow, both it and your IS-7 are very cool! So all the tracks, idlers, and drive gears, gun barrel, are 3d printed? What are you using for motors and gearboxes, controller, circuit board?

[tank_me]

All of Inkor's designs use standard HL gearboxes in the ML49 (Mid/Low) configuration with 49mm long shafts. I'm going to use a Clark TK50 board to run mine, but a lot of folks use the standard HL 6.1 or 7.1 MFU as the design uses servo recoil and elevation. TK16 also works. Tracks, idlers, and gun barrel are 3D printed. Gears are in the Heng Long gearboxes. Suspension is torsion bars and the torsion bars are 3D printed.

[tank_me]

New release to print:

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/various/lowe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq_r0WGT0U0