Merkava mods

[tank_me]

I broke down and bought a Merkava. Toucan had them for $70 off the normal price for the all metal (minus the hull) version. I already started trying to build a cope cage for it as seen in the recent conflict:



So I found one on Cults3D to print:

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/various/attempt-for-cope-cage-for-merkava-4-1-35-panzer

Unfortunately no matter what material I tried to print it in, it failed to print in either version. Tried it in ASA, PETG, and ABS like resin. The mesh or the bar version was just modeled too delicately to print right in 1/16 scale. The bars and mesh got distorted as it would detach from the resin printer's FEP or the supports on the FDM printer were too difficult to remove eventually breaking the bars or the mesh. At that point, I took the bad PETG print, cut out all the center sections, found a free scalable plastic grill mesh on Printables, printed it out, cut out the sections I needed and glued them to the cope cage. As you can see, even a few of the squares broke getting off the build plate as they are like less than a mm high.



This is the result I got:

.
Next steps...finish mounting the cope cage legs and replacing the fake rubber skirts with real silicone rubber skirts (or TPU).

[cmdrcody]

Here is the cope cage I installed on mine.

[Handy Lance]

A small adjustment of z offset and or tiny bit less flow can make your prints release better. Also try PEI textured build plate. I’ve printed small fence for slot cars. Tough but settings will make it doable. If you are getting any elephants feet, re level the bed and give it like .01 more starting distance from head to build plate.

cool tank

[tank_me]

Here is the cope cage I installed on mine.

I like the round bases mounted to the hull so it can be removed. I may have to do something similar. Did you print it yourself or have it printed? The material looks like the stuff Shapeways does.

I do plan on putting some camo net on top of it like all of the vehicles I saw in Afghanistan always did. It's not so much for camo, more for shade.

A small adjustment of z offset and or tiny bit less flow can make your prints release better. Also try PEI textured build plate. I’ve printed small fence for slot cars. Tough but settings will make it doable. If you are getting any elephants feet, re level the bed and give it like .01 more starting distance from head to build plate.

cool tank

It was printed on a PEI textured build plate in PETG. PETG is known to stick a little too well. I'm sure PLA would've released better, but I don't print in PLA as it will deform in the Texas sun. Elephant's foot really isn't an issue on my Bambu as the lidar, filament calibration, and auto bed leveling works well. The screen itself is less than 1mm high which is why it's so delicate. The mesh itself is modeled with the lines on top of each other. It prints better that way. In order to get it to be scale, I had to shorten the height of the mesh considerably. The mesh only took like 20 minutes to print so having a few broken squares isn't an issue. I just printed a second one to make up the difference. The issue is more of trying to print the cage it as one piece with the mesh on it. I adjusted the support Z distance from the default 2.0mm to 2.5 and even 2.7, but the supports still stuck too much and broke the mesh when removing. Supports on ASA come off easier, but the bridging on ASA isn't as good and therefore the mesh just printed like crap. The designer even said, he had not tried to print it yet. The cage itself wouldn't print without supports as the mesh was modeled in the center of the crossbars. Definitely not designed for optimal 3D printing. These cages are not really commercially manufactured so there is some variance in them. Once the camo is on, it will look the part.

[cmdrcody]

I like the round bases mounted to the hull so it can be removed. I may have to do something similar. Did you print it yourself or have it printed? The material looks like the stuff Shapeways does.

I had "RichardSJohnson.net" print mine. You would need to contact him (email: killroy321@hotmail.com) for pricing and maybe he would give you his printing settings and what he used for the material. I went to local craft store, Michael's, and got the materials to fabricate the cope cage frame support and mounting parts.

[tank_me]

I had "RichardSJohnson.net" print mine. You would need to contact him (email: killroy321@hotmail.com) for pricing and maybe he would give you his printing settings and what he used for the material. I went to local craft store, Michael's, and got the materials to fabricate the cope cage frame support and mounting parts.

Thanks for the info. As I suspected, it was printed on an industrial printer since Rich uses a 3rd party printing company which explains the finish on your cage. The industrial printers tend to create that grainy look as it uses a sintered or powdered type of plastic. Since I own a couple of 3D printers now, it kinda defeats the point of owning them if I just buy parts already printed. My Frankenstein printed cage will work for my purpose.

[RichJohnson]

I actually print some of my parts and also use JVM3Dconcepts to print others. Anything I want to look like injection molded that is large enough to have them print I do, they use a varrying array of special resin mixes for me that offer detail and strength for my parts, while other things I print on a CR6SE as the cope cage because it is linear and square and is much more structurally sound in PLA+ rather than any resin.
each printer has its benefits and uses.

[tank_me]

Yeah, I can't use PLA+ for my tank parts. Won't survive the heat. It's glass transition temp is too low. The only things I print in PLA or PLA+ are for my girlfriend's projects or anything that doesn't leave the house. I had printed some PLA+ rings to use on cardboard spools for my Bambu AMS as it doesn't like cardboards spools. I forgot about them and put the ASA roll equipped with the PLA+ edge covers in my Sunlu S2 filament drier and they warped to the point they were unusable. Had to chuck them in the trash so I reprinted them in PETG. A lot of other folks have printed Inkor's tanks and had them warp just sitting in a hot garage when printed in PLA. PLA+ is a bit of a mystery because not every PLA+ is created the same from each manufacturer. There is no standard for PLA+. It may have better heat deflection or it may actually be worse that regular PLA depending on what the manufacturer did to make it "+".

[tank_me]

Got some more work done on it today before work.

First I magnetized the lower hull. It was a little more difficult than some as the lower plastic bosses in the front were pretty short. I had to cut a little off the tow hooks before I could glue them in. I also removed the front hooks as they will probably dig into the dirt when running the tank. I may add some removable 3D printed ones later.

Front magnets:



Rear magnets:


I didn't like the look of the fake rubber skirts so I 3D printed some TPU skirts as replacements. The skirt pieces I printed are 1mm thick which might be a little thicker than I'd like, but I can always print more later. Each piece also has a thinner mounting tab used to glue it to the back of the armor skirt. I had to remove the fake piece so I scored along the seem line and bent them off using a needle nose pliers. Quick and simple with minimal cleanup.


Pulled out the razor chopper and cut them into 40mm sections. The sections on the slat armor and the first and last 40mm section were printed with an angle per the real ones.




Just used some CA to attach them and they looked like this from the inside:



Not a fan of the Philips screws that came with everything to mount the dangling balls and the engine grate so I replaced them with mini bolts:



Continued in next post...

[tank_me]

And the final results:


That's all for now...

[Handy Lance]

Sweet, I love the micro hardware we can get. What an age we live in😂😮💨

I’m am finding these tanks really fun to work on.

[tank_me]

Sweet, I love the micro hardware we can get. What an age we live in😂😮💨

I’m am finding these tanks really fun to work on.

Yeah, I get most of my scale metal bolts from this place as they are one of the only ones that does it in the US: https://model-motorcars.myshopify.co...parts-hardware

The only issue is that they are REALLY slow to ship. I think it was three weeks from order until delivery the last time I ordered from them.