rc 3d printing tank store on E bay

[Ariete55]

Has anyone had any experience with the EBay seller: rc 3d printing tank store? This seller has several 3D printed tanks for sale on his website.through E bay. I would appreciate any input or comments you may have.

[Rubicon99]

Has anyone had any experience with the EBay seller: rc 3d printing tank store? This seller has several 3D printed tanks for sale on his website.through E bay. I would appreciate any input or comments you may have.

Basically they are designs he prints from Cult 3D which are from a Ukrainian designer.

They need a bit of finishing work and are NOT good for anything more then indoor use. Nowhere as durable as a HL or other factory build tank.

Just understand you are buying more less a shelf Queen with no spare parts availability.

[SoCalBobS]

One of our club members bought a Japanese Type 95 from them. 3D printed texture of course, but complete with motors, gears, servos and assembled tracks. No electronics. Not strong enough for outdoor battling, but some unique models. The seller states a ~40 day turnaround. I put in an order for a Soviet t-26 light tank, should get it late June. When it arrives, I'll share info here. I wouldn't get large tanks, as 3D printing gets frailer as the subject gets bigger.

[tank_me]

Seller: As previously stated the seller is not the designer of the tanks he sells. He takes designs from a number of designers. Some of the designers have allowed him to use their designs (like Inkor the Ukrainian guy) through a license deal, others have not (like Warprints) which means he's printing them without permission. Sometimes he asks permission to print someone else's design after being caught printing it without permission.

Quality: Typically they are printed in PLA which has a low glass transition temp resulting in tanks that can warp in the sun. People have said that if asked he will print in other materials. Reports of quality are all over the place. Some have said the tanks were decent and other say the quality of the printing is quite low. "Decent" is the highest praise I've heard. No one says the print quality is excellent.

Parts: First hand reports from people that have had broken parts during the initial shipment say that he has sent out replacement parts. I can't say whether or not he will continue to do that after the initial sale. I wouldn't personally recommend people buy tanks where they can't get replacement parts. If you don't have a 3D printer, getting parts will be more difficult. You can usually buy the printable files from places like Cults3D so that you have access to the files to create your own spare parts, but that is an additional expense on top of the printed vehicle. That is only an option if you can find the base files the seller is printing from as it is unclear where some of the designs are coming from. I know the seller has also modified some of the designs to make them RC capible.

Durability: 3D printed tanks can be more fragile than mass produced ones, but they aren't necessarily shelf queens. If it's the Maus, it will be a shelf queen as the Maus is poor German design and in practice it runs poorly in real life as a 3D printed tank. I know because I have printed one and tried to get it to run decently, but it still doesn't. In the case of my Kranvagn that I printed, it has been abused and other than minor repairs it has been run decently hard during battle days performing quite well on it's 3D printed sprockets and resin printed tracks. I definitely don't run my tanks quite as hard as Rubicon99 does. :) I also tend to modify the files to add things like ball bearings to extend the life of idlers and road wheels. I also design and print my own gear shaft support bearing holders which add additional support for the shafts holding the sprockets. The E100 that I printed is looking like it will be quite durable. The interleaved printed torsion bar suspension runs quite smoothly.

Would I buy one?

That's really up to the individual. If you have really high expectations, I wouldn't. If you want a tank that none of the major manufacturers make, then maybe. Just don't expect it to be perfect and expect you will probably need to do a bunch of work on it if you want it to not look like a 3D printed tank.

[tank_me]

One of our club members bought a Japanese Type 95 from them. 3D printed texture of course, but complete with motors, gears, servos and assembled tracks. No electronics. Not strong enough for outdoor battling, but some unique models. The seller states a ~40 day turnaround. I put in an order for a Soviet t-26 light tank, should get it late June. When it arrives, I'll share info here. I wouldn't get large tanks, as 3D printing gets frailer as the subject gets bigger.

It's been my experience that the smaller the tank, the smaller the parts, the more fragile the parts are, and the less durable it is. The Type 95 is also so small that it doesn't use standard HL gearboxes which is one of the reasons it probably doesn't run that well. The T26 he sells was designed by Banshee350 on Cults3d and uses geared 370 motors. I've printed one and it actually runs quite well, but I'm running mine on HL PZ3 tracks which helps and all of the running gear is running on bearings. My printed US T29 runs great and it's a very large tank in 1/16. My 1/6th scale M3 Stuart is 3D printed and larger than my 1/10 Jagdpanzer.