An update on my alternate track for the Printrbot Tank. The Play was fine printing track links but I switched to my CTC to print them in groups of 4 and 8. I needed to try all kinds of orientations but in the end 50% infill and vertical worked best, with a skirt and raft. I figure I need something like 30 per side. The fit is perfect. All I want to decide now is whether I use threaded rod to keep the links together or print up a bunch of M5 sized pins. Oh and to make it work I cut the side skirts in half to print thm without warping.
Looking Good! Just one question. How will you adjust tension on the tracks?
@Jimmy_Edwards , the way the chassis is laid out, one motor goes up front (because I am using some giant motors I pulled from an InkJet printer), and one goes in back. The opening for the idler is an eliptical slot. I have about 10mm of adjustment on each side to move the idler axle by default. If I need more my dremel will give me what I need but more than likely I would remove a link if I had to make the slot longer since it is pretty close to the edge of the chassis.
@Samer_Najia Nicely done! Please keep posting as you progress.
Say that when it is done…hehehehehehe…printing the next set of links as we speak. So…screws/threaded rod or plastic pins? Or even hollow brass rod?
Awesome that you got it working!! I remember seeing some drag chain that was printed and press fit together in a similar way. I don’t know if it could hold up like your system will but it might be worth a shot. I might have to print one of those guys:-)
As soon as I am done I will post the files. The tracked system is not my design, I just adapted it and scaled it up to 161% (the magic number) from a Thigiverse design. You do need to paint the tracks with XTC 3D pr similar because I already wrecked 2 of them trying to clean them up since I printed them with the long side vertical.
I wonder how much trouble I’d get into if I submitted this to the DARPA weapons contest after I added a pan tilt turret to it. My motors, BTW work with 18V using 2 ordinary 9V batteries and a MotorAir board running 2 motors off my phone via BT. I got the Tiny Sine folks to get me a copy of the app that allows multiple instances so that I can run 2 or more MotorAirs but run each pair of motors totally independently on my Galaxy Note 4
I’m thinking threaded rod. That way you can use a nut on each end to stop it from working it’s way out over time while running.
That’s what I was thinking too, or suitably sized screw and locknut.
Update: 16 links printed, Tamiya Gearbox is here and the M6 Nylon threaded screws are almost here. Assembly next.