Augustus1967

Yes Sir!

Love the FT... and hope to do one down the road.

I'll be watching...

-gus

M1A2 Commander

Awesome work fellow tanker, your paint work is great Dave. Can't wait to see a running video of this tank!

CountChocula

Hey thanks a lot guys I appreciate the kind words. Finding time to work on this project has been a challenge, but I sneak in time when I can Here's a pic of the FT hooked up to the TK35. I don't have everything hooked up here but most of it for testing. Everything should fit quite nicely. The LiPo pack is only for testing and came off my armored car. I may use a smaller one for room purposes.

Dave

CountChocula

A little progress on the FT.

Mounted the elevation servo plus getting ready to mount the turret traverse to turret. Both elevation and traverse are Hitec HS55 micro servos so you get an idea of the amount of room to work with in this turret. Here some pics.

CountChocula

Meant to post these too...

Pzjgr

Looking good. Can't wait to see a video of it in acton.

Jeff489

My Feedback: (12)

Looks great. FYI, if you need more room, you can open up the Orange RX and just wrap the board with some electrical tape. I did that and it worked fine. Gives you some more room!

CountChocula

Thanks Duane, I'm anxious to get this thing all put together. I'll try to take a vid once its actually working.

Jeff funny you should mention that, the top half of the orange receiver actually fell off when I was plugging in the TK cables. I may just do as you suggest and also pull the button piece off as well. I thought about leaving it exposed and simply use the servo tape to mount it to the side of the hull. May mount the TK board in the same fashion. My guess is servo tape is non-conductive.

Thanks for the advice,

Dave

CountChocula

After trying out a number of micro servos, I ended up settling on a full size servo for the turret traverse. The reason being is the gearing was much lower allowing for slower more realistic turns. The smaller servos acted very twitchy with the Clark board for some reason and couldnt get them to turn slowly. I had considered soldering some resistors or adding a pot, but I had so many of those Futaba S3004's laying around, I just went ahead and opened it up, converted it to 360 rotation then bypassed the curcuit board and soldered directly to the servo motor. It rotates very nicely now. Given the limited space inside and now adding a full size servo, I found a more creative

CountChocula

The problem with using an iPhone to make posts!

I found a creative place to mount the Clark board. Right up under the top deck! Here are some pics.

CountChocula

Another pic...

CountChocula

All that's left now is mounting the power switch and the TBU plug in the turret roof and I should be all set. I was able to drive it around the carpet/floor tonight and it worked pretty well. The track sometimes snags in reverse and I think it's because it's coming off the large idlers in the front. I may have a slight alignment issue causing this but it only does it in reverse. I can easily pull off the running gear since its external to the hull and correct this. Here are a few more pics.

Pzjgr

Looks great! You did a fantastic job. Lets hope it doesn't need to be pushed around after taking one hit

Panther F

She's a beaut Dave.

Now for the icing on the cake, a video? Now THAT I need to see!






Jeff

CountChocula

Thanks a lot Duane... I think it will still move with one hit... I think (or hope), like Tamiya electronics, light tanks with only one hit left have more power than medium and heavy settings. Or at least it seems that way to me having played with all settings before.

Thanks a lot Jeff. I have a hard enough time getting pictures to come up straight... but I'll give a video a try once I get it all put together. Hope you get to your FT soon... although I know you probably have too many irons in the fire as it is.

Dave

CountChocula

Mounted the TBU base and and added some of the modeling detail items such as the exhaust, tools and some other odds and ends. I haven't mounted the trench tail as its still drying but except for that, decals, and maybe some weathering (although sometimes I like that factory fresh look!), it's pretty much done. I have tested the battle system against my T34 which is using Tamiya electronics and it fires and receives hits just fine. It also is able to move ok with one hit left albeit slowly. I question how well those model tracks will last on our tough DAK field but we'll see. I have some 350 mAh LiPo nano tech batteries coming that should fit ok through the front hatches for removing for charging.

Here are some more pics. Sorry if the pics are too large or upside down. This phone and I do not get along!

Dave

YHR

Your use of servos is something I have been playing with as well. I bought some continuous turn servos, and with these you can bypass the tank controller if you want and let you receiver do the work. A continuous turn servo does not return to neutral when the stick does. This makes it great for turret rotation and gun elevation applications.

Great looking tank. It would be great to see this posed with a Tiger or Pershing to understand how little this tank is.

Cheers

MAUS45

Dan what brand and where did you get your "Continuous Turn" servos? Thanks, Rudy

CountChocula

Thanks Dan,

I'm a believer in the 360 degree rotation servos. The smaller ones need slowed down a bit maybe through gearing, resistors or possible camera position controllers. But I love using them and they're easy to convert as well.

David vs Goliath
http://www.desertarmor.com/DAK_Event...6-2014.html#23

mordock999

Magnificent Work! I had plans to R/C My FT 17 but may Pass. Thanks for Sharing YOUR efforts, Though.
Very Well Done!

CountChocula

Hey thanks alot Morsock999. I think it could be a decent little battler assuming the tracks hold. There are some options of using metal dozed tracks perhaps, but that would also stress the gearbox depending on what you're using. I hope you RC yours someday as I'd like to see how you put it together. I'm always looking to improve my tanks so the more builds out there the better.

Dave

CountChocula

Dan, one issue one may have using a continuous servo and bypassing the tank controller when using a Clark board is you may lose the elevation function. I tried bypassing the board but I lost elevation since it also uses the same left/right contol on the same stick. I tried using a Y splitter but that didnt work either.

TB2

Nice work on the FT Dave! I like the camo and the magnets are a clever touch.
I'd like to ask a question if I may. I too have the Takom kit, painted the engine and wasn't happy with the job so I stripped it with alternate treatments of Easy Off oven cleaner and Pine Sol. This has always yielded good results, but I airbrushed the engine first with Vallejo primer and it's proven stubborn to completely remove. I'm wondering if you happened to keep your engine parts and if so would you consider parting with them?

Thanks, Barry

CountChocula

PM sent

TB2

Dave, have you thought of RC'ing Takom's 1/35 scale St. Chamond?