GoldenBlood99

Hello everyone,

I'm not new to rc cars or tanks at all but this aspect i am new to. I'm doing an engineering college course and I have managed to convince them to allow me to make a personal project for my course work. This would be a scale model of the Warhammer 40k rhino, which I felt with its fairly simple design would be a fun task to make. This have some challenges with it, like the track needing to run around the door in a tight space.
I do have some parts already at hand that i can use from my dads old heng long Tiger 1, which I'll be stealing the motors, gears and all the other electronics.
I have a large concern though. The tank I'm making is very large (nearly 2 feet long) and made of aluminium, so my concern is that the motors and gears would not be strong enough to pull it along (30kg(exaggerated somewhat but i do have plans to add things to it as time goes on so didnt want to just have enough power to just move it))
My current questions are:
If the motors arent powerful enough to move it along, is it just a simple case of replacing them with brushless motors or just larger motors?
What would be a suitable replacement for the motors and gears that will be able to pull it along?

Dusty Steppes

I don't know what your budget is but I would suggest looking into the transmissions and motors available from ETO Armor.

tankme

Most of the tanks at R/C Tank Combat - The Ultimate Tactical Warfare Game are hand built. There are tons of ideas on how to make tracks, different sizes of motors, and construction techniques. Surplus conveyor chains can be bought on Ebay cheaply to make tracks from companies like Rexnord and Intralox. I found this one and they would probably take less for it: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Morse-LW-84...x/162043505011. That track is 2" wide, but conveyor chain comes in lots of different widths. Some of those conveyor chains like that use standard ANSI sprockets to drive them. That one looks to be 40P chain and would use 40P sprockets. www.surpluscenter.com has a huge variety of sprockets and shafts for cheap prices. A tank that is over 2ft. long will probably be too much weight for the Heng Long electronics. Tracks big enough for that vehicle can start getting heavy. You will be better off using something like a Sabertooth dual ESC. It will have built in track mixing so you can drive the tank on one stick: https://www.dimensionengineering.com...sabertooth2x25. Or the other option is to buy two seperate ESCs and use a mixing circuit like: https://www.ebay.com/itm/HOBBYWING-V...kAAOSwcwhVOfGi.

sevoblast

Link to etoarmor transmission on eto site:

https://etoarmor.com/?product_cat=et...ns-made-by-eto

Warehouse is in Maryland.

Crius

If the finished tank is going to weigh 30 kilos I don't think that 1/16 scale gearboxes will do the job. I just built a 1/6 scale hetzer that weighs a little bit more than that and I used scooter motors with a chain drive. If you want more info on that system I can probably get you a link to my thread or video.

tankme

Chain drive is much more forgiving for larger models. I use scooter motors with chain drive in my paintball tanks:

Crius

That's very similar to what I did in my Hetzer.

sevoblast

My transmissions were bench tested as a winch by an institute and they stopped at 37.4 pounds of weight. Nothing was damaged during the tests.

Crius

Those gear boxes are pretty robust for a 1/16 tank, but I think the OPs tank will be closer to 30 kilos than 30 pounds.

sevoblast

Testing Institute said that's where they quit, not the max my units will take. And, that was literally lifting that weight using my unit as a winch attached to a bench. Don't know what his rolling resistance will be so can't make a judgement, but doubt it will be 30 kilos per centimeter.