Rex Ross

Thank you Count Chocula! I have been following your 250 project with great interest and appreciation of your efforts to "make it work". I love to see projects like this and this one is of special interest to me. Your work has inspired me to think about resurrecting and redoing a motorized 251 I did years ago. Batteries and a motor only, ya turned it on, put it down, and it went wherever it wanted to, sometimes in a straight line. It could make turns, if it ran into a rock. The suspension and track came from a 1/24 motorized German tank of some sort made by Tamiya (I think) years ago. I hope I can redo mine as well as you have done yours. This is what I have to work with. Thanks again![sm=thumbs_up.gif]

bullyhys

Hi guys,

When I did my 251 track conversion, I found that the metal tracks wouldn't flex enough to stay on the sprockets

Bullyhys

bullyhys

Count,

Looks awsome indeed!

I hopes you have enough room to stuff in all the electronics and such

very cool sir


bullyhys

CountChocula

Hi Rex,

Nice looking 251. Looking at your suspension, it reminds me of the 1/24th Academy Panther/Jagpanther kit. I have one and it looks just like it really.

I'm still debating on cutting off the road wheels and fashioning some sort off sprung suspension. As it stands right now, it's just the stock fixed attached wheels. It's "ok", but I'd like to see it sprung. The vehicle is also a little wider than it should be in terms of scale, but, in the interest of using that gearbox and for greater stability, I left it as is for now. Our DAK field has alot of elevation changes so wider may come in handy it doesn't tip so easily. With a turret, it will be taller.

Dave

CountChocula

Thanks bullyhys,

That's a very good point you bring up about the electronics. I believe I can pull it off but it will indeed be tight. I may use a small size (physical) battery along with a 360 degree servo for turret rotation. These things will help save room. I'm also leaving the width alone for now. Had I cut it down to scale, I would have lost even more room.

I'm taking this build approach in 3 major phases really. Tracks (rear half), front wheels (steering/suspension), then turret. Sure there are other components like the electronics and other modelling work to do, but those are the "major" components if you will.

Your half-tracks have inspired all of us who have given this a try! So thanks for all the pics and advice.

Dave

Rex Ross

~~~~~~~~

I'm sure you are right about mine being an Academy kit, my memory is ..............Gee, I forgot what I was going to say.........

Everything about mine is "close enough" to 1/16 to make me happy. The paint job was done by a ladyfriend of a tanker friend, I like it, but I have no idea if it is correct for a 251.

CountChocula

Here's my first attempt at the steering. Using some 3/16 brass tubing, flat brass strips along with some odds and ends. I still have some reinforcing to do so along with adding the servo and linkage.

Rex Ross

Here's my first attempt at the steering. Using some 3/16 brass tubing, flat brass strips along with some odds and ends. I still have some reinforcing to do so along with adding the servo and linkage.
Count Chocula

~~~~~~~~~~

Your steering work has convinced me to try working with brass, it really looks good. So far I have always made steering parts out of plastic. In order to get some strength, the plastic had to be kinda thick. and looked way out of scale, toy like. Brass is a much better material for strength and scale . I will have to get a selection of brass sizes/shapes and experiment.

Rex

CountChocula

I decided to reinforce my steering knuckle assembly by encasing it in JB Weld! I have no doubts that it will hold.

I then fashioned a connecting rod system using left over 1/16th rod stock, and cutting up some clear plastic strips from a radio frequency clip from my old FM radio. Works perfectly so far.

smittyrob

I made mine completely out of brass parts, after originally trying to make the parts with styrene which resulted in a clunky appearance. Next time I won't bother making the leaf spring parts and just the axle.

CountChocula

Your's is so far beyond cool it's not funny!

I saw your pics on another thread and am simply amazed. Does yours actually provide any kind of real "sprung" functionality? or is the scale too small for it to really function as a a sprung suspension?

Dave

smittyrob

If you push on the spring it does flex a bit, but like you said scale is too small, the halftrack is too light to make it actually work.
The whole thing is pretty solid but I'm not sure if it's up to a lot of punishing use. I'm planning on making 2 more but will make them a bit simpler next time.
I like working with brass, only I hate when I have to make more than one part looking exactly the same.

CountChocula

Well I can't wait to see your next version of the all brass suspension. I wouldn't mind going that route as well for future builds if it's simple enough to learn.

CountChocula

I cut out the oil pan, made a bracket, then mounted a small servo. Added the connecting rod and now I have steering.

I tested it on carpet by fixing the wheels in a turn and hooking up a small 3 AA battery box. It has issues biting but once I added some weigh to the front (I laid a 7.2 stick pack across the front fenders!), it turned perfectly. So weight will definitely be needed if using front wheel steering only.

CountChocula

Had issues loading pics... here's more.

CountChocula

Haven't had too much time to work on the HT, but I've begun some body work on the rear portion. I need to get a sense of how much room I'll actually have for electronics and such.

CountChocula

My first pass at the steering solution didn't work out so well after field testing at the last battle day. I modified it once again also using a different servo horn as a result. If this also fails, I have some steering knuckles from a cheap RC car that I can make work if needed.

Another challenging area is that of the battery. In order to deal with space considerations (without considering LiPo), I've serially wired 3 2-AAA Nimh battery boxes together. Using 6 900 mAH batteries, I'm able to achieve 7.2v and hope to be able to get in a couple of battles at least before they drain. Since I'm conserving energy by not using a flash unit along with smaller motors/gearboxes, I'm hoping this solution works. Besides, I have extra rechargeable batteries I can pop in at the field plus even alkalines can be used in an emergency (although they'd drain alot quicker).

Dave

1sgt

Can you tell us the other thread as I would like to see how he built the front suspension.

Jim

1sgt

Hope you guys keep posting as this is real interesting. I have one of the 21st Century PZ IV that took a header from the shelf and is pretty much spare detail parts for my HL tanks. I now have a use for the gearbox and motors. Thanks guys and please keep posting with pics.

Jim

1sgt

PS, can you guys provide some sites that offer the 1/18 scale half tracks.

Thanks again.

Jim

CountChocula

The other thread I was rerferring to was http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_10...m.htm#10039699 where I first saw Smittyrob's brass front suspension.

I picked up my two 1/18th Hanomag's off of ebay.

Dave

ksoc

I've had good luck with this site in the past. Scroll down to 1:18 Scale Armor.

http://www.aikensairplanes.com/21stcentury.htm

SteelFist

This is a fine build that you are doing, can I ask, do you know if any one has tried Kit bashing the WSN US Halftrack for its running gear & Rc to fit into one of these SdKfz 250s ?

CountChocula

SteelFist,

I don't actually know if anyone else has tried converting a 251 into a 250. The US halftracks running gear is quite different than the German halftracks as well so it could be a challenge to use it. I like using the PzIII tracks since I can control the amount of links needed to work for me. I could be wrong, the the US halftrack's track is a solid rubber band type of track. Since I had to cut the rear two road wheels off, I had to throw out the stock track and use one with links in order to shorted it.

Dave

SteelFist

I think your track set up is spot on, I was more interested in the WSNs motor set up for driving the 250s tracks/sprockets and if the servo /steering gear for the front wheels could be shoe horned into the 250 ?