Tank Track 2in, Track, grousers, sprockets

thingiverse

Tank tracks are a remix/redesign of Thingiverse 163486. Tank tracks are redesigned to work with these sprockets and has a different track pitch of .775". Use brad nails (listed in instruction) to hold the track together. Tracks are 2" wide and I have tested them to hold up with Brushless motors and Lipo batteries printed at 20% fill. I tried 11 different design changes before finally getting these right and they hold up far better than I ever expected. It was a lot of fun trying to break them! Tracks can be used with or without grouser bars. Grouser bars give excellent traction (except on smooth concrete!) and no metal contact with surface (unless you wear the grouser down to screw). There are holes in the flat surface of track to mount grousers. Drive sprockets are designed to work with ServoCity .770" hubs. This should make it very easy to get drive motors, gears and shafts to run track. You can design your own tank or see my things for all of the 3D printed suspension, gear boxes, idler wheels, frame rail drawings, body and electrical parts to build a complete tank from 1/8"x1 1/2" flat aluminum rails and metal angle brackets. Some of the pictures have Vee's built into the track for traction, the tank just ripped them off. Grouser bars work much better and way more traction. The tank in the picture has 94, 3D printed track segments, 47 per side. There are two YouTube Videos of tank project. One video with dual Tamia/Mabuchi RS540 motors controlled with Sabertooth 2x12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRz3TS2hO10 The other video is a 120 second gear box meltdown with Traxxas 38,800rpm Velineon 3500 brushless motors VXL-3s ESC and Dual 3S Lipo batteries, I figured the gearing I have, tank does about 11mph. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlbDo2PSruk The tracks hold up really well. Just added a Tank Track that is 1.94" wide, same as remix track, so you can stay the same width if you have already started. Also added a grouser drill guide to drill holes in track in the right place for grouser bars. Update: There are more pictures of the tank in the photo gallery at fastmiketanks.com. Update: Have updated Kyosho Gear boxes 2694014 and different suspension arms and wheels 2699624 for this tank in my things. There are also CNC machined frame kits, motor rails and parts on ebay under the same name, to help you build a working tank. Instructions Tank tracks will need raft and support. To put track together I used Home Depot Everbilt #15 x 1 1/2" wire brad nails. Drill the narrow ears to .076" #48 drill bit. Drill the wide ears to .073" # 49 drill bit. Push wire brad through and snip left over with dikes. Be careful not to split the ears with nail, or track will not hold up to abuse. Use different size bit if split. You will want to lightly file where ears mate to make them smoother running. Drive sprocket A will need raft and full support. Drive sprocket B no raft or support. These are designed to use ServoCity .770" hubs with 6-32 socket head bolts. Drive sprocket A is designed to use a pair of #216 o-rings on both sides of the gear for quieter running. To make the tracks work smooth and with less effort, lay track down on table, roll the sprocket back and forth in the track, it will leave rub marks on the gear from nails. Lightly file those rub marks down with flat Nicholson hobby file until the gear lets go of the track smoothly. Take round file and clean up the nail slot in the gear. Only enough to get it to run nice and smooth. Grouser bars will print without raft or support. You will want to drill the screw holes on the tank track to .093" #42 bit or 3/32" bit. Use #4 x 3/8" phillips pan head sheet metal screws to hold grousers to track.