Frank, Thank you for your comments. You really have a lot of good ideas. You mention the TTS design. I am not familiar with that and I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of some reading on that. I also liked your suggestion of just making a well designed interlocking tread from the beginning. The reason I liked using the roller chain is it added strength to the track and allowed me to use very common drive sprockets. One idea I toyed around with was removing the chain and building a pinned tread that still meshed with roller chain sprockets. Do you think this is practical? You mentioned a 'properly designed drive cog' in your post. I realize that a roller chain sprocket is not designed for driving track, but what differences are there between a roller chain sprocket and a drive cog.
Thanks for the input from everyone. josh On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 9:57:26 AM UTC-5, Frank Pittelli wrote: > > Looks like a sweet ride Doug. > > There's one important aspect about your track design that you failed to > mention: the rigidity of the 90 degree angle between the chain and the > tread. If that angle is not held rigid over the life of the track, the > probability of throwing a track goes up. Attachment links significantly > increase the rigidity and therefore the reliability of the track. > Personally, I think that your attachment chain design is as good as a > chain-based design can get. End of evolution. > > The performance of the TTS design is legendary and well-proven on the > battlefield (which makes all other R/C tests look like kindergarten > projects). Will's and Doug's attachment chain designs are also > seasoned. Not as good as TTS, but definitely battlefield approved. > Basically, the last category in track designs that hasn't been fully > explored is self-linked treads. > > If you're going with 3D printing for prototypes and injection molding > for production, you might as well design an interlocking tread that can > be pinned together just like the real thing. When used with a properly > designed drive cog and guide tooth, you would never throw a track. > Moreover, a cleverly designed set of parts could be used to make a wide > array of different tracks. Single-tooth, double-tooth, offset tooth, > narrow, medium and wide tracks could all be built using the same > elemental parts. If you combine the pioneering work done by Garnet for > T011 with 3D printing and modern injection molding, I think the result > could be successfully battle-tested and used on a wide-variety of > vehicles. > > Loic and FoA have pushed that frontier further along with their scale > metal track links, but I don't think the evolution is done and a > semi-scale version in plastic would be greatly appreciated in many > different R/C worlds. > > On 2/6/2015 11:14 PM, Doug Conn wrote: > > Here’s the new tank I’ll test them on. The hull is mechanically > > finished. I just need to wire it, add tracks, and try everything out. > -- -- You are currently subscribed to the "R/C Tank Combat" group. To post a message, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] Visit the group at http://groups.google.com/group/rctankcombat --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R/C Tank Combat" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
