First off I want to thank everyone for the help in the design so far. The feedback has been great and being able to get answers to some questions has really pushed my design forward. I have done some redesign and was curious about peoples thoughts. I looked through the various links and that gave me some inspiration. So this new design is still similar and still uses standard roller chain. There is a tread that is molded over two pins. These pins replace the pins that are pressed into roller chain. I have talked with a roller chain manufacturer and they said they would be willing to sell me assembled chain parts if I got them in large enough quantities.
I also designed a replacement roller chain plate that has the horn feature built into it. What I really like about this is it becomes an option. If you want horns you put the horned plate on, if you dont you use a standard roller chain plate. That also lets me make changes to the horned plate without scrapping the whole design. I had a few questions about the horns. These links are 3" wide, about how tall should the horn protrude? What width between the horns would be best? and what angle should the horn have to push the boogie back in place. Anyone have thoughts on those questions. I was also planning on using a threaded rod and nylock nuts to hold the chain on. This would work okay, but finding a standard bolt that matches the roller chain is tough. For #35 a 6-32 fits really well. But other sizes don't fit as well. So I got the idea from FOA to use a headless pin and snap rings. But when you start looking at snap rings the common sizes dont match up very well. I have a few quotes out to snap ring manufactures to see if they have an of the shelf size that matches better then what I can find quickly. But then it hit me. Master Links for chain have this snap ring already and it is designed to hold chain together. So I am gonna call my roller chain person tomorrow and talk with him about being able to buy only the snap ring part of the master links. If they will sell me the chain unassembled, I don't see why they would not sell me the snap ring too. I am going to 3d print some of the horned link plates tomorrow at work and put them on my models just for testing. I will post photos then. Attached are some pictures from the CAD package, a few quick renderings and a short video of the assembly process. <https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w3pFLbgK18s/VNmfAHCfOHI/AAAAAAAABZU/HeiNltTpk7w/s1600/Track2.JPG> <https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-g5gCeHeKrqs/VNmfDwIk78I/AAAAAAAABZc/I5tPp9_UisY/s1600/Track_Rendered.JPG> <https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-YbD5kAXOdYk/VNmfFnvN_EI/AAAAAAAABZk/1cflo4EBWIo/s1600/Track_Rendered%2Bexpoded.JPG> <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MVZzZjY-mzU/VNmfMFJRd-I/AAAAAAAABZs/KrMSSfM0l5U/s1600/Link2.avi> <https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-KaxXTtJhxzs/VNme5mj09LI/AAAAAAAABZM/ckR-ip0UMgE/s1600/Track.JPG> -- -- 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.
