Sizing things up

 

 

Have tacked the top on the turret base so i can get it alinged to put in the tabs to screw the top.
Seam welded the top and ground it back down to close to finish.

Here you can see the base after i have seam welded it, it eat alot of weld to fill aound the slew plate

Tis is the PC for controlling the turret

Have made up the base for the turret, this will support the batteries and PC, main gun etc.
It will have tabs that will allow me to screw the top on to make it easier t access the inside of the turret

Have cut a new top skin for the turret as the last 1mm one was to thin and was flexing to much.
New one is cut from 1.6mm which is surprisingly strong.
Have also added vents along the back to help with cooling the ATOM PC that will be inside under the back blast covers.

Have had the new sides folded with a 4mm set to help them stay straight along there bottom edge

The 4mm set also gives the look of it being thicker and more solid

this is one of the new sides with the orrigional one under it

Right heres the final version of teh surspension i believe (well i bloody hope so anyway)

Unit as cut on machine, managed use as much material as possible

Surspension V2.0 with its older (and bigger) brother V1.0

Trimmed the fat :)

Have tested the Rack and Pinion suspension and it can carry up to about a 10kg load max, that gives me an all up waight max of 120kg which really should not be an issue but i would perfer to have a bit more head room so i found some off the shelf springs that are slightly larger wire size, the down side was that they are twice as long as what was needed, so in the cutter they go and 30 sec's later i have two springs for the price of one :)
I installed this into the prototype and these ones take up to 14kg no issue so that gives me an all up load of 168kg max, this is working on only the back 12 road wheels being load bearing.
I have redisgned the prototype and will hopefully be able to cut a set out today so will post pics once i have them.

I have also been busy working on the road wheels and have found some plastic pipe the perfect size for the wheels and getting some steel tube cut to length as well for the hubs.

Still waiting on the new side panels to come back from teh folder but hopefully they should be in early next week.

Have added the front guards and started brazing the joints between the panels.

Have recut the side skirts and sent them to the benders to get a 4mm u bend on the botom of them to add strength, it will also make them look heaver then it is.

Have started work on testing the suspension system.
Have made a prototype which seems to work great, bit more testing to confirm it can take the weight.

Have tacked all the panels onto the hull and tested it with the side skirts.Now have to grind the panels back and clean up the edges.

Am going to cut new side skirts and look at putting a right angle bend at teh bottom to streghten the sides more.

Front and rear lids removed, these bolt in place so i can gain access to motors, batteries etc

Have cut out the front and back covers and started to get them into shape to fit them, there are two access hatches, one into the front of the hull the other into the back were the motors, batteries and speedcontroller will be

The whole front comes off so that there is easy access into the front of the hull, this is 1.6mm Mild steel

You can see the back panel that still needs to be bent, then the outside part will be welded in place and the hatch will be screwed

Have confirmed the sets i need for these parts to fit nicely, now i just have to do teh other side :)

Started looking at doing the skin on the hull and realised that if i weld the sides that are on the outside of the tracks it will make life very hard when it comes to work on the road wheels, tracks or motors so have made up small brackets that run down the side, these will allow the top covers to be welded and the sides can be screwed on and off

Bracket that will run down each side

here you can see the holes that have been tapped to allow the sides to be screwed in place

Installed motors, batteries and speed controllers to confirm placment and that they all fit ok.
Have to cut a new bracket to hold motors as they are sticking out the side to much so will be moving motors in 15mm each.
Confirmed placement for Batteries and drawn up bulkheads to reinforce bottom

Motors go in from outside as there is only about 5mm between them

They go in upside down so that the cables and the clutch can go through the access hole

Batteries in were they will stay and motors bolted in

There is going to be a bulkhead between the speed controller (black box) and the motors which the speed controller will attache to

Batteries sit just about right up to the turret, this is to try and bring the waight forward, There will most likely be a couple of smaller batteries in the front to power the computer, wireless etc

Finished most of the 4mm parts and desided to reinforce the front some more as it will have alot of tension from the tracks.
Have also cut the 10mm bracket for the turret to pivot on.
Weilded it all up and its coming up good, few more bits to make before i can skin the rest of it as I need to make sure i have access int the front and back areas of the hull.

Must thank AWS for the use of there waterjet in cutting this all out

Have also cut most of teh 4mm steel parts for the hull and the turret nest

4mm Mild Steel parts cut ready for assembly

Turret nest, this goes down into the hull under the turret and will have a piece of 3mm teflon as a skid plate

This is the swivel on the bottom of the nest, this allows data between the turret and hull and still allows 360 deg movement

This is the hull with a few of teh bulkheads in, there is still a 1mm skin to be cut and attached

Nest in the hull

Time to start weilding