I remember Command and Conquer was one of the first computer games i played on the PC, and one of the most iconic units in the game was the mammoth tank. As a kid, I used to wish i had a toy version of that.
I came across this article online about making a crawler using two hacked continuous servos (http://flitetest.com/articles/diy-servo-driven-rover) and i decided to make one. I made two of the continuous servos and connected them to the aileron and elevator channels of a spare 6 channel receiver and powered the set up with a UBEC. All these were housed in a clear plastic food container.
Using elevon mix, the crawler can move forward, reverse and turn by turning both servos forward, backwards or in opposite directions, similar to how a set of tank threads work.
With the crawler made, i begin to wonder what i can do with it. As the controls resemble that of a tank i decided to make the crawler resemble a mammoth tank.
Using foam and corrugated plastic board the tank chassis was build up around the container. Another servo was connected to the rudder channel and used to rotate a turret fixed to the top of the food container. The design is such that i can remove the lid of the food container and swap in another lid with different design or equipment (think FPV?).
Details like the antennas, railings, missile pods were added using tic tat boxes, foam and plastic sticks from cotton swabs.
Head lights and tail lights were also added using a modded aircraft light kit connected to a spare channel in the receiver.
So that's the progress of this project so far. Hope to add another servo to raise and lower the guns, but i have run out of model memory on my transmitter so this add on will be further down the road.
I came across this article online about making a crawler using two hacked continuous servos (http://flitetest.com/articles/diy-servo-driven-rover) and i decided to make one. I made two of the continuous servos and connected them to the aileron and elevator channels of a spare 6 channel receiver and powered the set up with a UBEC. All these were housed in a clear plastic food container.
Using elevon mix, the crawler can move forward, reverse and turn by turning both servos forward, backwards or in opposite directions, similar to how a set of tank threads work.
With the crawler made, i begin to wonder what i can do with it. As the controls resemble that of a tank i decided to make the crawler resemble a mammoth tank.
Using foam and corrugated plastic board the tank chassis was build up around the container. Another servo was connected to the rudder channel and used to rotate a turret fixed to the top of the food container. The design is such that i can remove the lid of the food container and swap in another lid with different design or equipment (think FPV?).
Details like the antennas, railings, missile pods were added using tic tat boxes, foam and plastic sticks from cotton swabs.
Head lights and tail lights were also added using a modded aircraft light kit connected to a spare channel in the receiver.
So that's the progress of this project so far. Hope to add another servo to raise and lower the guns, but i have run out of model memory on my transmitter so this add on will be further down the road.