Tiger 1 (Early Variant) 2004 #98 build

[Sam Hough]

Very slow progress. I now have a new alu deck with the bend roughly in the right place. I'm trying to check (and re-check) placement of the cupola.

Possibly my mistake but could the diameter for 2004 vintage cupola be 9mm too big!?

Cheers

Sam

[Adrian Harris]

Not impossible.

Adrian.

[Sam Hough]

I finally finished something! I can't remember who did the thread on how projects stall but I've done illness, getting obsessed with the dimensions of the turret deck, trying to improve my metal work, giving up on my metal working and learning 3d printing, trying to learn speaker enclosure design, modern serial buses, wifi meshes ...

Anyway, a concrete step towards the tank running in the spring with finished frame/cradle for the electronics...

It means I can lift most of the electronics out to have easy access to them or the internals of the tank. Next step is to transfer the electronics from the mdf prototype (that was a dead end trying to put a huge sub-woofer in, I didn't even list that one).

Dad still hasn't done the externals or finished the painting but he has just bought a universal carrier so doesn't likely to happen too soon

Hmmm. Itching to print a replacement for the hull mg mechanism...

All the best to all.

Sam

[Graham P Hough]

That electronics try looks brilliant - well done. I do know it has taken a lot of work to get it correct.

[Sam Hough]

Slow progress recently but got some electronics/electrics into the frame...

Wires still not tidy though

[Steen Vøler]

Keep up the good work

[Christoffer Ahlfors]

Tidiness is for those who do repetition work. The rest of us have to make sure it works first...
Your layout looks very tidy so far - good job! As work progresses, there are many things that try to mess that up - wires come to mind...
You have done a great start!

[Sam Hough]

Some progress on my experimental/foolish TX project.

First print of the full top of the TX. Not removed the support material yet (the "texture" was the only bit my wife was interested in).

Only major problem is exit for PI ports is about 5mm too close to the screen PCB.

Yet to decide where to put coax button, power button, soft/hard button for deck lights.

Still feeling a bit guilty about gutting my Futaba Medallion 2 for the main sticks.

Guess next it to take a hacksaw to it so can test fit battery, pi etc properly and see if it is at all usable.

Cheers

Sam

[Sam Hough]

It's alive!

Some wobbly moments as it is really stretching my openscad skills but the foolish tx is up and running in the case. Strangely the bit I enjoyed most was wiring my own HDMI cable to fit.

No prizes for guessing the thing I need to fix first

Still no idea where to put aux mg button or power button.

[Graham P Hough]

Nice work. Now you can see why he is my technical consultant.

[Sam Hough]

Well life got in the way for a while with usual stuff plus leaking showers, five extra fridge freezers, making machine to scare away bad cats...

First working prototype https://photos.app.goo.gl/9R3oxsKGPT7cjtUX6 of early Tiger 1 counter balance mechanism (I can see now why they redesigned it...)

Not as neutral as I'd hoped (but I think might be good enough for my needs) but two unexpected sources of noise. The layers of the 3d printing grinding against each other and the spring catching (I think). Maybe a chamfer on the containing tubes would solve the latter?

I might try get the new (smaller) elevation motor in and servo based recoil and see if it is any good together.

Cheers

Sam

[Sam Hough]

Since stepper motors have come up I thought I'd finally do another update with my latest prototype elevation mechanism. I dumped the spring based approach, it was really interesting to do but a pain to use and very creaky.

I've made some revisions for the next print (and need higher infill than 20% to prevent the next one cracking too) including proper PCB support. It does seem to have a very smooth and quiet elevation, presumably like the real thing.

I was wondering about stepper based recoil too but might wait to see what the Armortek one looks like. So I'm holding off on tidying up the counter balance as a big heavy 24V stepper motor might do a lot of the job.

Cheers

Sam

[Christoffer Ahlfors]

Ah, a stepper for elevation - that's very interesting! Does that mean that, when turning on, it will "home" and know where it is? Is it sturdy and wobble free?

//

[Sam Hough]

I've left spare ports on the microcontroller to add limit switches so it can home and then support absolute position but I wanted to see how the mechanics worked first. I plan to add a camera to the turret and I've already experimented with computer vision so I might play with tracking too.

There is wobble but this is the first print (really just to check dimensions etc) and I only printed at 20% infill. The biggest wobble is side to side (for obvious reasons) I hope this is easy to fix. I'd like an excuse to use the CNC services like pcbway if plastic won't cut it. The disappointing part is the slack in the geared stepper. It is just about the cheapest most available stepper so maybe I could spend a bit more on higher quality or go higher power without gearing. I've left room for a 24v supply to the turret for this.

It was more the smooth, controlled and quiet elevation motion that I was after and it seems to do that.

NB This was a very early kit and we never had an Armortek version.

Cheers

Sam