In my opinion: you have reached a point where you might consider the purchase and use of a metal lathe! Threaded rods will take you so far. Those threads will amount to an incredible amount of frictions (very inefficient) and grind everything to a pulp. Keep at it! You will get there Thx for sharing
Your belt tensioner is on the wrong side for effective forward travel. The way you have it the load is pulling against the tensioner. Move it to the bottom and it will work much better.
The idler pulley needs to be on the slack (bottom) side of the belt. The power is transmitted to the axle through the top side of that belt (the way you have it positioned). The idler pulley is going to break right off if you leave it on that side of the belt, plus you're not going to get good power transmission to the axle. By putting the idler on the slack side of the belt it only take a fraction of the effort to pull the belt taught and get it to grab the other two pulleys.
I know this is years old but.. I have an idea for a better transmission. Get a used power steering pump or a rebuilt one for each side. Spin the pump with the chain drive. Run hydraulic lines to a hydraulic motor on each wheel. With pressure bypass and control valves you can have a real incredible transmission much easier than one would think. Or use electromagnetic clutches on the pump pulleys and switch them on and off to steer. Or do both
Great progress! I'm starring at your track wheel,axle & disc brake and I can see your next VAWT project come to life. (Or I should commission you to build one for me) Also, if you need a close up shot of a snowmobile track, give me a shout
Thanks. When I bought the disc brakes I was thinking they would make better rotor plates than the saw blades, thicker and will not flex. Also ready made mounting holes.
Should use rodstock the same size of the bearings rather then threaded rod, the threaded rod will eat right through the bearing sleeve. If you lengthen the section the spring is attached to you should get a lot more leverage increasing belt tension.
Use better steeol for the alxle. Use better perrifial equipment, (Brakes, flanges and so forth) But keep that threaded rod set up! That's a really good design tool! But it won't hold up under load!
If you make another one, for your transmission set up look at racing go kart parts. They make 1" axles with a 1/4" key way the length of the shaft. You then could use a kart brake hub, rotor and caliper. There are also locking collars with a key way that you could weld your drive pulley to. The easiest way is to use a peerless riding lawn mower differential. (they have them at Northern Tool). Bolt a drive sprocket to the differential and put brakes on each side for the steering.
Hello! The Idler pulley should be on the slack side of the belt drive not on the drive side. It looks like you have it on the wrong side. The belt tightens itself under load and the idler simply takes up the slack... Good work!!
Hi all. The author has done that has raised such a device. of course there are a lot of weaknesses. But I am sure that you will fix it and all will be well. Good luck to all. P. S Hello from Russia.
I HAVE READ SOME OF THE COMMENTS,, NOT VERRY MUCH ENCORIGEMENT.. DO YOUR BEST. IF YOU GET STUMPED> CALL A FREINDY ENGINENER . LOOK AT OTHER PROJECTS.. IF SOMETHING DOES NOT WORK. RETOOL RE THINK DO OVER. THE WRIGHT BROTHERS DID NOT GET IT...WRIGHT THE FIRST TIME..
You’d be better of using a zero turn lawn mower chassis and drives might be a bit more simple drive train to work with, being that the controls are perfect for a tank set up. I d love to do a build like this but the track and suspension would be the biggest challenge for me and I don’t have the time. Just my 2 cents…
I would recommend taking some welding classes!!! Welding is real easy with the right instruction and knowledge of selecting the right wire or rod, Them welds their are real bad!! But awesome idea u got their
Nice design set up with the pully, however if you are having slipping why not just got to farm store and get two chain drive gears they have large small and you can ratio it to small to large and add chain drive. I see you are working in a right direction either way...
The reason you need belts is to be able to be able to disconnect one side or the other to steer.If you have a chain drive going to each wheel you would have to have some kind of clutch. Thanks for the comment
Nice Work, but the solutions with the thread rods and screws are crap. Screws are great to pull things together, but weak agains sideforces. If you use Tubes the screws will hold longer and the Brakedisk can not go free Sorry for my bad english, if you answer, write slowly, i can not read so fast english ;)
Your belt tensioners need to be on the bottom of the belt not the top ! The reason for that is the top part of the belt is what is will actually have all of the pressure on it and if You put the tensioners on top then the belt will be pulling against them and trying to make them slip, on the bottom the tensioners just have to take up slack in the belt and do not have to hold the power transfer also!
u thought of moving yr spring higher on yr tenshion bar. further from a object the more force u can apply with less effort. kinda like picking up a car with your body weight a long pipe.
OBVIOUSLY, it's a Zombie Apocalypse Weapons Ultility Vehical (ZAWUV-1)....After he welds metal spears on all sides to stick them zombies like shish-kabob, and further adds 2 removable sawed-off shotguns near the steering wheel; with an exclusive grenade launcher attached to the rear metal frame, it'll be an Official "Can of Whoopass"...(Machetes not included) 😂😂😂💀💀 I can just see this thing featured in the lastest Zombie Apocalypse TV series this Summer! 👍🍺🍺🍺🍺🚬
Nice work mate! Are you going to cover the pulley areas to stop them from getting wet/dirty? I want to do an upscale version using an LS1 Chevvy motor which I have laying around doing nothing. I think the turning will be easier to do because of the differential, hydraulic brakes and an automatic transmission. But the custom frame and tracks will be the harder part of the build. I hope to see more progress soon!
Yes I plan on covering the back area once done. There are a couple of other tank builds on You Tube that are bigger projects using car engines and the like. I hope you post some videos when you start your build.
Less release on the pulley and more bite. It looks really loose and your gonna lose a lot of steering ability with that. Maybe introduce a v-notch pulley like on a CVT for a four wheeler or sled. More tension more bite, but you’ll never fully release it and risk it jumping off the drive
I'm impressed with your effort, but here is a suggestion - Take some real welding classes. You won't be sorry. You really need to learn a few things. It isn't that hard, but it takes some very specific knowledge to do this stuff correctly. The time your classes take will be more than compensated by the time you save fixing your welds that will fail.
I'm enjoying watching you design and build this thing. I am having a hard time finding all your videos after part 9. They were all titled the same and numbered up to that point, and then there was no more continuity. It was easy to search for them that way. The names of the videos changed and there were no more part numbers. If its possible to edit the titles, could you go back to the way you were titling and numbering them in the beginning, to make it easier to find your videos and to be able to watch them in order? You're doing a great job, and I look forward to your next video........ if I can find it. LOL
I am still in the process of building it, that is why there is not another video. At the end of all the videos If you click on next video it will take you to the next one in order. Thanks for watching. .
TheArctanx a differential makes a terrible setup for driving tank tracks because when you stop one side, the opposing wheel spins at double the speed. This makes turning a “tank” rather difficult.
I think that you are going to have some alignment problems with you sprockets and pulleys. When you screw them on the shaft the nuts did not appear to be welded on true. Interesting concept though. As an old heavy equipment mechanic, I suspect you are going to need more durable materials than I see.
Your idler looks in wrong position. Idler should add up contact on v belt, not decrease the contact (the more contact the more effective your vbelt). That is why you have slippage. You might need to add another belt to make it more effective. But I would rather use chain and simple pressure plate using spring assembly for release.
I watched your video on your tracked vehicle. Cool design moves pretty fast. I see you doubled up your drive belts. It did not look like you were having problems with your belts slipping. Did you solve the problem or just try not to get them wet.
But you definitely thought outside the box on this like the idea of you put another brakes cuz like you got there on that side identical positive traction and braking
+Maples01 R&D Its cheaper to use. I can find out what works before I spend the money on the more expensive materials. I already had to trash the original design with the other pulleys and drive axle I only wasted about 30 dollars.
+Maples01 the nuts will smoke the bearings on one side and shuck the other side long before metallurgy exhibits and the scribe I mean threads will upon torsional side loads and bearing journal contact and friction will snap off most likely happen long before heat gets her no disrespect to the build least your trying to build it and your fab skills are resourceful but critical things arise of simple mechanisms interactions v belts suck flat n wide makes the ride and its a compound not a transmission unless it has a gear changing aspect I missed but given rotation of axle in relation to wheel diameter heat shouldn't beat mechanical failures as cause least that's where I put my money if I was betting and I can build ANYTHING OUTTA NOTHING and failure breeds success instead of sorry I bet hey this might be a better build in my experience would surely be more positive and could help him achieve his final goal or project I am a heavy equipment/truck mechanic retired and more than 30 yrs building machines out of junk and it is inspiring to see any one try anything failed or realized they are taking that away little by little if you have no stock you cant create which has serious implications down the line of creations to utilize or develop and the haters comprise 90% of unrealized tech and innovations the other 10% greed and selfish or gov suppression or worse dead and its a piss poor way to live and interact if we are really the higher minded ones why do we not use it or at least find any history to say we did use it just a thought and really no disrespect intended to you or the builder but that's my surmise of the integrity and interactions of that systems componants and failure/repair abilities as well to many parts to fail and replace that have to be fabricated again from scratch better to find existing builds that have already been utilized to address metal and design issues or rather to not have to address those critical and costly aspects of designing
I'm curious why you chose to use a belt drive system for your transmission. I see you're putting a load of work into the belt tension clutches & brakes (which will need trued up a bit, I think) which wouldn't have been necessary if you went the more "traditional" route of having your motor drive the tracks through a hydraulic pump, pushing fluid through hydraulic motors through a "two stick" system (2 reversible hydraulic valves) to drive/steer/stop your tracks.
I had two original ideas for driving this, the first was Hydraulics, I was a Aviation hydraulics mechanic in the Navy for 7 years. So this was my first choice. But like so many things here where I live the cost and availability was to much. The second was electric motors this would have been allot easier. One motor running each drive wheel again very expensive. I went with the pulleys solely on cost. After I complete the project I plan on doing a video on all the things I would have done differently and change if I had the cash,and dimensions of the completed project. Thanks for the comment.
Aceman307 Cool. Once you get that thing driving around, I'm interested to see how those cable-based tracks hold up. I've been working a few plans for a couple tracked vehicle ideas of my own (still in the planning stages) & was planning to cut bolt brackets for each of my track shoes out of 1"x1"x1/8" angle-iron; then weld those to the shoes, so I could bolt my tracks together. Your cable tracks, if they prove durable enough, would probably be a much easier route to take there though!
Great،thanks for sharing,im thinking of building a tractor with like 8 of 200cc engines،with a light body ofcourse,i think it would work.what do you think?
These belts are just going to go up in smoke. I'm having the smoking belt problem with my go-kart. ( Homemade two engine Go-kart ) I have used up like 8 belts, one belt for like every two hours of use. =(
Duuuude,,,, there go's my tracked ATV design, you are a little close, keep an eye out for Betts Industries and the products from my business in the future.
See about getting yourself a lathe. The runout on those brake discs are going to cause you problems. Your design skills are clearly ahead of your equipment availability. That's a good thing. But now you need to correct it.
Your right about the tools I am using electric hand tools which limits things in this build that you would do differently if you had a lath or mill or even access to the right parts. But it does require me to be creative when confronting engineering problems. I will be able to straighten the brake disc. Thanks for the comment
Aceman307 Also a decent 4" grinder, prepping your steel with proper bevels and ground weld surfaces will greatly improve those welds not to mention make them stronger, Oh and a few clamps to hold stuff straight and in place while welding..your steel shrunk while welding those nuts on the disk and the pulley. Just some ideas not criticizing. Keep up the good work!
Hey dude, how are you? I hope good. First of all, I really want to say you that the project and videos are amazing. Thank you for share all with us. I hope you can understand my english. I am from the other part of the world hahah.. Argentina. I really intersted to do the same project. But I have the problema that hear the "Trucks" we cant achivied. So we have to make them. I want to ask you if the trucks you do are strong? Did you have any problem with them? May be they broke or failed some time...I see them and I think that are very good you know? But I dont know really, and here are very expensive to buy all the materials to do the same, so I want to be sure before buying. Why you didnt do with chain (Chain Bicycle I mean to say..)? Thanks you for all! Really! See you!
Pablo SanmiguelThanks for the nice comment. If you have a chance watch Tankman101 channel he is a master at building tracked vehicles he also has a video on building tracks. I have another friend on youtube building tracks with chains his channel is Prancstaman. I am still working on my vehicle so I cant say how long the cable will last but if you look at Ripsaw it looks to me like they are using cables. Good luck with your project.
OBVIOUSLY, it's a Zombie Apocalypse Weapons Ultility Vehical (ZAWUV-1)....After he welds metal spears on all sides to stick them zombies like shish-kabob, and further adds 2 removable sawed-off shotguns near the steering wheel; with an exclusive grenade launcher attached to the rear metal frame, it'll be an Official "Can of Whoopass"... 😂😂😂💀💀 I can just see this thing featured in the lastest Zombie Apocalypse TV series this Summer! 👍🍺🍺🍺🍺🚬
Now that's a killer setup. I got a little concern on slippage too but I think it will be ok. Belts are a pretty good way to turn things and you got what looks to be a 1/2 wide belt should work great. But I noticed you deffinatly got the idler pulleys in the wrong spots and them pushing on the belts is deffinitly better then pulling them. PM me your email I can send you my plans on mine on that later tonight. There's actually a lot of tech for this area I can give you.
Thanks, at least with this video you get the idea of how I am going to steer it. I am going to re do it with a tighter belt and the tension er on the top.
Aceman307 Hang on before you do it. You got your setup backwards to where when power is added from motor it will actually loosen the belt. I can show where to put everything to where you can use what you have now and the only worry will be the belt snappin instead of slippin.
Swearzy Sure, pm me your email I can send you a copy. Wow, an LS1 might be a little too strong though for a belt setup. An easy way would be a limited slip automotive rear axle with brake steering for that LS1 motor. alot of ww2 tanks used that setup. Maybe go look at ShawnCFarm's Channel. He's got a Chevy small block in his tank, It might be more of what you are looking for. He's got a comment down below, you can follow the link to his channel
***** Yes, you want to use a car rear axle for sure plus it would be easier to steer just use the brakes on the car axle. Yes ShawnCFarm has a tank with that type setup.
