My Senior design project - a "Swamp Thing" tracked vehicle clone

[ArlyA]

I picked up a supply of 1/8 thick, black, UHMW which is about 4" wide. Do you need some?

 

[Garauld]

Hi Arly - I can't see a need for it at this time. Thanks for the offer.

 

[Garauld]

I got a new toy yesterday. I guess I should put it to work building Snowzerblower...

 

[ArlyA]

Can I borrow it?

 

[Garauld]

I have not been actively working on Snowzer or a Snowzerblower for it due to other projects (honey-do things). The new Eastwood welder seems to work nice for my needs. One of it's features is a tack weld option where, when selected, only powers the stinger for 1/2 second. This feature is good for those instances where thin sheet metal panels are to be welded. More expensive welders have this capability where the timer can be adjusted to suit the need, usually up to 10 seconds. This would be useful for making stitch welds.

 

[airbiscuit]

Any new videos?

 

[Garauld]

Hi - I've had it out about. The new vacuum boosters I added to the steering brake system work very well. I'll get the missus to take a new video in the near future. I've been tinkering again with my little motor-driven hydraulic system that could be potentially be used for pressurizing the steering brake calipers. I previously stopped working on it due to the supplied motor overheating too rapidly - see my writeup a few pages back. My new test setup uses a cheapo ($16) 12vDC drill from Harbor Freight to run the pump. I was able to generate 3000 psi with it with no sign of excessive motor heating since the drill is ventilated. It is also geared down for added torque unlike the previous motor. The plan might be to use a potentiometer attached to each steering brake arm to feed a signal to each 12vDC MOSFET motor driver unit (blue PCB) that would in turn, variably run each drill motor driving the appropriate pump. When the motor stops, the pressure bleeds off instantly thru the flow control valve. This is only something to play with and I don't have plans to implement it at this time. I attached an image of the HPU test setup. I plan to build Snowzerblower sometime over the summer. Stay tuned.

 

[Rockbadchild]

you still can get them stuck if the conditions are right

 

[Rockbadchild]

The first thing I see when I look at a machine like that is NEAT!!!

The second thing I think of is how many decades those tire ruts are gonna be there and the irreparable damage that thing will do to the environment in just one pass over an area.

it’s tracks not tires lol … tire ruts y’a can last a long time but we are the only one caring about them …

 

[Rockbadchild]

OK, I cleaned it up a bit...

View attachment 630134

JK... :ashamed:

wow that’s a shop i could look at stuff around it for hours