Motorised military tank

[simonwillems]

Hello Eurobricks!

I herewith present to you my tank.

Yes, I know it's black, which is not exactly the colour one would choose for adequate camouflage abilities, but it was the only colour I had available for the moment.

I motorised it with the power function system: the batterybox is built in in the front section, in the back there are two normal old technic motors, one per track, a few converter cables and the receiver.

I was planning on motorizing the turning of the turret as well, but because of the limited space inside the tank and all the equipment that had to be built in there was no room for that :-( .

The track consist of two rows of small chainlinks per track, making one track two studs wide. The whole thing moves around and steers like a real life tank. It is quite heavy so don't expect recordbraking speeds...

I made this as an experiment to test out the power functions and found out many thing about the system: one of them being that the back end of the receiver must be visible at all times otherwise the signal does not come through... Even one plate over the receiver will stop the vehicle from going anywhere. I covered up most of the receiver but it still shows at the rear end and works fine like this

I do apologise for the darkness of the pictures, but the whole thing being black does not add to the lighting... ;-)

(Click pics to enlarge)

The Brickshelf gallery

Comments are welcome of course!

:-)

Edited March 3, 2008 by simonwillems

[Doctor Sinister]

Very swish - and black, I like black. *y*

Dr. S.

[kill will]

*y* Great work, me like! Just don't blow up my town... :'-(

[ExoBuilder]

Motorized? That's impressive *y*

Taking pictures of black creations is hard, I fail at it al the time :-D

Your tank's impressive, I can never make a modern looking vehicle :-|

*y* *y*

[Doctor Sinister]

Oh, as an aside, I think this needs to be moved to "Other Themes" as that's where the military stuff is now.

Dr. S.

[Captain Green Hair]

Now that is a cool tank! *wub*

I really didn't see the powerfunctions while browsing BS simon, nice job!

I'd like to see a movie of it moving 8-|

[simonwillems]

Thanks for the nice comments, they are really appreciated! *sweet*

*y* Great work, me like! Just don't blow up my town... :'-(

O.K. I'll drive over it instead... :-D

Oh, as an aside, I think this needs to be moved to "Other Themes" as that's where the military stuff is now.

Well, technically it's Technic... ;-) But if a Mod feels the urge to move it he has my permission.

I'd like to see a movie of it moving 8-|

That's a good idea, I'll try to make a decent movie of it during the weekend. I never uploaded a movie to Brickshelf before, but there's a first time for everything, I guess.

:-)

[Asuka]

That

[Siegfried]

I love it. This would be good even if it wasn't motorised. *wub* I really have to make a tank soon. It is why I bought the Tie Crawler after all! :-$ So what are the old motor like running off the new Battery box? I don't have any of those so I don't know. Is there enough current?

...and I'll move it to Technic. ;-)

[simonwillems]

It

[Asuka]

No big deal, but still noticeable.... :-/

:-P You can always say it

[Ickelpete]

*y* Great little MOC

I like the way you have managed to get it so compact.

[simonwillems]

I'd like to see a movie of it moving 8-|

Well, I made a movie of it using my digital Olympus camera.

It can be viewed using Quick Time player, at my parents house it worked.

It's a twenty-seconds movie 5mb.

It's in my Brickshelf gallery, last item

I Hope it works... 8-|

[Captain Green Hair]

Well, I made a movie of it using my digital Olympus camera.

It can be viewed using Quick Time player, at my parents house it worked.

It's a twenty-seconds movie 5mb.

It's in my Brickshelf gallery, last item

I Hope it works... 8-|

*wub* Sweet! *wub*

I watched it, washed out my eyes, and watched it again :'-)

Excellent picture quality too! *y*

Are you planning to make the turret and barrel move too?

[Lt. Col. Thok]

8-

[simonwillems]

*wub* Sweet! *wub*

I watched it, washed out my eyes, and watched it again :'-)

Wow, I never imagined it to be possible: make a tank out of Lego and with that influencing people to work on their personal hygiene.... X-D :-D

Are you planning to make the turret and barrel move too?

I considered it, but found it to be impossible. To make the turret move I had to place an extra motor and an extra receiver to connect it to, that receiver was the real problem: it had to be in sight for the remote control to activate it and for that there was simply not enough room inside the cramped up body of the tank.

Was, yes, because I already went on experimenting with the power functions, sacrificing the tank in the proces, and making a fifties truck that I'll photograph pretty soon and put on Brickshelf.

:-)