M.A.X. Truck - Mobile Launch Vehicle Trailer by ChisTompso

Last crawled date: 3 years, 3 months ago

This small satellite mobile launcher is an add-on for the Trailer for the M.A.X. Truck Modular Toy Truck. It carries a New Falcantron rocket, which is designed by the aerospace corporation, The United Rocket Laboratory Alliance for Space Exploration That Likes Blue, originally founded by gazillionaire Jefflon Beckuno. Beckuno, having made his fortune designing fashionable vests for dachshunds, decided that rockets were far more interesting.
The New Falcantron uses the Merltherford-4 engine, with turbopumps that are powered by a team of daschunds running on a wheel while watching videos of Florida lizards. Don't worry, when each dachshund gets tired, they are "hot swapped", and parachute back to earth, where they receive a lot of treats. This dachshund power produces and VacuumISP of 900s!! Unmatched! It has the best ISP.. you've never seen ISP like this... folks, I was down at KSC the other day, and they said this is the best ISP ever... we have the best scientists... Thrust... well.. you don't even want to know.. it will break your brain. We're making full flow staged dachshund cycle great again, folks! OK, moving on to building this thing:
The truck and fifth wheel for towing the trailer can both be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3214824
The Trailer can be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4575547
Let's chat about sanding. A lot of these parts were intentionally designed to be tight. Why? For friction of course. Example: The rocket stages... held together by friction. Outriggers... friction keeps them from flopping around. You get the idea. I know nothing of your printer. They all print a little different. I can have you remove material, but I can't have you add it. So, you have been warned: Some parts that need friction might not fit when first printed... just sand them down a little. Every 3D hobbyist should have a good set of files, sanders, and knives for post-processing.
Another tip: The hydraulic legs have a twist-to-lock feature at the top and bottom of travel. You can either print them all the same, so they all twist to lock in the same direction, regardless of what side of the trailer they are on... OR... you can use the Mirror function that all slicer apps have to make opposing sets for left and right.
Glue: The caps of the hydraulic cylinders need to be glued on. The feet on the legs also need to be glued on. Doesn't really matter which you do first, but I recommend doing all of this gluing after you've installed the outriggers and the erector mount onto the trailer. This way, you can lower the legs to the ground from the trailer, providing an even plane (the ground beneath the trailer) for the feet to be glued evenly. The cradles for the rocket are also glued to the erector. I recommend that you, first, install the aft cradle onto the rocket, and then glue the cradles to the erector. This assures proper alignment between the forward and aft cradles. You also want to ensure that the raceway on the first stage (the long rectangular feature) is aligned with the stopper on the erector mount (that thing that sticks up in the center of the erector mount). Proper alignment of these features prevents forward travel of the rocket on the trailer while it is lowered.
Yet another tip: Be sure to install the slider lock on the erector mount before installing the erector, or you will have a bad time. Easy fix of course is to just take the erector off and start over. I mean, it's just a nut and bolt, so no need to panic if you screw this up.
A note about nuts and bolts: If you've built any of my stuff before, you know that I love M3 hardware for everything. You'll also know that I'm too lazy to specify which M3 length goes in each hole, and that I always provide an obligatory "just buy a set of miscellaneous M3 bolts". So... well, there it is.
D'Oh! Forgot more gluing... OK, so the rail-mount (the thing that holds the launcher to the rail slots on the trailer) has to be glued into place. This is a deviation from my previous M.A.X. Truck designs. The reason I did this was because it saves a lot of print time and material, and makes it easier to print the erector mount (you don't need a bunch of support material, that will just fail, causing print warp, and anger later). You're probably going to need to sand the edges for it to fit (see note about sanding). Make sure it fits nice and even with the bottom surface of the erector mount.
That's all I can think of for now. I'll update/edit as I think of more things. Feedback is always welcome for improvements. Yes, I know the satellite is lame. Thank you!
This will be my last M.A.X. Truck project for a while. I want to re-focus back on R/C vehicle projects. That said, I highly encourage others to develop more accessories for the M.A.X. Truck system. UPDATE: OK, OK. What a fool I was. The toddler runs the nest and dictates where engineering resources are directed. M.A.X. Truck Garbage Truck accessory coming next...