RC Tiger 1 Tank Computer Case - Quakecon 2014 Winner by DOHCDragon

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Radio Control Tiger 1 Tank Computer Case Made for Quakecon 2014. It took First place in the Fabrication Contest.
On June 16th 2015, 3DPrint.com wrote an article on it:http://3dprint.com/69747/3d-print-tank-case-mod/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hddp8_imxxEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugL0jSygkPkhttp://youtu.be/N6i7Czt696Mhttp://youtu.be/qGgSlTyJCnEhttp://youtu.be/sbSo8lJBDVs
Build log can be found here:http://community.coolermaster.com/index.php/topic/12791-tiger-1-tank-computer-case-cooler-master-edition-build-log/
It was featured on the cover of CPU Magazine for September of this year.
It took me over 300 hours of print time on my replicator X2 printer. That doesn't include any of the design time or the construction time.
CPU Magazine September 2014 Article:
The winner of the Scratch Build category in this year’s QuakeCon Mod Contest is unconventional in lots of ways, but that’s rather fitting; the Scratch Build category is by definition sort of an anything-goes affair. Talk about thinking outside the box—last year’s winner built an enormous, functional NES control pad coffee table that was also a gaming PC! How do you follow an act like that? Who would have the imagination and guts . . . nay, the MOXIE to build something from scratch that could match that sort of magnificent zaniness? The same guy, as it turns out. Yep, Adam “DOHCDragon” Owen, last year’s Scratch Build winner, is also this year’s Scratch Build winner. And he won by building a PC that embodies one of the games he loves, is catnip to war game nerds and WWII buffs everywhere, and was built using the absolute coolest method possible. He 3D-printed a Tiger I tank as a tribute to Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks. “The idea was simple enough,” Owen says. “I wanted to learn 3D printing technology. I love building custom computers and I figured that I could mix the two together. Originally, I was going to build a mech from Bethesda’s Wolfenstein: The New Order; after playing with the 3D artwork and trying to get the RC parts to make it walk, I realized it would be too complicated and take more time than I had to finish the case for QuakeCon. After a lot of
brainstorming and messing with different ideas, I settled on the Tiger I tank. It is iconic and was feared by anyone else back in its time. I wanted to build a computer case that would do the same thing in the fabrication contest at QuakeCon.” Starting From Scratch In order to get his build to work, Owen had to design a tank body that was large enough to hold a full slate of PC components and still be able to move. He started with the foundation of the build, or as he describes it, “the tub” that fits between the wheels and houses the system’s Mini- ITX motherboard. “It had to have 7.1 inches between its walls to accommodate the motherboard,” he says. “Once this was figured out, I was able to start the 3D design. I used a combination of 3D models pulled from various places on the web and the 3D model from World of Tanks as references. I had to design every item from scratch; the tracks were the first things I tried to print. It took me a month to figure out the 3D design software and 3D printer. But after lots of trial and error, I was able to get the design to be functional and got printing time down to 17 hours for 24 tracks—there are 100 tracks on each side of the tank, 13 on the front of the tank, and eight on the turret.”
Owen spent about a week printing just tracks, then began working his way up, starting with the wheels, moving on to the tub, and then the rest of the frame and the turret. Adventures In Engineering The challenge was just heating up, however, as Owen now had to figure out how to make the tank move. “It took three transmissions and two blown motors before I figured out the drivetrain,” he recalls. “To make the turret move, I sacrificed a PTZ (pan, tilt, and zoom) Wi-Fi camera and used the motors and even the camera to make it work.” The 3D-Printed Tiger Tank Computer’s treads, turret, and PTZ camera are all fully functional, and Owen controls them with an RC controller and a receiver that he pulled out of an RC quadracopter that he found on eBay for $30. The tread motors are from a rock crawler; Owen says each side of the tank has its own 80 turn motor and speed controller. “The transmission is a 31 to 1 turn ratio,” Owen says. “I designed and printed the transmission myself. It was the hardest part of the entire project.” The treads and turret run on batteries built into the case, and Owen set them up so that the PC’s EVGA power supply charges them when the system is running. The PTZ Wi-Fi camera also runs on battery power, independent of the system, and Owen has a fairly novel use for it. “I use this camera to monitor my office,” he says. “So if you enter my office and I’m not there, you may find yourself looking down the barrel of a 3D-Printed Tiger Tank.”