Tank Tracks by jjones277

Last crawled date: 4 years ago

This is a work in progress. The project is an autonomous tracked vehicle. The vehicle eventually will have two tracks made from hollow pin roller chain separated by a plastic spacers (These are the Tread Base). You can see the completed tracks in the included pictures. The Tread Base functions to separate and align the two pieces of roller chain used for each track. Also the Tread Base acts as a mounting point for the individual Tread Plates. I made the decision to separate the Tread Base from the Tread Plate for economy as the Tread Plates will likely need to be replaced as they become warn from use.
Each track is driven by a keyed hub with two idler wheels. Both the hubs and idlers are split for ease of printing and are designated as either the inside or outside portion of the split. For example ISplitHub indicates the inside portion of the drive hub, while OSplitIdler indicates the outside portion of the idler.
Each of the Hubs and Idlers get two UGears (Universal Gears in that the gear design is the same for hubs and idlers. The completed hub or idler is therefore composed of an inside and outside half sandwiched between two Universal Gears and held together by bolts.
The Hub assembly is mounted on a keyed drive shaft (I'm using 24V DC wheel chair motors that I found cheap on eBay...), while the idlers can either be mounted directly onto carriage bolts for lite duty or pressed with bearings for heavy duty usage
I used Sketchup for all the designs in this project and have included those files for anyone who might have the need or interest in improving or modifying things. All that I ask is that you share with everyone here.
I will add more files and information as I progress with this project. At the moment I have printed only one each of the hub and idler assemblies as I am planning on using them to create master molds for casting. I've never attempted to cast my parts before so I will also include an update for that as well...
UPDATES: Added Basic Tread files - Simple tread pattern that is fairly easy and quick to print.
Realized that the combined width of the inner and outter portions of both the hubs and idlers was too narrow. Added a flanged spacer to correct for this and add support.
Added Dimple Tread - a little more complex than the Basic Tread. I don't like it, but some people might. I'm leaving the files online in case anyone wants to either try printing or using it to create their own.
Uploaded new illustrations showing what the completed tracks should look like. Also realized that I had uploaded a second copy of the OSplitHub instead of the OSplitIdler.