TankBender by Motley74

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

I present to you TankBender, your favorite robot mounted to a tank and ready for action.
"Hey, sexy mama... Wanna kill all humans?" (from Futurama: Season 1, Episode 3)
This is my first big project using my FlashForge Creator Pro and is still very much a work-in-progress, I just felt it was time to go ahead and start sharing it. I have spent many hours designing the parts in OpenSCAD and printing test parts to ensure everything works as expected however different printers and filament can cause variations so you may need to modify source files to get everything to fit. The base of the tank was heavily inspired by thing http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:673920 although I have re-designed all of the parts from the ground up using OpenSCAD and improved most of them in the process. The Bender head was something that I just thought would be very cool while I was designing the base. I will be continually improving this design and adding new features.
I plan to design an Android app to control the tank including sending video back from the camera although I am new to Android programming so it will likely take some time before that is done and anyone with experience that would like to contribute is welcome. Everything in the tank will be powered via a Raspberry Pi and arduino controllers and will use a LiPo battery (currently testing with 11.1 V battery). I plan to eventually have an airsoft mechanism which will be mounted behind the teeth, the hole in the teeth will have the barrel sticking out and will be designed to look like a cigar. The visor part of the head is designed to hold a 6mm laser pointer in each eye and a Raspberry Pi official camera which is mounted between the eyes (see pic of head parts showing back of visor with camera in place and pic showing lasers turned on).
The base of the tank will hold the Raspberry Pi as well as other electronics and the Head will rotate like a tank turret. I am still playing with which motors/gearboxes I will be using to power the base and turret but testing with the Tamiya 70168 double gearbox for the base. The gearbox currently mounts perfectly in one end of the base using the gearbox_plate file included. The track sections were printed with TPU filament so they are extremely strong and flexible which gives them more traction than if printed with other filaments, if you can print with NinjaFlex that may work as well (maybe better/maybe not) but I had trouble printing with that. The wheel holders are designed to be fitted 2 together to form an end, one of the wheel holders is designed so you can stop the print at Z height 7.6 and then you can add a bearing which will be embedded when finished while the other can have a bearing inserted when done which can also be replaced if needed.
I have learned a lot in this process including programming/designing in OpenSCAD as well as learning a lot about designing 3D prints to print successfully. I will continue to learn more as I learn about programming for Android and get more involved with the electronics to control the various mechanisms.
I will include a parts list for everything needed to assemble once I decide on the final parts. I will also add the source OpenSCAD files as soon as I am done with some cleanup/commenting.