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Showing results for tags 'ring crane'.
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Good grief, this thing has been sitting on my desk for over a year now, and I just now got around to taking pictures of it. tsk tsk. Anyway, this is a failed attempt at making a ring crane using a hailfire droid wheel as a base. It is loosely based upon a Sarens SGC-120, and uses a 3 way reversable distribution gearbox, much like 42042. Each selector controls one function, forward and reverse. The crane features 3 winches, controlling the boom luffing, the luffing jib, and the hook. The winches are run by one M motor. The counterweight is 5 PF AA battery boxes, plus some old train weights, and some ball bearings. Now, I mentioned that this is a failed attempt, and there are a good number of reasons for that. Firstly, the gearbox connecting the M motor to the distribution box was very weak and overly complex. Then, this model had several critical structural flaws. The main boom wasn't nearly stiff enough, and would warp with the slighted provocation. The individual sections were strong enough, but the connections to get them in a triangular shape were not. Then, the main frame of the crane was very weak, and bent a lot under the weight of the main boom. Same thing goes for the rollers on the base ring. They were not structurally sound at all, and due to that, motorized slewing was not possible. Lastly, the hook was not heavy enough to put tension on the hook line, and so the lines of rope going to the hook would jump at the slightest provocation. Still, even if this did fail, it looked impressive, and I learned from it. IMG_20170813_202442189 by Saberwing007, on Flickr The crane, in all of its glory. Ring Crane 002 by Saberwing007, on Flickr The gearbox. Each selector controls a winch. Ring Crane 003 by Saberwing007, on Flickr The M motor. This was one of the weak points of the model. Not the motor, but the gearbox it is attached to. Ring Crane 004 by Saberwing007, on Flickr The rollers. Not stable enough. Ring Crane 005 by Saberwing007, on Flickr The counterweights. There were two more battery boxes, but they got used for something else. IMG_20170813_202804340 by Saberwing007, on Flickr The crane base, without the booms or counterweight. Ring Crane 007 by Saberwing007, on Flickr The winches. Ring Crane 008 by Saberwing007, on Flickr The frame bending. IMG_20170813_210407144 by Saberwing007, on Flickr The gearbox extracted. Ring Crane 010 by Saberwing007, on Flickr The underside of the gearbox. It's dead simple, aside from the connection to the M motor, which was more complex than it needed to be, and would fail with minimal provocation. Well, that's it. There will be no video, as this got demolished for my TC12 entry. Enjoy, as much as you can enjoy a train wreck like this.