bigbadballzach
RC Newbie
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Doing a little work on my RC excavator and thought I'd share what she looks like pulled apart.
This thing is pretty heavy, about 11kg (or 25lbs) and seems well made.
The all in one "brain" uses pretty cheap speed controllers so the movement is a little jumpy at low speeds. I'll eventually swap those out for some better ESCs and a new radio controller.
Today I was trying to reduce the slew movement by adding a small shim. It's a cheap shim sold on the webs that is supposed to help out, but I found even when the slew is lightly tightened with the shim in place it dramatically increases the friction and prevents the top from spinning easily. It seems the load is moved from the slew bearing to the shim, not great. I'll be looking into other options. There are roller bearings available for this but they install differently and require the slew motor to be raised slightly.
This is the underside of the arm attachment, you can see the slew gear pointing toward us, and the main arm gearbox is just below it and runs horizontally in the pic.
The tubing seen is just for looks, no hydraulic components in this model.
Here is the slew ring gear counterpart, it has some up and down play which contributes to the slew chopping movement I'm trying to reduce.
This is a top down view of the main plate and base. The metal shim can be seen sitting ontop of the base (shiny metal outer ring).
This is with the shim installed
The top and bottom are tightened down by these 4 screws. Anything other than maybe a few threads grabbing results in too much friction, even with moly grease.
Here is a picture of the arm assembly
This is another pic of the underside of the cab base and track housing. A motor for each tread is attached to a gearbox. Wired through a slip ring that allows it to turn infinitely.
Anyway, just thought it might be interesting to share in case anyone else is thinking about using this metal shim and was curious how it looked.
I'd recommend trying the roller bearing method instead of the shim, I've since seen some youtubes of people installing those and it seems like a much better option.
This thing is pretty heavy, about 11kg (or 25lbs) and seems well made.
The all in one "brain" uses pretty cheap speed controllers so the movement is a little jumpy at low speeds. I'll eventually swap those out for some better ESCs and a new radio controller.
Today I was trying to reduce the slew movement by adding a small shim. It's a cheap shim sold on the webs that is supposed to help out, but I found even when the slew is lightly tightened with the shim in place it dramatically increases the friction and prevents the top from spinning easily. It seems the load is moved from the slew bearing to the shim, not great. I'll be looking into other options. There are roller bearings available for this but they install differently and require the slew motor to be raised slightly.
This is the underside of the arm attachment, you can see the slew gear pointing toward us, and the main arm gearbox is just below it and runs horizontally in the pic.
The tubing seen is just for looks, no hydraulic components in this model.
Here is the slew ring gear counterpart, it has some up and down play which contributes to the slew chopping movement I'm trying to reduce.
This is a top down view of the main plate and base. The metal shim can be seen sitting ontop of the base (shiny metal outer ring).
This is with the shim installed
The top and bottom are tightened down by these 4 screws. Anything other than maybe a few threads grabbing results in too much friction, even with moly grease.
Here is a picture of the arm assembly
This is another pic of the underside of the cab base and track housing. A motor for each tread is attached to a gearbox. Wired through a slip ring that allows it to turn infinitely.
Anyway, just thought it might be interesting to share in case anyone else is thinking about using this metal shim and was curious how it looked.
I'd recommend trying the roller bearing method instead of the shim, I've since seen some youtubes of people installing those and it seems like a much better option.
