2005/03/15 - RE: Starting to build a tank [TANKS] (Steve Tyng)

Welcome to the hobby. A $700 budget is an ambitious goal for a full function tank. I'd suggest foregoing the gyro for now and apply that money to a semi auto as others have suggested. If you don't want to hang a servo off the trigger you can use a door lock actuator and a new switch Joe Sommer is now selling to activate it, check out Anvilus.com. With this budget your talking Tri-Pact controllers for the drive and turret motors, check the site for circuit diagrams. Ebay will become your best friend, check it everyday for DC motors, batteries, markers, CO2 tanks, radios etc. Surpluscenter.com is a good place for a bunch of the items you will need but they charge a premium for shipping/handling/insurance and they take a week to ship. Before ordering from them try to get everything in one order to save on shipping costs. McMaster.com has everything in the world but their very expensive. McMaster has reasonable shipping and will ship the same day you place the order. Try some creative searching on Google. I found a manufacturer refurb discontinued semi-auto marker at one place for $30 (now out of stock). RCMarketPlace.com is a good site for radio related gear. Speaking of radios, as long as you don't live next to a model air park you can get away with a 72mhz air frequency radio for "testing purposes". 5 and 6 channel used air radios are a dime a dozen on ebay and rcmarketplace. If you get a used module based radio you can upgrade to a ground frequency later.

-----Original Message-----
From: tanks-admin-at-rctankcombat.com [mailto:tanks-admin-at-rctankcombat.com]On Behalf Of Andy Hsiao
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 6:44 PM
To: tanks-at-rctankcombat.com
Subject: Starting to build a tank [TANKS]

Me and my friend are thinking of building a 1:8 M1A2 tank. We've got a trracer. It's a pump paintball gun, so it'll add to the realism. We want to make it so that if we open the tank up, we can see something that looks better than a servo stuck in a trigger handle. If you guys can help us out for that, please do. Remember that the trracer is a pump gun (if you arent paintball savvy, a pump gun is a gun that requires manual cocking of the bolt).

Also, we are working off a budget of about maybe 700 dollars tops. If you guys could suggest any places that sell things cheap, please suggest them. We live in Oregon.

O yeah, what kind of components would we need? We've thought of 2 motors (type is undecided) for movement, 1 for turret turning, 1 gyro to keep the turret in one spot, 2 servos. We don't know what electronics to get. They are all expensive :(, lol. like i said before, if you guys can suggest ANYTHING AT ALL!!!, we'd appreciate it. We've worked with robotics, and we paintball, so this is something that can combine them both. Thanx

From:	"Steve Tyng" <SteveT44-at-comcast.net>
Subject:	RE: Starting to build a tank [TANKS]
Date:	Tue, 15 Mar 2005 06:36:00 -0500
Reply-To:	tanks-at-rctankcombat.com