Bruder Cat Excavator Conversion

[mojo]

nice stuff....really nice stuff... being new and poor to this hobby and lurking for a few weeks on this forum i was trying to find another way of moving the arms of an excavator and what you seem to have seems to be the ticket... hydraulics seem out of the question.... way out of my range of know how and cost.... my question is where did you pick up those screw type cylinders, if thats what they even are, and how do they work radio wise, do you need a speed control or just reciever.... and while i'm asking questions, how do you make a servo go around and around acting like a drill, i thought they had limits to how far they could turn...

thanks Joe ...i'm really green to all this stuff

[rockNmayhem]

Originally Posted by mojo

nice stuff....really nice stuff... being new and poor to this hobby and lurking for a few weeks on this forum i was trying to find another way of moving the arms of an excavator and what you seem to have seems to be the ticket... hydraulics seem out of the question.... way out of my range of know how and cost.... my question is where did you pick up those screw type cylinders, if thats what they even are, and how do they work radio wise, do you need a speed control or just reciever.... and while i'm asking questions, how do you make a servo go around and around acting like a drill, i thought they had limits to how far they could turn...

thanks Joe ...i'm really green to all this stuff

Welcome to the forum Joe. Glad you like the work you see around here and trust me when I say everyone starts out as a newb at some point in time.

Thanks for taking intrest in my build and to answer your questions in order here you go.

1) The rams or cylinders as you call them are all custom made by me. I turn them down on my lathe and have a vendors post if you'd like more information on them.

2) Using the rams with my Hitec radio works great. I can use the sticks on it just like a full size excavator that I run so it makes it alot of fun and very simple to pick up.

3) I am currently just in mock up of the electronics as well but I will not need to be running a speed control as I'm not running an actual motor in this machine.

4) I modify the servo's pots and make a custom output shaft for the final drive of the servo to get them to rotate 360 degrees and work the rams. You can find multiple places that show pics and vids of how to modify the servos all over the net and it's quite simple.

Again thanks for the intrest and if you have any questions we would all be glad to help.

[mojo]

your welcome man... i appreciate the help you give to whoever asks and to myself...

is there any way you could draw out a schematic on how your rams are made and how it all works....

i'd like to make me a custom excavator/ log loader with your ideas...

also whats the better size to build these machines? i see 1/16 and 1/14.5...

and another question i have is can you combine servos via a switch on the radio or wire harness to work with one stick? so you can have two rams on the big arm that comes right off the machine work in tandem to one stick on the radio?

i know i ask alot but i'm trying to eliminate the learning curve to all this...

thanks again

[mojo]

hey tyler sorry i didn't realize you were trying to sell your ideas for the rams... but anyhow you've been very respectful and i hope you didn't take my noisying around as an insult... can't wait to see the final product and you r doing awesome....joe

[rockNmayhem]

Originally Posted by mojo

your welcome man... i appreciate the help you give to whoever asks and to myself...

is there any way you could draw out a schematic on how your rams are made and how it all works....

i'd like to make me a custom excavator/ log loader with your ideas...

also whats the better size to build these machines? i see 1/16 and 1/14.5...

and another question i have is can you combine servos via a switch on the radio or wire harness to work with one stick? so you can have two rams on the big arm that comes right off the machine work in tandem to one stick on the radio?

i know i ask alot but i'm trying to eliminate the learning curve to all this...

thanks again

Originally Posted by mojo

hey tyler sorry i didn't realize you were trying to sell your ideas for the rams... but anyhow you've been very respectful and i hope you didn't take my noisying around as an insult... can't wait to see the final product and you r doing awesome....joe

There is no problem asking questions and I did not take offense to your words about posting pics. I use a very similar method to pumptech and his builds for the rams but I machine my own parts internally to make them look and opperate a little differently. The main difference between them is how they attatch to the servo and that I have made full cylinder sleeves on my lathe as where he used materials that he had on hand.

His cylinders work great and no worse than mine. I just had an expensive machine to make mine look pretty so to speak. If you would like pumptech is VERY knowledgable and has a great write up on making your own rams if you'd like to take a look.

Thanks for the intrest and I hope to get some progress pics up by the end of this week. Have a lot to make up for.