1:10ish scratch forklift

[dremu]

(NB: if you don't see pictures, check out post 16 (https://rctruckandconstruction.com/showpost.php?p=170587&postcount=16) below )

Not exactly "Construction Equipment" but I didn't see a category for "Materials Handling" :)

Had more free time lately, so I figured I'd liven things up a bit here and do up some picture threads of my builds vs actually building. Might give ideas to the next guy, might stimulate discussion for good ideas to change up this build or for the next one.

Bit of background: I've been building things of many sizes for years, ranging from scale models to RC vehicles to a 1.5ton ride-on backhoe with working hydraulics. I hate hydraulic fluid.

One recent build was a 1:10 military cargo truck; see its build thread @ https://rctruckandconstruction.com/showthread.php?p=170548 . The trailer cargo and pallets were begging for a matching way to load and unload, so this came to be. Scale on this one is decidedly fungible for two reasons. First, it's not based on any specific 1:1 model. Second, the thing had to *work*, so some parts may be off out of necessity to fit the mechanical components required.

As always, the thing is first drawn up in CAD to ensure that the various pieces will all fit together, and to start planning which pieces can be fabbed and which are to be 3D printed.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/forklift%2062%20solid.png

and a view through X-ray goggles:

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/forklift%2062%20alpha.png

The drivetrain isn't really exciting; the front axle is left over from the green truck, driven by a continuous rotation (sail / winch) servo. There's no steering linkage; the rear tire is skinny and is turned directly by a regular servo.

It's also pretty simple electronically. Since the drive motor is a servo, it doesn't need an ESC; there's just a BEC for the lighting and most everything else runs off the RX.

The fun part -- and I say "fun" with some sarcasm, as it's bloody complicated and a headache to get all the pieces to interleave -- is the lift mechanism up front. I can't entirely take credit for this, got a lot of inspiration from someone else, I think a thread on the now-defunct scale4x4.org.

Anyway, there's a set of bearings riding inside aluminum C-channel, and that gets moved up and down by a set of linear actuators.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/lift1.png

However, that alone doesn't give enough range to get the fork tines from the ground to high enough to clear the trailer bed. Therefore, there's a second set of bearings-channel inside, which is driven on a toothed belt.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/belt.png

Belt is on left side here; note brass tubes to give it more coverage around the gear's circumference. If it's just angled, you get like 60* around the gear and it slips; this way you get like 120* and it drives pretty well. Still has to remain tight, but there's tension clamps at the ends.

Another winch servo at the back has a gear which drives that belt (the blue one at the back here)

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/lift2.png

and lifts the center section up and down within the inner channels.

The front servo there is yet another winch servo that goes side-to-side. It has a pinion gear that drives a rack on the carriage to shift it side-to-side.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/slider1.png

This has the carriage moved aside to see the rack gear (orange); obviously when glued together the carriage is actually centered on it.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/slider2.png

Finally, that whole thing is hinged forward of the front axle to allow the tines to tilt up and down. This is driven by another shorter set of linear actuators.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2411.JPG

The net result is as thus:

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2408.JPG

The body shell is mostly just styrene sheet; the quarter rounded corners are 3D printed. The ROPS, wheels and steering wheel are printed, but the dashboard and seat are sheet with square stock down the sides for strength. Big fan of Evergreen :)

Dashboard is various size washers painted and glued in place; again, greebling
not being my strong point. It's "representative", as I like to say, not "accurate" :D

Here's some videos taken from what I just discovered is a bad camera angle. Can't really see the front, though maybe that's a good thing as I'm not a particuarly good forklift operator. Using these little machines definitely gives you respect for the people who use the 1:1's.

https://youtu.be/QpjHqdb1sfc

https://youtu.be/2Ne4LAuIG-w

https://youtu.be/dkTAxT0vWmo

[jerry56]

I really admire your engineering skills. Great looking scratch build...
Your cat looks like a Maine Coon...??

[dremu]

I really admire your engineering skills. Great looking scratch build...
Your cat looks like a Maine Coon...??

Thanks! I gotta admit that, particularly with the 3D printing, it's an iterative process (meaning a lot of trial and error.) You only see the parts that actually came out :D

For example, here's what happens when the temperature settings are off (or Mercury is in retrograde, printing being as much science as religion or art)

http://www.slosh.com/rc/frank/IMG_2123.JPG

And there are any number of totally failed designs or broken parts. Which I intentionally don't snap photos of :)

As for our feline assistants, it depends on which cat. The brown one doing the cat scans for me is indeed a Maine Coon. Those ear tufts are the giveaway. She and her sister are very chill and provide free scanning services and occasional perching:

http://www.slosh.com/rc/stacker/IMG_2711.JPG

I'd JUST gotten the three conexes stacked up, the big one on top being a bit precarious, and then FOOP, sixteen pounds of cat magically levitates up. I was amazed the whole assemblage didn't come crashing down at any point. The stacker is another project I gotta do a thread for.

The white cat in the videos is the missus' Ragdoll. He's alternately disinterested, as seen with the forklift, scared out of his mind, or belligerent, not knowing whether he should run away from an RC thing or attack it full-force. He's like Sand People (Tuscan Raiders), and frightens easily. Thankfully he doesn't return in greater numbers. One of him is enough =)) [Alec Guiness from Star Wars IV.]

Never a dull moment around here.

[jerry56]

Not to get you off track but you don't run across many Maine Coon owners... Yes they are a different kind of cat if there is a stack of anything they will end up on top with an agility that can be dumbfounding ...at one point we had 6 but with the passing of time we are down to 1.

Back on track, can't the wheel on the right be cleaned up...

[dremu]

Not to get you off track but you don't run across many Maine Coon owners... Yes they are a different kind of cat if there is a stack of anything they will end up on top with an agility that can be dumbfounding ...at one point we had 6 but with the passing of time we are down to 1.

Back on track, can't the wheel on the right be cleaned up...

Wrt the wheel, yeah. I think I used it for testing. Honestly, once you do get the settings dialled in and the planets align, it's just SOO much easier to press the "print another copy" button, it's not worth it. Takes time to print, but I'm not doing anything in that time and the plastic is cheap. I'd have to do the math, but that wheel has gotta be less than a buck, hardly worth my time to mess with.

Wrt the girls, I hear you. I've had Coons for years along with an assortment of others (the aforementioned Rag, a rescued Abyssinian, and just plain cat cats) ... but the Coons are just special somehow. Might be the size, along with the sensation that comes when you can feel eyes on the back of your head. From the top of the fridge. I swear they smile when they do it too.

[dremu]

Along with trucks, I have a thing for trailers, so I thought I should make a smaller utility trailer to carry the forklift. Turns out that the scale doesn't remotely work, so a trailer for it is actually wider and dang near as long as the trailer for the PLS truck. Unfortunately it doesn't have enough strength to put the tines into the back of a trailer and lift, like the 1:1's that piggyback onto a trailer, so I'm left doing a ramp trailer. Shucks, another project. :)

Regulatory teaser:

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2755.JPG

And the plan:

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/trailer.png

My OpenSCAD skills are increasing, thankfully, and now include spitting out a BOM for non-printed parts. That's especially handy for this one as it's mostly fabbed.

It's just your basic lawn-type utility trailer, albeit scaled wrong. Had to be this big to fit the forklift inside, so ..shrug.. we call it artistic license.

The frame is welded steel (1/2" x 1/8" angle, so it's not as heavy as you'd think)

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2670.JPG

Center on the cutting board. Upper left is not a teaser of my 1:10 M1070 HET truck nor is the upper right a teaser of its M1000 trailer. Me, have too many projects going at once? :)

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2673.JPG

Then some 1/8" rod is bent along the sides to form the walls. Floor and walls are thin plywood ("luan") I had left over from something else, 3mm I think. The floor boards are actually cut to individual boards, about resembling 2x12"s at scale. That was about as narrow as I could cut on my tablesaw without risking loss of digits.

Fenders were half printed (blue) due to the stupid shape, and then the white reinforcement along the bottom is just styrene strip.

The suspension is Chinesium leaf springs from Fleabay. My one regret is that I couldn't place the tandem closer together; having them this far apart really kills the turn radius. But even though the spring hangers are only 10mm or so wide, there was just no way to interleave them -- we'll see why in a bit.

[jerry56]

Nice utility trailer, now you need to build something to pull it with... to small for the 1070 Right now I do mostly conversions, so the right size tires and wheels are can be hard to find what are those tires off of....

[dremu]

Axles are epoxy tubing from my local plastic shop, with threaded rod down the center. I think the threaded rod would have been okay, but the trailer is so wide I was worried about bending. The epoxy tubing definitely stiffens the axles. The wheels then ride on brass tube bushings and have a nylock nut each side to keep them in place with just enough play to spin freely.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2792.JPG

The wheels are printed, on the two-headed printer, so the black lugs are actually printed as part of the wheel. There's just enough resolution to get a hex base and a round cylinder to look like studs.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2762.JPG

The hitch is more Chinesium -- again, too cheap to bother making, plus even though it's pot metal it's stronger than printed. The hitch is height adjustable for my various trucks (see the two bolts sticking out, though there's actually like eight holes.)

Yes, that's a trailer tongue jack at the center; it's threaded rod with printed foot and lever. The handle is a separate printed piece that spins on a bolt, makes it easy to use.

The tool box is also printed. Here I prolly coulda bought pre-made diamond plate, as printing it in scale is ... well, you can see it there. It's representative, not accurate. But you look at it and say yes, that's a trailer box.

So the reason the suspension is so wide-track, and can't be interleaved, is that the forklift needs a ramp. That was the whole point of this build.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2758.JPG

The ramp extends like 2/3 the length of the trailer, so it takes up a ton of space underneath. Since the forklift is three-wheeled, I couldn't just two narrow ramps ; it needs a full-width ramp.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2759.JPG

The ramp slides underneath the trailer bed on more angle iron

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2760.JPG

and then two little aluminum handles hold it in place so it doesn't slide backward. Not likely, given its weight and that my trucks don't actually pull at crazy speed, but still.

[jerry56]

I keep forgetting your truck is 1/10 it makes the trailer wheels look so small...

[dremu]

I also have a thing about lighting. Like I should be attending a twelve-step for it. ("Hi, my name is Aaron, I have an LED problem. Hi Aaron!")

As mentioned in the thread about the green truck, I use the FlySky FSi6, which along with servo channels, spits out everything on what they call iBus. This is basically a serial connection, just like you'd get on your computer, ideally suited to connect to an Arduino. It only requires two wires, data and ground, to transmit up to 14 channels.

Add battery power and all of my trucks and trailers can then use a standardized small plug for trailer lighting.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2761.JPG

That's the Arduino in question, hiding in the trailer toolbox. Very little to it, and few if any external components. The LED strings do like a little filtering to their power, which is why the electrolytic capacitor on the right.

The LED's are actually RGB, ie can do any color, but are programmed to mimic a 1:1 trailer.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2765.JPG

Front marker/turn signals are orange

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2766.JPG

And rears marker-turn-brake lights are red.

I did cheat, and the centers turn white in reverse even though you rarely if ever see a trailer with backup lights. I was having fun, and it's all done in software, so just requires reprogramming the Arduino to change behavior.

Turn signal looks like

https://youtu.be/AmvBJAILeNM

and backup lights

https://youtu.be/r39fU8mcJMI

and, if the RX can't get a signal from the TX, it blinks like hazards:

https://youtu.be/9Ie0TLF9iFk

[dremu]

Though I don't have anything that fits it -- yet -- I did do some narrow ramps on the curb side for lawn equipment or the like. You know, Just In Case.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2777.JPG

The trailer also fits the OpenRC tractor

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2778.JPG

Which is not my design. See http://makitpro.com/index.php/openrc-tractor/ for the scoop. I changed mine up a bit, used real rubber RC tires instead of printing them and some other details.

[dremu]

Nice utility trailer, now you need to build something to pull it with... to small for the 1070 Right now I do mostly conversions, so the right size tires and wheels are can be hard to find what are those tires off of....

Thanks. I actually keep meaning to get into conversions, do some Bruders and the like, though I'm a little intimidated by trying to squeeze in all the electronics. Though 1:10 can have its challenges (like the Abrams for the M1070, what a mess that was!) at least there's generally room to stuff in a decent battery and any RX I want and an Arduino or three and LED's to my hearts desire.

Wrt pulling, funny you ask. Yeah, the M1070 is too big, the M809 actually looks right, because the trailer scale is all wrong, and there's a little Land Rover Defender which should match as it's also 1:10 but is too small. Total Goldilocks and the Three Bears thing going on.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/landy/IMG_2793.JPG

Talking of tires, those tires are totally wrong for the Rover, but they were leftovers from something else ..shrug..

Still, the winch can pull the whole car straight up, just like in "The Gods Must Be Crazy."

I believe the trailer tires are these

https://store.rc4wd.com/Long-Haul-17-Commercial-114-Semi-Truck-Tires_p_731.html

They have a pretty good tire-sizing tool, where you put in your desired inner and/or outer diameter and/or width, etc, and it spits out matches. I've ended up, I donno, like 3/4 of my tires from them. Only some of the more obscure (or really spendy, like construction equipment) ones I've had to source elsewhere.

[dremu]

Speaking of trailer interchangeability, there's also a dolly for trucks other than the M1070 to pull the M1000.

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2790.JPG

Same jack as the utility, same tiny Arduino nestled underneath. There's an 8-LED bar across the back for turn/marker/reverse/brake.

The hitch was the big engineering challenge here. It tilts both left-right and fore-aft like the one on the '1070

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2786.JPG

And is a functional fifth wheel, with latch

http://www.slosh.com/rc/fork/IMG_2789.JPG

Again with the paperclip, the handle pulls the snap out and sticks on a little U shaped bit. The center opens until the trailer kingpin slides up against it. Pressure against the center releases the handle and the little spring at the top brings the center around to hold the king pin. Amazingly, that 5mm worth of printed plastic will hold sixty-odd pounds of trailer and Abrams tank!

Obviously this truck won't pull that much (even the HETS has trouble, talk about that when I get to its thread) but it at least can move the trailer unladen.

[sparkycuda]

Am I the only one not seeing any pictures? Descriptions seem to indicate there are pictures that are being talked about but I don't see any.
Help?

Ken

[jerry56]

??? I see them just fine....not sure whats up...

[dremu]

Am I the only one not seeing any pictures? Descriptions seem to indicate there are pictures that are being talked about but I don't see any.
Help?

Ken

Oh, bugger all. You're using Chrome, I bet, and it's blocking my images as they're http but this thread is https.

You can use another browser (ie Firefox), or you can change Chrome to accept http just for this site, not a catastrophic security risk.

For the latter, I can't post pix to show you, but here's a walk-through of how to fix it on your end. Click the padlock icon in the address bar just left of "https://rctruckandconstruction.com", then "Site settings." Scroll down to "Insecure content", which should be set to "Block (default)." Change that to "accept", close the Settings tab, and then click the "Reload" button that's magically appeared in the first tab.

I'll have to look into getting a certificate for my image hosting, but that's spendy, so for now, workarounds will have to do. :(

[frizzen]

Pics work for me.

Great looking fork!
I love the looks of that side-shift mechanism, i don't think i'd seen anybody actually make one work yet. I'm kinda suprised you make the lift stages seperately controlled instead of keyed together. Three wheeled should get you a lot more maneuverable than possible with four.

To be fair, a real forklift is a bit easier to run than an RC model. Or atleast my rc model Yale vs real Yales, Hysters, Komatsus... Although i've wondered how it'd be to run one from an FPV rig mounted in the seat.

Sweet looking utility trailer, i really like how that's setup. Lighting controller looks like a really slick setup.

Cool tractor, can't wait for a thread on it too.

[sparkycuda]

Thanks for the heads up on Chrome - seeing all the pics now.
Nice work on the forklift and trailer!

Ken

[dremu]

Thanks for the heads up on Chrome - seeing all the pics now.
Nice work on the forklift and trailer!

Ken

Thanks for the good words, and good that the pix come through. I find a pic really is worth a kiloword, and it's soo much easier to explain when you can SEE, as opposed to trying to follow my meandering descriptions!

Pics work for me.

Great looking fork!
I love the looks of that side-shift mechanism, i don't think i'd seen anybody actually make one work yet. I'm kinda suprised you make the lift stages seperately controlled instead of keyed together. Three wheeled should get you a lot more maneuverable than possible with four.

To be fair, a real forklift is a bit easier to run than an RC model. Or atleast my rc model Yale vs real Yales, Hysters, Komatsus... Although i've wondered how it'd be to run one from an FPV rig mounted in the seat.

Sweet looking utility trailer, i really like how that's setup. Lighting controller looks like a really slick setup.

Cool tractor, can't wait for a thread on it too.

Wrt keying the lift stages, I suppose I could. However, one is an absolute position and the other a relative direction, if that makes sense. The actuator is 1000 at the bottom, 1500 in the middle, 2000 at the top, that's absolute and easy to grok. But the belt motor is just up/down, ie <1500 is down and >1500 is up, and it has no limits nor any sense of where it is in its travel. I couldn't match, then, a position from the controller to any specific place for the belt.

IMO this is one of those places where shortcuts vs the 1:1's are to be expected, at least to avoid going insane. Trying to fit a rotary shaft encoder or some other sensor to determine the belt location in that tiny space would be crazy-making :) And on that particular project I was trying to avoid electronic complexity. It did later end up with one Arduino, but only because I bought cheap winch servos that chattered and didn't center well. The Arduino allowed me to wrangle them for like $5 and some re-wiring, versus buying a set of nice winch servos (much more $$) and having to tear down and reassemble the whole thing (lots of time.)

I debated doing four wheels instead of three, but either didn't have a spare steering axle, or just felt like doing something different, I forget. Mounting that skinny toy robot tire straight to a servo arm was simple, and sometimes, Simple Is Good, right? :)

Wrt the trailer, thanks. The scale being off bugs me more than I'd like, but it'd be useless if it couldn't carry the fork and the tractor. Guess I'm just between a rock and a hard place. I'm also annoyed because it looked just fine in the CAD, and it wasn't until I had it mostly assembled and sat it next to the truck that I realized how outsize it was.

Still, it's just a toy, even if a toy for a big boy :)

Wrt the tractor, as mentioned I can't take much credit for it, but I guess it's like a conversion, just a conversion of somebody else's 3D print project. See https://rctruckandconstruction.com/showthread.php?p=170594

[frizzen]

Sorry, i had only ment like the Toy or RC way of linking lift stages... Something like string or chain over a pulley lifts a stage as lower stage rises. I like your way of doing it, especially if you had a warehouse with some overhead obstructions, or if it can load into your conex cans.

If the Truck, Trailers, Forklift, and Tractor are 1/10, i think the Rover looks more 1/12 or 1/14? I dunno, the wheels and sideboards on the trailer make it hard to estimate scale?

[jerry56]

I bet it would look perfect behind a Tonka conversion... Dump truck, pick-up or a flat bed. :D

[dremu]

Sorry, i had only ment like the Toy or RC way of linking lift stages... Something like string or chain over a pulley lifts a stage as lower stage rises. I like your way of doing it, especially if you had a warehouse with some overhead obstructions, or if it can load into your conex cans.

If the Truck, Trailers, Forklift, and Tractor are 1/10, i think the Rover looks more 1/12 or 1/14? I dunno, the wheels and sideboards on the trailer make it hard to estimate scale?

Oh, like a mechanically compound lift, I get it. Would take up less space prolly. Wasn't too bad squeezing in the belt-drive servo, but keeping the belt tight and giving it enough engagement to its drive on the servo was challenging.

The fork can load into the conex ends at least as far as the tines will go, though it's too big to fit itself inside, so it can't go all the way in. There's actually a side-loading half-open container for that very purpose (and because I wanted a little variation)

http://www.slosh.com/rc/stacker/IMG_2847.JPG

The Landy is 1:10 by wheelbase, but those dang tires make it look all out of whack. The trailer is prolly more like 1:8 too, but again, out of necessity ..shrug.. Sometimes suspension of disbelief is required.

I bet it would look perfect behind a Tonka conversion... Dump truck, pick-up or a flat bed. :D

Oh, don't get me thinking =)) I've actually been considering doing an Alvis Stalwart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvis_Stalwart), purely for the funkiness factor. Could do it up as a dump with a coupla actuators, hmm...