MadModder

Just updating this adventure. The replacement display never did arrive in New Hampshire (from Japan, presumably) so we ended up making do with a flashlight for the last three winters, aimed at the display from an oblique angle. Still difficult to read, but at least somewhat legible after a power outage has occurred, and I have to reprogram it.

I may take apart the control unit again at some point, to see if I can introduce some kind of cobbed up backlight to make it visible under ordinary circumstances. Some times a very brief outage overnight won't be noticed, and the furnace program will reset, also unoticed, which either freezes us, or burns excessive fuel overnight.

I like the fact that you added a backhoe to the engine bay in black. Must make the vehicle very versatile!

Quote from: vtsteam on July 22, 2025, 08:04:07 PM

 

But if it's a nice clean well lighted place, I think I won't mind the hike. Hell, If I get too lazy I can always drive there!

You could always add a water supply, toilet facilities and really make it home from home…

Hmmmmmmmm........ 

(no edit above --- sorry about the accidental click of "modify" instead of "quote"  )

The grey parts, there's so many of them, where to start... the cab, THE CAB.  The  operator has been complaining about the cheap-skate boss who won't even put a roof over his head.  That'll put him in his place - literally.  I ran the calibration square using the grey filament and made the required changes.

Now, not only has he got a roof over his head, he's got 4 walls, a floor and a control panel - with buttons and knobs to play with.  Unlike Les Nessman's office, the walls do not involve masking tape on the floor.  I guess that masking tape is sort of involved, since that's what's keeping the floor from dropping out from under his feet.

Onto the BIG grey pieces.

What we have here are the major parts of the lower rotating assembly.  Clockwise from the right they are: the main frame, the slew gear - with the slew bearing installed, the slew gear spacer. and the upper slew bearing clamp.  The upper slew bearing clamp, slew gear, and slew gear spacer will get bolted to the main frame, the pockets for the M3 heat set inserts are visible in the main frame.  The big hole in the main frame is where the slip-ring that feeds the track drive gearmotors will live.  The upper slew bearing clamp keeps the slew bearing from pulling out of the slew gear and firmly attached to the main frame.  A lower slew bearing clamp will live in the large hole in the slew gear spacer.  That clamp will keep the upper half of the rotating assembly firmly attached to the slew bearing, and all will remain right with the world.  The key-hole shaped notch in the slip-ring hole gives me access to install the M3 screws that will bolt the lower slew bearing clamp to the upper center frame.  Since that picture was taken another couple of piles of grey parts have been added, 17 bogie side plates, and 10 bogie wheels.  I meant to print 2 extras of each, but I only printed 1 extra side plate.  The printer is currently 6 hours into an 8 hour print on the engine bay base and the tanks bay base. 

This will give you some idea of what's under the hood in the engine bay and tank areas.


Side project #(??? - I don't know, I lost count.)

This was a test to see if you can easily replicate an open grid using an FDM printer, and yes Virginia, you can.  This would normally be a solid object 2mm thick with a grid infill pattern.  However, when you tell the slicer to use 0 bottom layers and 0 top layers, you get the above.  Then I got to wondering if I could use a variation on that to print something like this.


Turns out yes you can.

These two used almost the same STL file as the 1st experiment, only the thickness was reduced from 2mm to 0.6mm.  They were both printed with 0.2mm layers, 2 bottom layers, and 0 top layers - which left 1 infill layer.  The guy on the left was printed at 30% infill while the guy on the right was printed at 75% infill.  With my 0.4mm nozzle that's way too small, 60% might be about as small as I'd go.

I've still got a lot of grey parts to print, the idler assemblies with the track tensioners included, the bed lift assembly, plus God only knows what else.  Then there's the black doo-dads to print, the fuel fill cap, the hydraulic tank vent, the exhaust stack, the front guard rail, the headlight covers, the work platforms...

But that is the current state of affairs with this project.

Don

I started work on the engine/cab/tanks platform at the front of the machine.  This is the platform and the engine bay.


This shows the platform, the engine bay, the hydraulic oil/fuel tanks and the cab walls.


It was about this time the operator demanded that I print out his new :office chair", so he could see how well it fit his butt.

There were some complaints, the seat back needed to be tilted back, the headrest needed to be tilted forward, the top third of the headrest needed to be lopped off cause it looked STOOPID, and the joystick was located under his wrist - not in the center of his grip where it belongs.  SOOOO... the fixes were put in.

The mechanic was so pissed that he had to sit in the REJECT he said he was gonna hold his breath until he turned blue.  So far he's only managed to turn his clothes blue, but ya gotta give him an E for effort.

It was about this time that the Muse wanted to know what an opening door would look like.  I was done with the bed design so I started printing the bed parts.  This is about 9-10 hours into 14 hour print, things weren't looking good, there was a LOT of stringing.


The stringing was bad, but that wasn't the worst part.  The nominal dump bed width was 135mm, the rear section printed at 134mm, the center section printed at 139mm and the front wall printed at 136mm.  I spent 2 days trying, and failing, to correct this using the slicer's scaling.  I finally said screw the scaling, and used brute force.  I went back to the method I used to get my 1st 3D printer to actually print ROUND holes instead of ellipses.  I use the M92 command in the g-code start-up script to modify the printer's X, Y, and Z steps/mm settings.  To find out what the factory settings were, I hooked the slicer up to the printer and sent the M503 command to the printer.  That tells the printer to print the settings it has in memory back to the slicer's screen.  Next I needed a quick and easy way of calibrating a large object.  What I came up with is my calibration square, a square with 100mm outside dimensions, 2mm thick walls, and a Z height of less than 1mm.  Best of all it only takes about 2 minutes to print.  The first time I printed the square it measured about 98mm, with X being over-sized, and Y under-sized.  I made some adjustments and tried it again, this time it measured in at about 99.5mm.  One final tweak and it measured 100.1mm, +/-0.05mm in both X and Y.  Close enuf for Gub-mint work.  Once I finally gave up on the slicer's scaling, it took less than 2 hours to do what I failed to do in 2 days using the slicer's scaling.  This is the completed dump bed parts.


It was about this time that the Muse decided I needed a "side project", a working hidden hinge for the engine bay door.  After about 3 days and many failed attempts, I finally had a design that worked.


So I printed out the last of the yellow parts.  Here's a family photo.


The operator was so excited he decided to jump in and take his new ride for a spin.  When it wouldn't start he called the mechanic over to check out the problem.  When the mechanic popped open the engine bay door he started yelling, "We've been robbed, we've been robbed!  They took everything." 

I'd have liked to get a little more of an opening, but there's only so much that you can get folded into a 10mm thickness.

That's it for the yellow parts, on to the grey.

TO BE CONTINUED....