Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully

[Rvjimd]

Getting into the counterweight part of the crane was my first issue.

There are spot welds around the top of the "lid". I drilled out the welds and the lid can be removed for really good access. This makes a great conversion in my opinion because of all the space. Be careful removing the lid and you will be able to use it as a removable lid to change batteries. I run two separate lipo batteries as well as lead counterweight and there is plenty of room for all of it.





I made all the rope drums for mine on the little unimat lathe. it works good on hoist and drag/crowd drums to make the diameter as large as possible and still let you "stack" the servos together. I made the boom drum pretty small diameter thinking I didn't want it to move fast. You could use that approach on the hoist if you were planning to do lots of heavy lifting but I don't think it matters much. I think this part of the conversion is more about making the servo mounts work well and easy to install, then make the drums.



Here is a pic of the pulleys I made for the boom required for dragline configuration. I really want to make a fairleed but haven't done it yet. You could probably just run the drag rope out thru a small hole in the front of the cab without the two pulleys. They way I have these keeps the drag rope from riding on the cab.

The house is simply sitting on top of the plastic gear. I don't even have a retaining nut to hold it down. Here is a picture of the truck chassis and the slightly different version on my custom crawler base.

When you detach the house from the truck, carefully grind off the top of the stud to leave the stud attached to the truck, and as long as possible.

On the truck, I did drill and tap the stud and add a cap washer and screw to hold it together. This way if someone picks up the house it won't separate from the truck.

Here is the crawler version, I enlarged the hole and made a large post/stud to mount to the crawler base. This has a small center hole to hold the slip ring needed for power transfer to the tracks. My plan was to mod the truck to match so I could move the crane back to the truck if I wanted.





Feels like I have hijacked your build thread, sorry

Jim

[frizzen]

I don't think it's a hijack at all, i asked you for advice. If you'd prefer i can ask all kinds of questions over in your build thread.

Awesome i hadn't figured out if it was spotwelds or tabs yet. Those pics are really helpful.

It's not really a build thread yet, all i've done on the crane is string it, start straightening a few things, and fix the outriggers. I'm planning, and gathering advice and ideas, and um making motor noises while playing with it. You guys have done the hard work i'm just going to steal whatever ideas i can.

[Rvjimd]

Glad to help, we can continue here, fine with me. And, let's make this a build thread, get to work, I can't wait to see another dragline moving dirt!

Jim

[frizzen]

Well that's embarassing, the back fell off.



Spot welds on mine weren't as clean as yours

___

if you follow my lead, you NEED to add a screw hole in the cab before removing this. walkway side of the cable drum window. there is no tack weld there and the lid is structural.

[Rvjimd]

Cool, glad to see you working on it!

I was able to drill and tap the stud on the truck (5th wheel). Then I made a simple thrust washer to slip over the stud to hold the house on the truck.

Keep at it, I thought it was fairly easy to convert and the hi tec servos that I used are really easy and stable conversions to continuously rotating servos.

Jim

[frizzen]

So far im just thinking i'll start off with a 1/4'' id bushing over the stock pin, and open up the crane house a little. Maybe tap a hole into the pin for a washer or bearing to keep the house connected. Need to pick up a slew gear to figure out height.

What kind of servos do you guys reccomend?
I know one of you guys used tower MG996R, those are out of stock everywhere i've seen.
I've seen some using hs-645mg like i run in my crawlers, but thats a $30 servo to need 4-5 of, it was a $40 chassis...


For the truck i'm figuring it's gonna drive a little, dig a lot. So i can probably wimp out some on that part. 2 channel cheap servo and esc. I may try to find/make some springs later on, bushings and bearings would be good to add, but it's already had 60+ years without them.

Since i've got a 1955/56 with the best steering setup of any of them, i'm probably just gonna roll with most of that as is and just mount up a servo to it.

I'm thinking i may try to cobble up a way for drive off an old screwgun in my scrap pile. It's a nice planetary reduction. Probably going to try for both rear axles powered. Maybe eventually throw some better axles under it.

I really like the 'but it's a toy' vibe it has so far, and i'm not having much luck finding anything out about the Clark T-24 Michigan Crane to make more detailed.

[Rvjimd]

I like the 645MG, they convert to 360 rotation really well. Some Futaba servos have the pot on the circuit board and are not to friendly for the conversion.

Take some good pics of the chassis conversion, I still have not done mine.

Jim