Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully

[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

[frizzen]

I figured out my trucks steering throw being off had to do with a couple bent linkages, and straightening up the steering shaft got a whole lot more throw now. Also straightened up the bumper, took the lid off the cab.

Do you guys think it'd look better keeping the stock steering wheel that turns with wheels, or delete that in favor of easier setup and more scale look?

Yeah you're probably right on the servos, i just didn't know if any of the other cable machine operators had suggestions. If they convert easy and have a wide deadband, it beats cheap and creepy.

[frizzen]

Random stuff.
http://ccmodels.com/shop/michigan-t-24-conversion-kit/ was available 2009 for $325. Looks like it had crawler tracks, dragline bucket, main boom extension, secondary boom, grapple claw, a bent boom, extra top rigging, third crank drum... in brass, based off michigan factory info. And to be helpful it's! not available, and the pictures are ms-paint.

Truckmaker was kind enough to tell me his trucks aftermarket boom extension was 15" OAL, pin holes 14_3/4 centers. He also shared some detail pics.

It looks like they designated t-24 for truck mounted, c-24 for crawler. And i'm not having much luck learning about the cranes, or the michigan company, or clark who bought them, but there's some goofy looking bird that shows up in every search.

[frizzen]

Making cable drums is really slow with a redneck lathe setup, so i broke it more instead.





The cab roof is 4 spotwelds, 2 inboard side, 2 outboard. The steering support has 3 spotwelds and a joggle through a slot in floor. Steering wheel is brazed onto a splined shaft, if you want to keep steering shaft intact the cab would have to come off frame.

[frizzen]

I looked at a bunch of pictures, and made some guesses, and started to cobble up a dragline bucket out of stuff i had on hand so I could play around with the mechanics of it. Brass sheet thats too thin, hollow tube, and some electronics solder...

BUT I think it's acting about like it should and once the rigging is done in chain i might be onto something. (I started before i saw the patent drawings to copy, but it should work on soft loose stuff.)



Prototypes aren't pretty.



Also started setting up for hoist and crowd drum servo mounts, and working toward getting steering servo in.