RC Live Steam Tank 1
Specs:
Engine: Wilesco
D49 Marine Double Piston Steam Engine
Boiler: Mamod
SE3
Fuel: Alcohol
or Solid Fuel Tablets
Chassis &
Gearbox: Tamiya 1/16 (Clutch
drive, aluminum chassis with metal tracks)
RC: 2
Channel Futaba
Running Time: 10-15 min per
full tank of water, pressure at about .75 - 1.5 Bars
Details & Progress:
First Tank:
The first tank that I did was a non RC tank
driven by a single piston. The chassis was plastic and light, and it
had plenty of speed and worked well. With the success of this tank, I
decided to try and make an RC tank.
RC First Attempts:
I found
an RC tank chassis that was single drive with clutch steering. I
removed the
motor and mounted a pulley to it. I first tried 2 different
single cylinder wilesco engines, it had too little power,
and I had to gear it down to a snail crawl for it to work, using a
large pulley. These were not self starting engines, so they had
no forward and reverse RC control.
RC Full Control:
After
proven that it can be done, I tried a wilesco D49 double
piston engine. It worked, but the double piston was using up too much
steam
for the vertical boiler to keep up.
Horizontal Boiler:
I next
tried a wilesco horizontal boiler, which worked a lot better. Over the
weeks of tweaking, this old boiler died on me.
.
Final Tank:
So I
ended up using a mamod boiler with superheater. After everything
was working, the pipes were soldered, with the
steam exhaust routed back to the smoke stack, above the boiler.
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to see larger pics
Movie