[johnnyvd]

So, a larger update on the front radar servo drive. This was a difficult one to get right. I started of a little bit like the AFV unit.
But i ditched the intermediate gear because i don't want the front radar to rotate 360 degrees, just want it to follow turret movement (panning).

Then there was the thing with getting the base frame to fit the slope of the turret bottom. Had to recreate the bottom in 3D and do a number of printing iterations to get it right.
Here the result in the design:



After a lot of tweaking on the gears, i managed to get it to run and fit right!



The servo kabel of the front radar up/down movement fits through the bearing center and under the base frame..

Now on to routing the servo cable in the front cable and to think about the design of the barrel elevation!

[johnnyvd]

Some progress on the turret rotation drive. At first i planned on using a custom designed turret ring based on the Tamiya leopard 2A6 which has two ball bearing "rings" running in a large outer ball race.. I managed to 3D print it and  it worked, but the accuracy was too much off to let it run smoothly..

So back to the drawing board and this time i designed a turret ring based on a standard ball bearing 40mm inside diameter.
I want it to work with a standard Henglong turret drive so i made the turret gear as small as possible, 55t m=1 to be precise. This is the result of this ordeal:



Also visible is the interface for the turret bottom to form some sort of "Spindle shaft". This will be the backbone of the turret rotation.. Here also a view on the mounted Turret gear:



Clamped between the Gear and the spindle is a 24-strand slipring to get all the signals from the hull to the turret!

[johnnyvd]

The rotation of the turret now works like a dream! I got really inspired by these ball bearings, so i decided to use some of them on the barrel elevation unit also!



Next up (and almost finished) is the barrel elevation servo drive. This one will use gears instead of the normal servo arms..

[juanillor]

eres un genio ,sigo el proyecto con muchas ganas 

[johnnyvd]

eres un genio ,sigo el proyecto con muchas ganas 

Thank you! Currently i'm working on a way to get easy access to the turret internals.
The top of it should come on off very easy.. I'm thinking about a solution with some Neodium magnets...

[juanillor]

como va el proyecto?

[juanillor]

sigues con el proyecto ?
me interesa mucho ya que tengo un gepard tambien

[johnnyvd]

sigues con el proyecto ?
me interesa mucho ya que tengo un gepard tambien

The complete project is put in the fridge for a while.. Too much work on other Openpanzer controlled Tanks for customers.
I will start posting when i have time available again!

Cheers, John

[NielsJ]

Hello john how is your project going?
Im building also dutch prtl.
Is there  a way that your files are online?

[Snipah]

I just secured a Gepard as well. Would love access to your upgrades also.

[hywel]

Following with great interest as I'm going through a build of my own currently!

[johnnyvd]

Sorry all for the big delay. Due to a lot of work on my house and a new demanding job the Gepard project was put on hold for some time. I hope i will be finding the time to restart it this year. When i do, i will be posting progress and the 3D files!

[gundi]

Hi, is there any news here? I'm also currently in the process of rebuilding a Tamiya Gepard from scratch