1/16th radio-controlled scale model of Komatsu D575A-2

[tournaphil]

I have finsished the 1/16th radio-controlled scale model of the Komatsu D575A-2. I am creating a new thread here for it instead of tacking it on to the CHTZ-T-800 thread. Here's a photo of the finished model and few build pics along the way. It has already been field tested in the rolling gear during fabrication and worked out fine. I expect to give it a video -run down at the closed coal mine soon and put some vid links up here to find it on the youtube channel.


Setting up the first drawings for scaling at 1/16th scale.



Making a cardboard model of the main frame before sending drawings off to the laser cut.


Track frames and rock guards


Grouser plates formed and drilled

 

[tournaphil]

Track frames finished



Welding main frame together



Main frame components formed and welded



Frame and rolling fitted and painted Komatsu yellow.

 

[tournaphil]

Cardboard model of blade before sending drawings to laser cut.



Blade finished with ground engaging. I did not weld the blade, my friend Dave rolled the sheets on a set of slip rollers to get the three center sheet radii and the tri-planar curves of the end bits accurate and welded the laser cut parts with a TIG and made a nice job of it.

 

[tournaphil]

Fitting and setting up the adjustable Komatsu-type K-Link diagonal bracing and ball joints for the blade tilt.

 

[tournaphil]

Here's a photo of the finished model along the way. Weight is 77lbs. Initially I intended to fit a single shank however,many photos of the Dash-2 that I came accross were fitted with a multi so thats what i made. More buld pics soon.

 

[tournaphil]

Ripper components aligned and ready for the TIG.



My friend Dave Tig welded the ripper and made a nice job of it. Shown here connected to the drawbar and undercoated and has the actuators for lift and pitch fitted for testing. I tried commercial actuators and they all failed miserably depsite the manufacturers claims and cost me a lot of money to learn the lesson. The manufacturer refused to address the issue or sell me some parts to repair them so I junked the lot and we now roll our own on the lathe, far superiorin terms of appearance, strength and operation. My RYO's use 4-start trapezoidal lead screws. Each one of those will push/pull 19 LB on duty cycle repeatedly. I also replaced all the rams on the CHTZ-T-800 with my own roll your owns and they work flawlessly. So we can now roll our own complete set to any piston lenght in a few days and made spare parts along the way so we can repair them if we have a failure in no time at all. Ready for fitting the superstructure, cab, tanks etc etc.



I had the superstructue 3D printed since strength was not required and it was quick and easy. I added a lot more detail after and painted it in the correct Komatsu yellow and Komatsu dark violet blue using spray cans and painted in the pin striping as per the OEM by hand. The cab interior is fully detailed and has been fitted with tinted windows since this photo. The whole thing is mounted on an upper deck (not shown) and can be quickly removed as one entire unit to access the hull and electrical and mechnical components for repair if necessary.



Finished model. Its modelled upon an approximate 1995 year build Komatsu D575A-2 with straight-tilt bull-blade and multi-shank variable-pitch ripper.

Everything can be stripped down into separate components as per the OEM.Then each one of those components can be taken apart for repair if necessary.
Weight is 77lbs so in three dimensions scaled at 1/16th (77x16x16x16 = 315,392lbs for the 1:1) makes it 157 tons weight, a little overweight since the 1:1 in this particular configuration is approx 135 tons operating weight so drawbar should be somewhere around 50lbs + at traction break on concrete (yet to be proven). That completes the build report, field test videos are next.

 

[gtermini]

That's an impressive build! Very cool.

 

[tournaphil]

Links to the videos of the D575A model. )Thanks to our friends at socalearthmovers for permission to use the audio soundtrack from their videos of the D575A.)

RC Model Bulldozer Komatsu D575A-2 (Bench rip 5 minutes #6)

RC Model Bulldozer Komatsu D575A-2 (Bench stack 5.5 minutes #7)

RC Model Bulldozer Komatsu D575A-2 (Walk-around 4 minutes #5)

RC Model Bulldozer Komatsu D575A-2 (Bench stack (2) 4.5 minutes #8)

 

[shovelman]

Very impressive Mr. G!!!

 

[tournaphil]

The 41's are now completed, a seperate build thread has been added.

 

[tournaphil]

Very impressive Mr. G!!!

Long time since our paths have crossed Mr C. PM me anytime.
Cheers

 

[tournaphil]

Update December 2020. D575A-2 alterations and improvements to the blade load and push cycle programming. New field test video.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGzwwUsynsd0iHu6VIUAeJA/videos

 

[tournaphil]

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[tournaphil]

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[RM Snipe]

Nice work you have a talent, video links are dead "can't find channel" ? I want to see it working..

 

[tournaphil]

The content creator (We) deleted the links on HEF and the 16 vids on YouTube of all the field tests intentionally. Bots (or humans) in Kazakhstan had scraped this site and reset links from those video links to links at their end leading to their own websites and to places other than the YouTube field test videos, the most likely purpose being to propagate spam or launch botnet denial-of-service attacks. A website's robot.txt most likely instructed their botnet search engines what to look for and came across them on HEF, probably just by sheer luck/accident but it found them all the same. Of course I am more than aware that any online content is considered public property these days- this is the world- wide- web, the internet. When I discovered this I reported it to Steve twice and asked for the four build threads to be removed in entirety to prevent the above mentioned issue from further propagation around the internet and so that it eventually stalled-out at the Kazakhstan botnet end. I did not receive a reply and that removal request did not happen. We can only ask for the content to be removed, we can’t force the issue. Of course we elected to create the build threads and link the field tests video links from HEF to YouTube and we also accept that HEF content once posted is no longer within our control, essentially, no longer our property, unlike YouTube where the content can be deleted by the owner. We reported it to YouTube and they essentially suggested we whistle Dixie. So we had no choice but to remove all the original content from YouTube to stall-out the botnets. The remaining thread content is still present since it was not removed in entirety and hence the links no longer link to the former content on YouTube. We did it to ourselves - we put the threads and links up in the first instance and voluntarily, so we have no right for complaint. HEF have no control over these internet botnets either,it’s annoying but thankfully at least for us, we could remove the linked content from YouTube. That’s all there is to it.