Here is the T-35 as it looks today. I have added:

• Antenna rails
  
• Machine guns
  
• Track guard bars
  
• Lifting lugs on small turrets
  
• All hatches
  
• Periscopes
  
• Jacks
  

Here is a shaky video of it moving before some of these additions:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=11Hktcusiao6wx30hNgDSWFQ2ZOdFXl8H



Had to do the arbitrary T-35 4 turrets pointing the same way picture.

Sherman for scale.

And by popular demand, the unmitigated disaster that is the insides. I would like to remind anyone screaming at their monitor that I have never done this before, and that this is temporary, as I still have to tear it all down to paint.
The electronics consist of:

• X6B Reciever
  
• OpenPanzer TCB
  
• Sabertooth dual 5A motor driver
  
• Modified & reinforced 4-1 gear ratio boxes
  
• Benedini TBS Mini
  
• TARR Smoker
  
• 3x large servos
  
• 2x tiny servos
  
• Drone motor for cooling fan
  
• 6 wire slip ring
  
• Cheap speaker in custom sound box
  
• Lipo Battery Monitor
  
• 5000 mAh Lipo
  
• high wattage COB LED headlights and small led brake lights ( I am aware the real one didn't have any) 
  

The lids are held on by rare earth magnets stuck to the Robertson screws you see, much like everything else in there it aint pretty but it works great.  

I will also mention I had a bunch of help from Luke of OpenPanzer, who would push firmware updates out within hours of me finding either bugs or features I needed to get the control board to do what I needed in this unique vehicle. 
I also had help from the support staff over at MatoMart, who hooked me up with the modified gear box I needed to be able to turn with the huge track contact area I have. These guys are local too and have some impressive vehicles, hopefully they will turn up at an event one day!

3D printed gear box covers? I want the STL files please
That is one beefy turret. Glad the infill is so low otherwise heavy and lotta filiament....
The two piece upper deck is a good idea with the sheer length of that unit...

Very very nice job.

What settings did you use for the FF Dreamer for the tracks?
Bed/Nozzle, layers etc? Type of filiament (aka brand)?

...WOW!!

You could market this!

Also, hello

That is one AWESOME TANK! man oh man Nice Detail 

Hello guys! Thanks for the kind words. 
Jarlath, the gear box covers have made things much quieter and allow me to grease the gears nicely. That STL wont do you much good though, those gearboxes are nonstandard, they have extra gears and re-positioned posts. I like how they turned out though so I will make a set for my PZ3, I will share those later as they will clip on to any gearbox without taking them out of the tank.
As for the beefy turret, all walls are 5mm thick. The turret looks crazy because I decided to print it upside down, so it was either fill that area with supports or leave it solid. Kinda balances the turret.

As for the settings on the Flash Forge, I maxed the quality and slowed the print speeds. To get the tracks to stick without a brim (no brim for obvious reasons) I used an acetone ABS slurry on the standard FF stickers. Dont do this, it destroyed them by the end. I have learned much since then. The whole tank is Hatchbox ABS minus the gearbox covers which are some random PLA. 

Airbrushler, hopefully I can paint it as nice as some of your stuff! ( not likely )

I'm sure you can you have lots of Talent happening over there that's an Amazing Job

Dean R wrote:

As for the settings on the Flash Forge, I maxed the quality and slowed the print speeds. To get the tracks to stick without a brim (no brim for obvious reasons) I used an acetone ABS slurry on the standard FF stickers. Dont do this, it destroyed them by the end. I have learned much since then. The whole tank is Hatchbox ABS minus the gearbox covers which are some random PLA.

For the tracks, did you have any gaps in infill or was it set to 100% for full solid fusion?

Jarlath wrote:

For the tracks, did you have any gaps in infill or was it set to 100% for full solid fusion?

I cant remember, they were the first thing I printed. I have since moved printers and computers.
Today I would use an 80% fill with increased wall thickness, 3-4. The tracks are so thin and with many holes so there is very little infill anyway.

I've been watching this post initially to see the build progress, but I find that I am also drawn in by the 3D Pinter banter between two experts.
When ever I find myself hacking at a piece of plastic with my dremel or gluing my finger to a hull, I occurs to me ,there must be a better way.
You guys have found it , very impressed.

Dean R wrote:

Jarlath wrote:

For the tracks, did you have any gaps in infill or was it set to 100% for full solid fusion?

I cant remember, they were the first thing I printed. I have since moved printers and computers.
Today I would use an 80% fill with increased wall thickness, 3-4. The tracks are so thin and with many holes so there is very little infill anyway.

Sigh... I went and updated the FlashForge Dreamer specs for an attempt at re-doing some tracks for the maus...

50 micron height, 40mm/s print speed (default 3600 is 60mm/s), and 80% infill.

for 4 complete links it was going to be over 15 hours of print time...
I need 112 complete links... (a complete link consists of 1 x main, 1 x middle link, 2 x end links) UGH...

The prototype from an older thread....



Each main track is 66mm x 10mm wide with a primary surface nearly 5mm thick (plus track guides = 10mm)

I spent nearly 5 months on trying to get quoting for that for aluminum and/or zinc. It was never the price but the capabilities of the companies that prevented the result.

Jarlath wrote:

50 micron height, 40mm/s print speed (default 3600 is 60mm/s), and 80% infill.

for 4 complete links it was going to be over 15 hours of print time...
I need 112 complete links... (a complete link consists of 1 x main, 1 x middle link, 2 x end links) UGH...

50 micron!? I printed the high detail parts of my machine at 100 and figured I was going a bit crazy.
The tracks are printed at 150 micron ( I think, whatever the stock "high" print settings were) this is because like your tank there are many links, around 260 in my case.
Even at this course setting, my tracks took me 5 days of continuous print time! 
While I am sure I could have made my tracks look much better printing them on my new printer, I dont think having the print time be 4 or 5 times longer is really worth it. Here are the pictures of my current tracks, printed at 3x your height and with very little experience printing. 


They look really rough, but each one is only 30mm wide and 13mm long. As you can see by the above pictures of the build, they dont really stand out. 
I started with the tracks, as I figured if I couldn't get them working, I would have to use KV ones and make the tank wider.
Id say make them ugly and working, and have a sweet Maus  you can always make better tracks later!

Wow awesome. I am not too sure printing the tracks is worth it since you can get something quite similar (like Pz III tracks) for a dime and dozen.

Jarlath wrote:

Dean R wrote:

Jarlath wrote:

For the tracks, did you have any gaps in infill or was it set to 100% for full solid fusion?

I cant remember, they were the first thing I printed. I have since moved printers and computers.
Today I would use an 80% fill with increased wall thickness, 3-4. The tracks are so thin and with many holes so there is very little infill anyway.

Sigh... I went and updated the FlashForge Dreamer specs for an attempt at re-doing some tracks for the maus...

50 micron height, 40mm/s print speed (default 3600 is 60mm/s), and 80% infill.

for 4 complete links it was going to be over 15 hours of print time...
I need 112 complete links... (a complete link consists of 1 x main, 1 x middle link, 2 x end links) UGH...

The prototype from an older thread....



Each main track is 66mm x 10mm wide with a primary surface nearly 5mm thick (plus track guides = 10mm)

I spent nearly 5 months on trying to get quoting for that for aluminum and/or zinc. It was never the price but the capabilities of the companies that prevented the result.

Now that Hooben has a metal Maus it might be better to buy their stock metal tracks. Or just buy their tank which is all metal anyway.

Well he is trying to get quote for custom printing the tracks in aluminum and zinc and that can't be cheap........  :-(

Im mostly kidding of course.
This does bring up a point of my tank choice however, as I figured If I was going to invest the effort to scratch build something, it better be something I cant buy for a couple hundred bucks!
But at the price point of the Maus, It might still be worth it.

That Hooben Maus is a PoS. I've looked at it's construction, it a $1700USD cheaply made Maus...

The suspension is the most difficult thing and they cheated on the tracks. (2 pc complete link, not 4 like the real Maus)



The machining is nice, but ultimately only for weight relief so that the tank is light enough to move. What is wih the cheap butt 90 degree angle brackets to screw the sides to the upper hull? Cheap as anything. At least the suspension system looks OK...


A bottom mounted Battery Box... Really? Look at the GD size of this tank.. Would it have killed you guys to mount the battery say under the driver's area upper hull and hold down with 2 screws? There are enough horrible phillips screw heads showing all over...


Cheap as FUK. Again holding the sides on with cheap butt 90 degree brackets. WTF? All sheet metal simplicity for $1700 USD???

MikeC wrote:

Well he is trying to get quote for custom printing the tracks in aluminum and zinc and that can't be cheap........  :-(

My cost if I pay $600 USD per set of tracks is still somewhere around $1500 USD with scale aluminum plate armor thickness and IBU3, ETO Custom Gearboxes...

The tracks are the huge unknown and the hardest to properly get made.

Going to try printing my tracks in a different orientation... 4 sets at 4 hours. Better...

And of course my nozzle clogs.. Sigh...

I think it is a little different if you build you only, because you don't need to make money on your own build. It is easy to say it is PoS, but it depends on what you are comparing it with. It looks pretty good to me because I am not scratch building one myself, but then I also dropped $2k on a 3D printed T-28 so it is a matter of perspective.

I wouldn't call it a Pos aside from Ludwig who sells a Maus hull with a resin turret I know of nobody else who sells basically a rtr Maus kit.

They might of built the tracks like that because it's less likely to break if maybe a stone or pebble or any type of debris gets caught or jammed in them. 

The Philips screws might be unsightly but it's probably a compromise because how else would they secure the pieces together without using epoxy or tig welding the hull together? I guess you could use magnets but I'd take the screws instead.

The battery being on the bottom is meh to me, but it's easy to get too and can be relocated if you so desire.

If I got my hands on one id relocate the battery to the turret since it's so BIG, throw a Tarr smoker in there with a elmod board, cover most of the Philip screws with mud lol and throw a loudspeaker in it.

Back on topic;
Here is a shot of how the first layer of "Russian Armor Green" is looking, starring my favorite part, the idler wheel.

That looks pretty good to me! With some Mr. Surfacer I could get rid of the banding quite easily... 

This thing has so many parts it would take a century to smooth everything! 
My plan has always been to make up for its lack of surface quality with its abundance of turrets 

Nah, a few hours at the most. I work with a lot of resin so used to smoothing and cleaning...I look forward to seeing it!