Tank treads

[dpmacri]

I thought it would be cool to build this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:56606

I tried a few times with PLA but something kept coming unstuck from the bed and ruined the print. Recently I switched to trying out ABS and managed to get a decent hollow pyramid without much stringing so I figured I'd give the tank treads another try.

However, I'm impatient so I printed it at half size

It looked good on the bed:

Finished print.

Unfortunately, the tread spacing a we're too right (I could tell while it was printing) and they broke as soon as I tried to loosen them to move. So instead of tank treads I got two planetary gear wheels attached to a bar

Edit: oh, and as another symptom of my impatience, I printed at .3mm layer height, so that probably contributed to the failed belts as well!

[smiley]

That looks amazing. did you ever try to get it to work again? I still don't have my retract calibrated 100%, but I am having pretty good luck printing out the 5x planetary gears. If I print them at 1.5x they work right off the table, I don't even need to "break" them loose.

[dpmacri]

That looks amazing. did you ever try to get it to work again? I still don't have my retract calibrated 100%, but I am having pretty good luck printing out the 5x planetary gears. If I print them at 1.5x they work right off the table, I don't even need to "break" them loose.

I haven't tried printing this again. I think if I increase the size (maybe 3/4 or even a little larger) it should print. I've also installed an E3D hot-end which might help with some of the problems I was having, but again, I just haven't given it another try.