• Hello my name is Calum, I'm from Scotland and I've just bought my excavator! :)I'm using valves of Premacon, I have a quick coupling and I'm waiting on Frank's new rotating screen bucket. I've started to assemble some parts before painting them, just to make sure everything is correct and fits. I have yet to buy a battery for it, can anyone recommend one for me?


    Regards Calum



      



  • Hi Calum,
    I think to get an idea which kind of battery will be suitable you will first have to consider where you want to place it and which components you intend to put into the excavator besides the battery (sound module? lights? ballast?).
    I placed some lead balls and all of the electrics in the counterweight and have an almost quadradic battery sitting right behind the cabin, between the cabin and the walves. The crazy guys from switzerland transformed their counterweight into a drawer where they put a long slim battery in...
    I think you can find many different possibilities in various building reports here in the forum to consider which is the one you like most. Once you have decided where you want to place your battery, you will know the dimensions your battery must not exceed. Buying a battery and arranging the remaining components around it in my opinion would be the wrong way...
    Greetings to Scotland

    Gruß
    Jochen



    _____________________________________________________________________
    Nur, wer die Weisheit mit dem Löffel gefressen hat, darf auch klug scheißen...

  • Hi Calum,
    I think to get an idea which kind of battery will be suitable you will first have to consider where you want to place it and which components you intend to put into the excavator besides the battery (sound module? lights? ballast?).
    I placed some lead balls and all of the electrics in the counterweight and have an almost quadradic battery sitting right behind the cabin, between the cabin and the walves. The crazy guys from switzerland transformed their counterweight into a drawer where they put a long slim battery in...
    I think you can find many different possibilities in various building reports here in the forum to consider which is the one you like most. Once you have decided where you want to place your battery, you will know the dimensions your battery must not exceed. Buying a battery and arranging the remaining components around it in my opinion would be the wrong way...
    Greetings to Scotland

    My plan is to mount it behind the vlaves, so it can act as counter weight too? Like the swiss guys did to their machines. I will have a look at your build thread to see what you have done
    I don't have any plans for mounting lights or sound at this moment so I can get the most run time per battery.


    I will assemble the undercarriage and they start to arrange where everything goes under the covers

    Best regards

  • My plan is to mount it behind the vlaves, so it can act as counter weight too? Like the swiss guys did to their machines.

    In that case I'd recommend e.g. something like this. I think the swiss guys use Hacker batterys, too. A nice feature is the built in LiPo checker... This battery is also available with 5800mAh, but I don't know if that will fit into the counterweight...
    Sláinte

    Gruß
    Jochen



    _____________________________________________________________________
    Nur, wer die Weisheit mit dem Löffel gefressen hat, darf auch klug scheißen...

  • I would like to start painting the under carriage tomorrow, does anyone have any tips to help me? I have spray cans of primer and paint but should I sand blast the metal parts before I prime them?

    Regards

  • Did a little more work today

    Tracks all assembled, I had 2 links missing so Frank is sending me out more to finish them  :thumbup:


    Steel parts for the undercarriage have been primed and I will maybe get a chance this week to put some colour on them!


    And finally a picture of the pump and valves so I can see how much space I have to fit everything in


    Calum

  • Due to buying a house and having to move, I've hardly touched the excavator but this last week or so I found some time to continue on with it
    I wanted all my electrics to be in one place and be as neat as possibly so I built this

    The slew, pump and aux ESC are mounted at the bottom, then the top part has points for positive and negative connections. My receiver will be mounted to the top part as well.

    A general look over the machine

    I'm still waiting on a battery, trying to find a good quality Lipo which is suitable for my machine hasn't been easy, also buying from Europe seems to impossible due to laws preventing postage. So i'm just waiting on someone getting back to me next week about one which will hopefully do the job

    Calum

  • Basically nothing done tonight, I was planning on make a channel for the servo wires to lye in but decided just to route the around the servo's I'll see how this looks/works for now.

    A picture of my quick coupler partially assembled

    And a small attachment too

    Calum

  • Sunday night I made a bit of rock protection for the stick out of brass flat bar and box section

    Fitted to the stick

    I then made up brass pins for the end of the stick, these were made from 4mm brass rod. Threaded and castle nuts with split pins too, I ordered 1mm split pins to replace the ones I used as I think their a little large

    2 of the auxiliary pipes were mounted to both sides and the hydraulic ram too

  • Well I built the excavator up and hardly used it, then it sat around for a year then I decide to rebuild it! :whistling:

    Here was the undercarriage complete and testing

    And this was the stage I got to before I rebuilt it

    This is when I started to strip it down :thumbup:

    This is the bottom plate and slew mechanism freshly painted and rebuilt

    All the parts painted waiting to go on, I did all the painting myself with an airbrush in my house. Also there is lots of parts for a black tamiya truck which I was painting at the same time :D

    Building up more parts

    The arm mounted up to the base plate, starting to pipe everything up for the hydraulics

    The battery tray I made - sits behind the valves and uses to bolts to sandwich it in plac, I use a 5000mah 3s lipo in it

    Some interior pictures - this was also airbrushed and details added by hand

    The cabin all painted up, also gave it a light grey coat on the inside

    The counterweight slides out for easy access to the battery

    Then last weekend it tested it out :thumbup: all good except for the slewing - a little grub screw came loose and I had to stop, this has all been repaired since then.

    Now I am just finishing off some cabin parts, I've darkened the window surrounds and started gluing the windows in

    :Danke1:

    A big thank you to everyone on the forum for the tips and ideas about how to build these machines and also Frank at Fumotec for always helping me when I get stuck!

    Calum