"I brought it out here to the sand dunes to test it out" - do you literally live in a Minecraft world? It seems you live near every type of biome there is.

Mechanical engineers here. The pinion gear needs to be made of a metal harder/tougher than that of the bigger gear. The reason is, the pinion gear goes through more wear/stress/strain cycles than the bigger gear because it does a lot more revolutions. Your pinion gear should have been made with the material of those printed gears, and the bigger gears should have been made of brass. Brass is a relative simple material to machine and way less expensive. Also it wouldn't hurt to "run in" the mechanical transmission first with no load, for about 10 full min or 30min if you want to be absolutely sure the gears come the their nominal geometry and engagement. I am not trying to be annoying or anything, i just want to help out. To sum up: Pinion gear material > Bigger gear material. (hardness/toughness) Run the transmission for 10 min with no lube at half the max speed. Finally clean everything and lube up. Edit: (try using prime numbers of teeth for each gear, so they do not developed a wear pattern that could result in one or more teeth to fail sooner than the rest). Cheers.

10:02 i saw alot of breathtaking mechanisms on this channel, but this one is top engineering masterpirce xD

Popsicle stick on the transmitter stick for inactivity was peak engineering

Should mount one of those small electric snow shovels on the front.

Imagine seeing one of these with solar or something lost in the desert roaming around for like a decade

14:44 it would be cool for someone to program this thing to balance standing up like that! Maybe even pop it up to get over an obstacle like a curb

Protecting against the sand and dirt is a really good idea. Sand is mostly silicon oxide which is VERY hard, it is harder than any metal. Your gears stand zero chance against sand. One possibility is to have rubber seals around your protruding shafts (like the ones used to protect wheel hub bearings or transmissions on cars or hydraulic wipers).

This is the sort of Quality Control Testing that I feel products today severely lack.

This man puts more thought and efford in proof testing than several multinationals. And twice as much as some videogame companies...

The songs really add to the production value, keep em coming

This is crazy cool. I was one of the people who asked for sand performance (even though I'm not in on the KS-backing). I'm looking forward to seeing this fully finished with a rack on top for mounting cameras and other stuff. If you really want to seal up the axle holes in the body, maybe you can try out something like the principle from RC boats and submarines. As far as I can tell, it's basically grease inside a pipe where the axle runs through - and a fine tolerance between the internal diameter of the pipe and the axle.

“I made gears from tool steel” “Gears were hard to tap and I broke tap.” You don’t say…. Lol! 😄

6:58 - RE: sand in steel gears - have you heard of sandpaper? it's quite effective at wearing down steel.

@1:43 A 3D-printed part should hold water. If _sand_ is getting through the gaps in your layer lines, you have some serious under-extrusion issues (likely because you are asking too much of the hotend/extruder.) You can solve this by reducing extruder throughput via slower feed rates and/or smaller layer heights. 100 mm/s x 0.6 mm line width x 0.2 mm layer height = 12 mm^3/s is about where my Ender 3 V2 maxes out on PLA. If you are below this, tuning e-steps is the likely solution. Vacuum-formed chassis halves look excellent 👍

I'm so glad companies are finally recognizing your talent and have started throwing product your way. Congrats!

I love this series man. The continued quality improvements based on problems, and feedback from the community. I wonder if we could pay extra time get a complete build kit if we dont have the resources to finish it at home. I'm glad I donated

I'm glad to see more hardware co's showing up to help.

New idea for water use!: PONTOON WINGS! (Or maybe skis...) If you can have the bottom half or so of the tracks submerged while keeping the top out of the water the tracks can provide the traction for using it as a boat of some sorts.

A beautiful example of modern research/design-build/test/improve!!! Wow! Testing 3D printed parts, replacing those that don't hold up with metal parts copied from the slicer output, until the project is optimized. This is an elegant path allowing makers to get to their ideal design relatively quickly. Thanks for this production!

I'm really impressed with how much prototyping and testing you have done, great job! OK speaking of bodies and long range FPV missions, you should take a look at the original "Lost In Space" Chariot tracked exploration vehicle. It's probably a little top heavy, but it wold be really cool to see.

This project has been amazing to follow! Winter has just arrived here and would def like one of these.

Mechatronic engineer here, I loved your scientific testing approach to fatigue/durability testing! You just earned a new sub!

you make some of the coolest things i’ve wanted to make forever. thanks for your videos!

I can't wait to get my kit! A question, though... I've only ever done Aerial RC. Will I need to buy a ground vehicle radio, or will the flight radio work for this?

I mentioned this in your other video, it is probably too late for this version, but you had an issue with clumping in the snow. Snowcats have more space between the treads, this lets the snow fall out as it rotates around easier. If you can replicate that somehow it should help, and I don't think traction will be effected negatively.

As always - interesting subject matter, well presented, and with some very VERY good footage. Thanks.

Amazing. Bro! Your dedication is inspiring

Such an awesome project Daniel. Each time you mentioned "At Cost" I was thinking.. How is he managing to do this.. When you finally hit us with the " this is Capitalism baby ! " it made me smile. You've been working hard ! Definitely get paid for it !

Love this project! If you end up putting FPV gear on consider using a 3 axis gimbal to stabilize the camera. Also it'll take care of the pan and tilt functions. I've had good results with the storm32 brushless gimbal controller. Lots of fun! Cheers, will be keeping an eye on this project for sure, tanks are just too fun.

9:07 & 10:15 This is like those cartoons when the character is thinking & walking in circles until a ring is forming in the floor :D

Good engineering, good cinematics, great music!

Sand is basically snow exept it destroys bearings and doesn't melt

With the lifetime circle test, it would be interesting if you had a camera set at an spot just outside the circle that would take a picture of the vehicle each time it passed, always at about the exact same spot, and then put it together into a timelapse later.

Got to love the rapid prototyping using different 3D printing methods. :)

Above and beyond as usual. Thank you sir!

Might be a good idea to have some kind of clamshell gearbox covers which go under the main body to provide a solid dust & moisture seal using large o-rings or some gasket sealant. That way you can lubricate the gearbox internals which should make it quieter and last practically forever.

By turning it with the string, have you introduced track scrubbing? I wonder if it would last longer if it was turning naturally. Of course you will always have some scrubbing using that type of skid steering.

And here comes a solid Sunday morning 👍🏻

There is something so satisfying about the lifespan test and waypoint runs, idk why

This track seems to kick up a lot of sand, you can even see it scooping and tossing some on each track paddle. Would be interesting to know how more efficient it would be if the rear wheels were smaller that the middle set so the track sort of tapers off. In theory it should pull the paddles out more gradually instead of scooping up sand.

For the axle seal I would suggest maybe a actual automotive style axle seal or a tpu rubber printable seal where the axles are and H gasket for the larger sections with some overlap built into the printed gasket and some caulk to fill in the gaps to create a water tight seal. As far as the battery charging connection you could use a flange mount connector with a gasket or a cable with a waterproof cable grip. Also If you are able to seal the entire interior of the gearboxes then a perfect seal on the covers won't be necessary and you can easily use oil or grease as a lubricant without worrying about leaking or ingress of contaminats. You could probably even install a grease zirk so it can be lubricated without disassembly. If you were able to get a good enough seal I bet this would have just about enough volume of air to even drive on water for short distances and for sure keep the water out when going through snow. Lastly I know you already have the mold but I personally would have looked into a mold for making a continuous rubber tread which would keep tension with the elasticity of the rubber and be one piece making assembly easier.

Where do you get the parts molded?

I love this channel so much, always something cool going on

What about something like Felt bushings that could be placed between the axle holes to keep sand and dirt out? Yes I mean they would have to be changed out now and then and perhaps after every use or cleaned afterwards. It Might work though?

Build a remote control beach cart that can carry all your chairs/cooler/etc.

Nice project and test plan!

Sunday evening treat in the UK. Will enjoy this video with dinner tonight :)

Wouldn't be to hard to automate it, also run a pvc pipe to the house so you can plug it in (use low voltage, don't run an ac power lead) If you have a server use that to control it with an esp8266 Other wise you could use a clock chip with an Arduino Also have it speed up and slow down at times, as well as sprint laps, can add sensors all over it if you want and log temperatures

When I first started watching this series I thought, this is so amazing! but felt sad, because i didn't own a 3D printer and wouldn't be able to print the rest of the parts required. But it turns out i recently purchased an Ender 3 v2, so who knows, maybe i can buy one of the kits when they become available.

love the clear chassis!

Your videos, projects and just overall style is just awesome! Keep it up :)

Big thanks Morning Brew for my daily news updates! - You can sign up for free here cen.yt/mbrctestflight

Are you maybe interested at some point in the future to produce a full kit or even maybe an ARTR that won't require any printing I don't have 3D printing capability but definitely something I would be interested in.

Well-done sir , I have no interest in anything RC but your videos are always crazy entertaining and showing the diversity of new 3d printing technologies... Really amazing how far they have come in such a short time

Its great to see small companies working together :)

I feel like Pantheon Design got skipped over too quickly to appreciate just how incredible their servo drivel ball screw 3D printers are!

I've also had problems with standoffs breaking on 2d printed parts snapping off. I found that changing the transition from a 90 degree angle to a curve makes a huge difference in the probability of them breaking off.

I'd love to see more of the rover project! you could make one using this design if you wanted and maybe have it set up permanently somewhere where it can crawl around and take pictures/time-lapses and you could control it remotely, maybe it could have a mode it could go in if you lose contact, and maybe it could even repair simple issues with arms? idk it would be your choices, making the rover how you want and what you'd want it to do but those are a couple of my ideas

It reminds me of the Tyco RC Rebound, but the tracks are a really cool upgrade. To seal against sand I would add some brushes or soft sponge/foam around the axle holes. Another option is a labyrinth seal.

Would it help to have an extra bearing on each axle and then bearing seats integrated into the polycarbonate body halves? The seat could be in two halves and close around the bearing when the two halves of the shell come together. Would help keep the sand out for sure. Might be a bit fiddly to get everything in place to close the shell up but not too bad.

hi love your vids can you make a oil tanker that can carry you ?

Entertaining as always, thanks.

This is super cool. One final test you should do is test the most powerful motor/battery combo you can squeeze into the kit, because you know someone will do that and it'd be good to know where the limits of the parts are

Wtf? You can print tool steel now? What type of tech printed those? Are they actually as strong as traditional manufacturing techniques?

Brilliant project I would certainly love to try the kit out 👍👍👍👍

Thanks for the update on the Snowcat. Looking forward to the finished kit. Our RC club is building a growler track next year and I hope to dominate with the Snowcat 😎😎

Awesome vid bro!

So much to love about your videos. Plus the music is crazy fun.

FPV on mountains sounds awesome! Great job man, you are amazing.

the song at the end is so amazingly good

I know I'm late to the game here.... But for sealing the axles.... instead of using tape, here's something I learned from playing with my RC cars in Kuwait....(tons of ultra fine sand....) Moleskin. It's usually used on your feet for bunions and sore spots.... It's cheap. It comes with a sticky side. It's easy to cut. It's soft so it won't wear the shafts. And it's slightly stretchy.... so you can cut a small hole and the flex it over the shaft. I used it to see my transmission outputs, differential outputs and driveshaft openings on my 4wd RC cars. It worked extremely well on both my electric and gas cars.

The last line got me , cant wait!!

Cant wait to see this with a body. A 3d body modeled after a Pistenbully, Prinoth, or Bombardier would be sweet!

bloody awedome. was a long road till here but you've come far

As a kid I had an R/C car called the Ricochet (made by Tyco I believe) that could flip over and keep driving like this, except it had large inflatable wheels rather than tracks and wasn't nearly as awesome. I really enjoyed that thing. I'm excited to see some of those long FPV adventures in the mountains.

Great work!

Very cool project - I have been printing my own version of track . I have used two spools of filament and 135 hours of printing hopefully it works good .

Top props on your build aswell

Possibly just a rubber gasket adhered/fastened to the top shell that either over bites or inlays into/onto the bottom shell Then maybe some small circular rubber grommets/washers similar in design to the body gasket you showed us. Super awesome build, really versatile little rig!

A very respectful work! I like how every single thing gets tested, i like testing of various materials and production methods. Great filming as well! Want to leave a bit of an advice: to improve torture test it is possible to add weight on top of it. Super simple.

Love this Project

More life time tests!! So awesome

THis is sick, I follow your project sure because it'"s fun but even more because its inspiring ! keep going pls ;)

Couple ideas for you! 1, print the steel gears larger than needed by a small fraction and run them in an abrasive tumbler to remove as much of the print line as possible, and second, use camshaft seals for an engine for the axles on the snowcat! There's lots of bearings, seals, joints, etc that are made for cars that would fit various purposes on this prototype and they can be had very very cheap because of mass production!

that looks sick! i think i might get one when its avalable. keep up the good work :)

I will get a RCTestFlight Snowcat just because of the song - thank you for that man

I love this channel!

OMG! the popsicle stick on the remote! 🤣

Thank you for doing an ad timer at the bottom more people need to use it

the waves in the sand tails are mesmerizing!

And here comes a solid Sunday evening 👍

The Popsicle Stick! Love It!

In order to seal the gap between the housing and the axle, I suggest using simering. They are often used in agricultural tractors for exactly the same application.

I want to make an FPV SnowCat!!! After doing some more research I'd love to do an autonomous SnowCat. Sick design brother. Great work!!!!!

Great video. So much hard work. Thanks for sharing. Any tips for printing gears?

really interesting project where you are doing

wow...this video was smoething more than I expected.

awesome project! looking forward to some solar powered long range fpv missions!

Song at the end is epic. Had to replay it. "Download all those big-ole STL files, I'm sure it will give you a big big smileeeeeee....."Don't spend your money on dronessss.... buy a SNOWCAT instead!" lololol