Here is another example of a well made radio controlled excavator. I think this was originally a plastic model which as I’ve said before is a good base for an RC conversion due to the lack of weight. My radio controlled Hitachi Zaxis 210 has a diecast arm and the servos struggle to lift such a heavy arm.

The arm is clearly controlled by servos in a similar way to my RC excavator with the servo arms simply connected to the excavator arm where appropriate. This makes the build a simpler as you don’t have to build screw drives for the servos which can be tricky on such a small vehicle. He has also done his drive system in a similar fashion as you can see the two motors and gearboxes at the rear of the vehicle.

One feature which stands out more than anything is his perfect slewing motion, I believe he was able to do this by completely redesigning the excavator undercarriage. Along the sides it appears to be original but looking between the tracks you can see an aluminium sheet presumably used to attach the slewing servo and support the weight of the excavator.

This guy also appears to have made a claw attachment used to lift logs onto a trailer. This is something I would like to do although in the video the claw is clearly fixed to the body I might prefer to run extra wires and ad a rotating action to the claw as well although to be honest this may all be dreaming.

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