Remote Controlled Land Raider
- introduction -
i always wanted to combine my liking for rc-models and toys with warhammer40000. further, for a space marine player the land raider is the ultimate tank. => than with the new redeemer released, i had no other choice than to rc it.
up to this moment there were 2 great projects regarding rc-Land Raiders already known in the comunity. one of them was a superb Dark Angels Land Raider, that was much bigger than 40k-scale, but a really great job allthough. the 2nd one was 40k-scale, but unfortunately not wireless. so i decided to build the first 40k-scaled land raider that is actually remote controlled, because of no cable between control and model. my investigations result was, that no one has finished something similar before, so it was completely up to me to solve all related problems on my own.
there are 2 ways to go, when planing to rc a non-rc model:
1.: try to find another rc model, that can be used as a kind of organ donor and take everyting you need from it and install it in the accepetor
2.: buy all additional parts needed to rc the tank, seperately and combine / install them. (this way i’d chosen for my shadowsword)
for this project i decided to choose the first way, not only because it was easier, but also because i wanted to keep it as simple and cheap as possible for everyone who wanted to copy this project. and now, 4 months after i released the first buildlogs in several communities, i’m really happy, that meanwhile, i know at least 4 other builders, who used my concept to build their own. for a builder like me this is both: motivating and honorific.
ok … but now let me start telling you how i found the perfect organ donor for my project:
i simply gathered all messurements, infos and dimensions of all modern, historical and sifi tanks i was able to get. than i started calculating them in different scales and put everything into lists and tables. i knew, that the most important value was the tracks width. so i concentrated on this and found several tanks fitting in different scales. than i searched the web for kits of those tanks in scales, that were relatively close to the ones i calculated. —- to shorten it: finally i bought a sherman in 1:30 and a pershing in 1:30, too. both from torro. as i got the tanks i was pretty happy to see that the tracks had exactly the perfect width. but unfortunately both tanks tracks were much too long. the shermans were little shorter and therefore better for my purpose. this and the fact, that the shermans chassis width was almost the same as the land raiders, made me decide to take the sherman as the donor. as i’ve written above, one of my ambitious targets in this project was to keep it as cheap as possible. this is why i resigned to use additional components but maybe some leds.
so the first thing i had to do, was to disassemble the sherman and cut all parts according to my needs. here are some pics, showing the Land Raider in an extremely early state, to give you an idea of what i’m talking about:
first i prepared the LRs sides:
than i prepared the sherman-parts, that i planed to install:
… and attached them to the LR-parts:
than i glued the seperated sherman-wheels to the land raiders sides:
with both sides connected, i already looked pretty good:
than i put the tracks on. as you can see in the pics, i decided not to shorten, but to span them with a additional wheel:
and now it’s time for another video, that shows the mechanism working:
… and with some additional parts from the land raider attached loose, it already already looked as if it was almost finished … 
but before we continue, it’s time for another testdrive … this time on my kitchentable:
now, that i knew the lr was running pretty well, i started to think about how to integrate the remaining two functions. the function, that was lifting the shermans cannon before, now got integrated in the tanks upper section, to spin the gunner on top.:
and the function that was spinning the shermans turret before, now, was used to move the hull mounted assault cannons.
and as you can see …. – up to here i only used parts coming from the land raider or from the sherman. but as i’ve said before i also wanted to integrate some leds. those i bought seperately and installed them to represent the LRs main lights and also the machine-spirit.
and the next video, in whichs middle you’ll see the finished land raider with all gaps closed, all lights installed and all functions connected, … already brings us to he end of this article. i hope you enjoyed reading it …
BobPanda.
Fantastiche!
This is amazing – well done!
- Drax
Hey bobpanda,
ich habe mir schon seit einiger Zeit deine Seite angeschaut und habe den rc- landraider ziemlich genau studiert. Ich hatte das selbe projekt vor einigen Jahren auch mal ins Auge gefasst hatte aber dann doch zu viel Respekt. Lustigerweise hatte ich damals schon den selben torro Panzer im Sinne wie du. Aber nachdem ich gesehen habe, dass es funktioniert habe ich nun auch endlich meine Angst überwunden und angefangen den rc-land raider zu bauen. Jedoch erkennt man auf den Bildern nicht wirklich viel und auf den videos noch weniger, ich hoffe deshalb das wir ein wenig in Kontakt treten können da ich im Moment mitte im Projekt bin und sich natürlich die Ein oder Andere Frage bis jetzt aufetan hat.
Grüße
Dome
hi …
gerne.
wo wohnst du?
zufällig in franken?
grüsse,
bob.
Hey Bob,
nein Ich wohne in Freising, aber ich habe mich schon selbst durchgearbeitet:D er fährt schon und das sogar gefedert:D. Aber war echt froh, dass ich deine Bilder als Vorlage hatte, hat doch einiges gebracht auch wenn einige Details nicht wirklich zu erkennen waren, aber gut wir sind ja schließlich Modell- BAUER. Das einzige auf was ich verzichtet habe war das Schwenkbare MG in Front, der Turm dreht sich wie bei dir nur wie das vordere MG nicht, da liegt jetzt mein Akku darunter.
The work you have done is very cool. Do you have plans that you could email me?
If not, don’t worry I would be happy with a Land Raider that only had tracks that moved.
Great work.
The Landraider is my favourite tank!
Really great to see it move!
Maybe one day i will make my one.
I am already looking for the sherman donor.
Michael
I was wondering if you would make one for me, just tell me how much you would charge. That is amazing and love to have one.
Thank you
hey mate can you email me some plans too i am going to try this these holidays
hallo….ich habe es jetzt ausprobiert mit dem Sherman und so…hat bei mir aber alles nicht geklappt
bin gerade am verzweifeln…gerade sind mir auch auf einmal kabel von der platine gefallen und es gab einen Kurzschluss…..und ich wollte dich mal fragen, ob ich dir vlt. meinen Landraider und die Teile vom sherman schicken könnte, und du mir den baust.
MFG
Adam
could you send me your designs for your land raider im twelve and you have inspired me to build one for my space marine army on (samueledwards@live.co.uk)
wow! this is so very very impressive, and has made me really want to attempt this, if you can remember can you email me the sherman you bought? and where you bought your LED’s? or if you can’t remember, the dimensions i’m looking for, if it’s just a 1/30 scale of sherman that’s okay, but i assume there can be some variation on the width of tracks.
never attempted anything like this so your help would be very much appreciated!
adam
Awesome!
Geiles Teil…kannst du mir sagen welchen Panzer du zerlegt hast? Bekommt man das auch mit weinem Rhino hin? Grüße c3r
rhino wird schwer werden. da hab ich auch schon dran getüftelt.
ich hab einen sherman m4a3 zerlegt.
m8 how much would you charge to make me one of those ??? if you would that is because that is awsome
hi. …
i hardly manage to find some time for my own projects at the moment. therefore i can not build them for sale. even if i already got some bids around 500€ i couldn’t convince myself to sell.
sorry,
regards,
bob.
How much for a RC Land Raider? I just need the drive system and for the lights to work,I will use this in the 40k games I play. The guns still need to be removable and it needs to look as seamless as possible, for the custom paint jobs I am paying this other guy for. I run Grey Knights and I need at least one of your amazing creations on the table. I need the Redeemer pattern. I don’t care about the cost
Hay BobPanda,
Ich bin fasziniert von diesem Projekt. Ich spiele selber Blood Angels und habe gerade 2 Land Raider im Bau vor mir stehen. Mein Vater und ich sind eigentlich Schiffsmodellbauer. Wir verfügen über eine CNC-Fräse und alles nötige an Werkzeug. Mich würde eine Materialliste, ein Kostenschnitt und eine schriftliche Schritt für Schritt Anleitung interessieren.
Hi Bob great work there do you have any more pic of the landraider build ? If so would you mind sharing some of them with me trying to do one like yours but not that techi myselfe so really only able to copy rather than build from new
Hey BobPanda,
Greetings from the States! I have a few questions about this build and was wondering if you could help? Do you mind sending a link to the sherman model you used for this kit? For the additional wheel you added to t make the treads fit, did you get that out of the kit you used or from somewhere else? For the LEDs do you wire that into the tank’s circuit so that it powers on with the tank, or is that a separate circuit? Finally, did you use the original controller supplied or use a different one.
Thanks!
George