My tracked vehicle is near completion! I have the frame built up and now I have to figure out where to put all the electronics and what kind of battery to use. Everything is made out of aluminum, along with some LM hardware. I’d post a pic, but Aol is too slow to host a pic 
But if someone would want to host one for me, I’d email it to them! 8)
Sent you a PM. I’ll edit this post and put your pictures once you send them.
Can’t wait to see it.
EDIT:
Here is his tracked Bot. Nice work by the way. Looks good. Are those dewalt drill motors and gearboxes?
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q253/gfisher2002/robots/ShowLetter2.jpg
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q253/gfisher2002/robots/ShowLetter.jpg
yeah me to! I’m sure it looks awesome
Thanks a bunch Evolution! No those aren’t Dewalt motors. They’re the motor and gear boxes out of 18V Harbor Freight Drills. They were cheap and should be more than enough to get the job done once I get this thing underway. I hooked the battery up once for a second and it jumped across the workbench 
looks pretty solid to me. nice work. 
It lookes really nice! How big is it (length and width)? This might be a nice candidate for a Robo Magellan event, which is a sort of mini Darpa Grand Challenge for smaller robots like we build.
I bet the code I wrote for W.A.L.T.E.R. (a two wheel differential drive bot) could be modified pretty easily to work for a tracked bot like yours. Two tracks is pretty close to two wheels in the way they work. I already have good code for the IRPD and Sharp IR Range sensors.
8-Dale
NICE! Are those the lynx motion tracks? I’ve wanted some of those tracks for a long time but have never had a use. Good job on the metal work! 
I like the use of the drill motors. How much were they?
[size=117]yes[/size]
OH yeah (finally reached 300’th post)
I’m really impressed with the metal working, any pics without the tracks? What did you use to do that? I.e. did you find some nice stock the right shape or did you mill that out yourself?
It’s 9.75"W and 10.75" long. I still have to learn to program and all that fun stuff 
Right now I have the SEQ, so that’s a start.
Here’s the drills I bought. There’s a site that tells you how to tear the drill apart and what pieces to keep and ditch.
harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=93440
Thanks. I bought the metal from Mendards. The piece you see going across the frame is 3/4" Channel I believe and the stock is 1". I used a miter box, drill press, dremel, and a couple of files.
i just posted this code for the sabertooth it has ramping and min/max throttle should help you out
Im wondering how you got the Track sprockets onto the drill motors. Did they come with 6mm shafts or did you do that yourself?? 
The drill shafts are 9mm. I had LM 6mm hub adapters. I thought about having a friend trim down the drill shaft, but it made more sense to drill out the LM hubs. I found the closest bit I had to 9mm and drilled out the hubs. I only used two and accidently wrecked one 
They work fairly well. Eventually I’d like to make some improvements, but I want to get this thing moving first.
Thanks a bunch cbradsmith! Now I need to get a Sabertooth
I know this thread is old, but will the sabertooth actually handle these kind of drill motors?? I know that he is using two drill motors, but how about four? Would it work?
No - no - no,
Those motors look like 540 or even 550 size. The later of these two can draw up to 90 amp at stall. I’m guessing if someone hooked these up to the saber it would toast. When I did a drill motor based bot (ran at 12 volts and later at 18 volts) that had 6 motors (3 in parallel X 2) I used 2 OSMC motor controllers, one for each set of three, that was rated at 150 amp continous with up to 400 amp burst.
I dont think there is a controller offered here that I would recommend for these types of motors (I have the HB25 also and I would not use these for 12-18 volt drill motors that could stall at 90 amp - unless I inlined a 30 amp fuse and hoped not to stall).
In short - it would work for a short time and then become a toasty exercise in not reading the spec sheets of the parts involved. Happy toasting
The saber is a nice layout for a controller but it isn’t up to this task in the long run.
Dont recommend
Chris
Thought so! I do know they will work great with all the LM motors which is what Im using, but above he stated he was going to connect the motors to a sabertooth and I was skeptical to that…Didnt make much sense to me.
Ok, thanks. and Sorry about the thread jack
Although I agree with the notion, no no no, but I don’t think the result will be toast. Rather the result would be the motor controller ramping the voltage up or maybe stuttering in and out of shutdown mode. I don’t believe the DE motor controllers self destruct when over loaded. They are protected.
Nicely designed then.
Once again I show my ignorance.
Jim - thanks for the further explanation
Chris
For what its worth, I’ve run a motorized office chair driving myself around using two 18V Farbor Freight drills, rollerblade wheels and a 2x10. The 2x10 was mounted to a large aluminum frame, which helped with heat dissipation. It wouldn’t climb hills well (overcurrent protection would kick in) and it wouldn’t run for extended periods of time on carpet, but it didn’t kill the 2x10, either. We were “torture testing.”
The inexpensive cordless drill motors get smoky at prolonged currents around ten to fifteen amps anyway, depending on the voltage rating and if they have an internal fan.
Four drill motors isn’t something I’d recommend on a 2x10, but we do have a 2x25 coming out in about a month which current limits at 50A per channel. That’s being designed to handle cordless drill motors (one nice drill motor or two cheap drill motors per side)