Back at it

[Effigy3 1267]

I just wanted to introduce myself since I've been lurking here for a little while now. I started with a Grasshopper in back in high school, probably 1984-ish... Once that was trashed I moved onto a Hornet and then ended my R/C days with a Falcon. We didn't have tracks where I lived so my buddy (Wild One) and I just raced each other around our houses and what not.

Last week, over spring break, I built a re-re Grasshopper with my 8 year old son and we've been running it around at the local track. It goes without saying that it was simply wonderful spending a couple of days showing my son how the kit went together. I let him do as much of the assembly as he could, pitching in when needed. Once it was up and running, the smile on his face as he pounded the it over the jumps was priceless. After the first day of driving I broke down and ordered myself up a Frog. Back in the day I always wanted one so now I have it and we can race together once I finish building it.

I thought the 'hopper would be a great starter car for him but man, after just 3 days he's already doing laps without running it into any of the lane barriers. He has quickly grown frustrated with the lack of power in the stock 380 motor. He's stopping before the jumps, backing that 'hopper up as far as the lane will allow to get up enough speed to clear the first jump but that sad little 380 just can't do it. I told him on day 1 that if he got good enough I'd give him the 540 that came with my Frog since I'm building it with a Sport Tuned motor. To top if all off, my 11 year old daughter is also now hooked so we have to alternate 5 minute tunes at the wheel so they both get equal time. I can tell you that neither enjoy playing track marshal. They want to drive! So I've gotten the CFO (my wife) to sign off on ording up a Desert Gator for him so that my daughter can learn on the 'hopper. R/C buggy racing is turning into a family team event!

I went ahead and decided to document my Frog build. You can view it on

if you're interested. I'm still waiting for the ESC I ordered to arrive so I'm like half done with the build.

Here're a few pics of the Grasshopper. Hope you like 'em.

[ukfox 347]

Welcome to Tamiya club Effigy3

[Theibault 1535]

Hello and welcome! Lovely family affair you have going on. Looking forward to hearing more about your RC adventures.

[Effigy3 1267]

So my ESC came in today and I don't like the idea of mounting at the bottom of the Frog as the instructions call for. I think it'll build up too much heat but that's just a guess. Does anyone know if I can safely run it as in pic A or should I forgo a driver figure and mount it as in pic B? I expect to only run a Sport Tuned or a Dirt Tuned motor and 7.2 NiMh batteries.

[mongoose1983 3335]

So my ESC came in today and I don't like the idea of mounting at the bottom of the Frog as the instructions call for. I think it'll build up too much heat but that's just a guess. Does anyone know if I can safely run it as in pic A or should I forgo a driver figure and mount it as in pic B? I expect to only run a Sport Tuned or a Dirt Tuned motor and 7.2 NiMh batteries.

First of all, welcome to TamiyaClub, Effigy3!

Regarding your Frog/ESC question, the ESC will work alright anywhere you want to place it

[Effigy3 1267]

First of all, welcome to TamiyaClub, Effigy3!

Regarding your Frog/ESC question, the ESC will work alright anywhere you want to place it

Thanks for the welcome. I'm leaning towards A with putting the receiver in spot of the B picture to move it as far from the steering servo as possible. I've read some places that servo motors and ESCs can interfere with them. Is there any truth to that? It would be easiest to tape the receiver to the servo and put the ESC in A so I can have a driver figure.

[mongoose1983 3335]

Yes, sometimes that can happen. If you can tape the ESC to the steering servo and get the receiver down inside the chassis frame that would be fine. And yeah, that will allow you to get the driver in the right place. No Tamiya buggy looks good without a driver!

[insanitor 0]

No car at all looks good without a driver. It's an accident waiting to happen!

[Effigy3 1267]

Yes, sometimes that can happen. If you can tape the ESC to the steering servo and get the receiver down inside the chassis frame that would be fine. And yeah, that will allow you to get the driver in the right place. No Tamiya buggy looks good without a driver!

So the ESC won't get too hot mounted in that fashion? That places the heat sink quite close to the frame. Would the steering servo not get roasted having the ESC taped to it like that? Sorry for so many questions but when I last built these cars they all had MSCs and NiCads!

[mongoose1983 3335]

So the ESC won't get too hot mounted in that fashion? That places the heat sink quite close to the frame. Would the steering servo not get roasted having the ESC taped to it like that? Sorry for so many questions but when I last built these cars they all had MSCs and NiCads!

The MSC's heatsink should NEVER touch anything. I remember back in the day Futaba ESCs would fit the place of the throttle servo. This depends on the shape of that ESC you got.

[Effigy3 1267]

Well, I definitely can't attach the ESC (a Duratrax Intellispeed 12T) to the side of the steering servo. The heatsink touches the frame, a lot. So at this point I think I'm going to mount it where the driver figure goes to place it in the path of some cooling air flow as it comes into the body's open windshield. I'll mount the receiver at the very bottom of the space frame as the instructions stipulate. Doing it this way also keeps the ESC out of harms way. If I were to mount it in the bottom of the space frame it could take some hits when the car is landing after jumps. The receiver is much smaller so it'll be safe down there. While I do lament doing away with the driver figure, I plan on "tinting" the windows with translucent Tamiya PS-31 Smoke paint to compensate.

I haven't even gotten the Frog onto the track yet and the space frame is showing it's age.

[mongoose1983 3335]

Well, you can get tape the receiver to the steering servo, get the ESC down inside the chassis frame (A), and then install the driver in its place.

[Effigy3 1267]

Well, you can get tape the receiver to the steering servo, get the ESC down inside the chassis frame (A), and then install the driver in its place.

That would totally work, and honestly was my first thought but I read that the servo could interfere with the reception. Is this not the case? Or is the interference so minimal that I shouldn't be concerned. TBH this setup would be preferable.

[mongoose1983 3335]

The servo won't affect the reception at all. Sometimes the ESC might do that.

[Effigy3 1267]

The servo won't affect the reception at all. Sometimes the ESC might do that.

Then this is exactly how I'll wire it up! I suppose if the servo interferes with reception, I can always redo the wiring. Thanks Mongoose1983

[mongoose1983 3335]

Enjoy your buggy, and don't forget to share some action pictures with us

[Effigy3 1267]

I have my Frog running chassis built. I double-sided taped the Rx to the side of the steering servo and put the ESC in the belly of the space frame. I'm pleased with this configuration so far. It allows plenty of space above the ESC heatsink for heat to rise and it allows excellent access to the ESC setup button and LEDs in case I ever have to change settings.

[Effigy3 1267]

I also got clever and used heat shrink tubing to hold the stubby antenna to the mast. I gotta say, these new 2.4GHz antennas are much, much shorter than the LONG antennas I remember dealing with on the 27MHz AM controllers.

I guess I've exceeded my allotted disk space for attachments. Let's see if I can embed an image...

[Effigy3 1267]

Here's a shot of the rolling chassis as it stands. I used FAV wheels/tires because I expected this to just be a basher car. Now that I know there are so many tracks close by I think I'm going to race it. Never did THAT before. To the best of my knowledge all tracks here are all clay dirt. I'm sure the stock pin rears and smootie fronts wouldn't work so well on those tracks but I think the FAV rubber should be ok. What do you guys think?

Now, onto the body... I just have to wait for my painting masks to arrive from Canada. C'mon Canada post, hurry up. I'm ready to start painting!

[Effigy3 1267]

The battery was really, really tight between the two trapezoidal battery stays. The wires were being smooshed and the stays were being forced outward so I put a couple of #6 washers between the stays and the frame to give the battery a little bit of breathing room. Has anyone else had to do this on their Frogs? Is it because my batteries (Onyx and Turnegy) have the wires coming out of the middle of one end and the older ones didn't?

Original battery:

What I'm using:

[Effigy3 1267]

My painting masks finally arrived yesterday so I spent the evening masking the body. It's been forever since I painted a clear R/C body so maybe you folks can give me some adivce. The instructions called for cutting the body out prior to painting, so I did that. However in doing so the scissors scuffed the outer protective film in a few tight areas such as around the front suspension. I think I'm just going to use masking tape around the edges to compensate. I've done the wing as you can see in the picture below. Left to my own devices I would have painted first and cut last. What do you do and why?

I'm going to do a paint drip design with the nose painted in Tamiya PS-46 Iridescent Purple/Green. The mid to rear of the body and the wing will be painted in Tamiya PS-27 Flourscent Yellow. Should I back with silver or white? I was thinking silver for the PS-46 and white for the PS-27. Anyone have experience and/or tips for painting with either of these colors to get the best results?

Here's the first layer of liquid mask drying. I used Tamiya masking tape on the windows which I plan on leaving clear and un-cut to provide as much strength to the body as possible.

[Effigy3 1267]

After reading Woodstocks excellent build thread on the Frog (+1 on that man, really) I'm thinking I need to go back and add some thread lock to some of my screws.

I got a few layers of paint on the body now. The yellow is wicked bright! That's pretty much what I wanted of course. Want to be able to easily see this sucker on the track. I did about 4 coats of the yellow and 1 layer so far of PS-1 White as a backer. It was then that I noticed I hadn't gotten the raised edges of the wing well enough with the yellow. So I have a decision to make. A ) I can leave it be and hit it with another coat of white or B ) I can lay down a layer or two of yellow into the crease. I think I'm going to go with option B since there isn't much paint (yellow or white) there at this point.

Before the backing white layer.

One layer of white:

[mtbkym01 4008]

The battery was really, really tight between the two trapezoidal battery stays. The wires were being smooshed and the stays were being forced outward so I put a couple of #6 washers between the stays and the frame to give the battery a little bit of breathing room. Has anyone else had to do this on their Frogs? Is it because my batteries (Onyx and Turnegy) have the wires coming out of the middle of one end and the older ones didn't?

Original battery:

What I'm using:

I've used a couple of 850 brass bushes to space out my battery stays on my Frog and Brat to fit modern Lipo batteries

[Effigy3 1267]

I painted the nose of the Frog yesterday with the PS-46 Iridescent Purple/Green. A couple of observations about this paint.

1. It's wicked thin. I mean so very, very thin. My first "dusting" coat was almost invisible. Sadly, my inexperience resulted in my 2nd coat going on too thick causing some orange peel action. Successive coats mitigated the texture a bit but it's still noticable.
2. It's more "light purple" and less color shift to green. I was really expecting it to be one of those color shift jobbers where it looks purple this way and green that but no, it's light purple with a very slight green hue. Interesting for sure just not what I expected.
3. I sprayed on about 5 layers of PS-46 and it was still transluscent. I then backed it up with 2 layers of PS-12 Silver which really helped it out a lot.

I do like the color and will probably give it another go on my next body with the following changes.

• Now that I know this stuff is so thin and almost transparent I'll know to keep the layers light. It'll easily take twice the number of coats that other colors require.
• I'll probably use either PS-41 Bright Silver as a backer to see if that brings out the green more.

Have any of use use the irredescent colors from Tamiya? Any tips?

[Theibault 1535]

Very common mistake when using these paints for the first time. They must be backed in black or it mitigates the color change ability. Also, you need about 3 maybe 4 light coats of the color change paint. Don't spray it too thick.