146 replies to this topic

[Daves956]

I covered the cable in black shrink tube but didn't shrink it. I intend to paint it grey to match the interior so it looks like pipe and put the generator at the floor in front of it. That way it will look like the power conduit from the generator. If need be I can put a stiff wire in it to keep it straight but it comes in through an added floor section in the front of the trailer and up into the smaller gearbox cover box and that's only 6 inches so it shouldn't be noticable.

I kinda liked the couch too but it bothered me to give up that much space and with everything in it you couldn't remove it to charge it up. Now there's a pair of Deans plugs hidden in the back just for charging the batteries.

I've spent the last two evenings soldering it all up, there are plugs for everything with probably another night or two just to finish up the wiring.

[Daves956]

This is the corner with the generator and power lines.
And with the lights on, There's a lot more room in there for a second car or the dancing girls and wet bar. Maybe it's a good thing I took the couch out. I still have some finish stuff to do but at least the electrical is all done.

[Daves956]

I'm pretty sure they're getting ready to put the 959 motor in that 910. Sports car or a couch? easy choice

[bromvw]

Dave its becoming a work of art dude . Looks far better like this . Great work .

[Daves956]

I finally got the windshield wipers for this one. I got the original decal sheet from the same Ebay seller in Japan. I got the entire tree for the wipers, so I have parts for it. I moved the truck and trailer this morning and everything inside the trailer needs to be repositioned. However I finally found something I've been looking for, a way to hold everything together without glue. Like wrenches in hands and pieces in place to not have to redo it if it gets bumped. It's called Simply Tacky and it was by the register at Hobby Lobby for 2 bucks. It's a white moldable substance like wax that's meant to come back off and be reusable.
I'll be setting it all up semi permanent next time, I used a few of the stock decals when I put the wipers on.

[Skottoman]

That cab looks great! The tacky stuff sounds like a great solution as gluing everything permanent would be, well.... permanent!
Cheers,
Skottoman

[wolfdogstinkus]

I saw working wipers somewhere recently.

Found them here.

http://www.modelspor...products/369347

Edit, Sorry Dave, forgot my manners, it's a great looking truck, have I missed a video of the tailgate?, and the porsche driving on.

I will have to have a re-read and see what I missed out on.

[Daves956]

I saw working wipers somewhere recently.

Found them here.

http://www.modelspor...products/369347

Edit, Sorry Dave, forgot my manners, it's a great looking truck, have I missed a video of the tailgate?, and the porsche driving on.

I will have to have a re-read and see what I missed out on.

bottom of page 3 has a video of me multitasking and the car trying to drive under the trailer.

I really should at least think about a slower motor for the car but it's not normal for me to slow cars down.

[wolfdogstinkus]

Hi Dave, found this video and thought of you.

[Daves956]

There was a bit of discussion about something like that early on but I wanted it all RC with the only possible human interference being for wheel chocks. The lowboy style axles were a hindrance too and besides where would the pit crew go?

[Daves956]

Ok. I'm finally prepared to fix the problems with this one. They're all power and control issues that sounded good but didn't work so well in reality.

The truck motor is too fast for it to really be driven.
Any movement of the sticks for the gate causes problems so it needs controlled differently with a way to turn the gate on and off.
Battery issues, too many in all the wrong places.
The truck and trailer are too intermixed with no good way to seperate them.

My ideas are a 55 turn or 2800 kv brushless for the truck, 6 channel radio with the 959 on something seperate, one channel to shut off the gate ESC and interior lights. truck to have all the power radio gear and ESCs lastly is a single plug for wiring to the trailer.

It sounds easy enough but it's going to be tough to make this into a real runner and not just a shelf decoration.

[Daves956]

To start I went from the 4 channel to 6 and made it self centering on the throttle. I made custom gates for both sticks since one will have some input on the lift gate when it's attached.

I put a 5000 MAH under the chassis and a 4500 in the cab. These are paired together and all functions fed from the cab. Both ESCs are in the cab and with the added weight a high torque servo is now used for steering. I also replaced the 17 double motor for a 55 turn. I'll be tidying up the wiring once it's all in.

[Grastens]

I never thought I would see a trailer setup that is even more elaborate than the car it is designed for... when that car is a Tamiya Porsche 959! I read through the entire thread and your work is simply fabulous!

[Daves956]

I never thought I would see a trailer setup that is even more elaborate than the car it is designed for... when that car is a Tamiya Porsche 959! I read through the entire thread and your work is simply fabulous!

Thank you, it's a fun project but it has more than it's share of quirks. My intention is to make it into something that's easy to drive and control.

I'm thinking about a 15 pin D connector for all the trailer functions and an on off for the lights and second ESC using the spare channel. The trailer control is still in the planning stage while I make the truck a stand alone runner capable of controlling it.

[Daves956]

This is a bit of what's needed to switch back and forth from lifting trailer or running truck.
The truck and trailer have full battery voltage lighting for headlights and rear markers on seperate circuits that used to be able to feed in either direction.
The trailer has low voltage flourescent side markers that have to feed from a reciever.
There's also high volt overhead lighting inside the trailer that used to be only controled on the trailer side.
The gearbox for tailgate lift has it's own ESC that needs to be shut off when not in use. It used to be active all the time and it's why I was always snapping cables.
I used to have dual recievers to control from both the truck and the trailer independent of each other for specific functions.

To clean up this mess, I went to a single reciever with the truck feeding power and in complete control. Getting control of all the lighting and the second ESC was why I kept putting it off.
I want to be able to have the lift ESC off and all exterior lights on or switch to lifting trailer mode with only the interior trailer lights on and the second ESC enabled.

I decided on a small D to A converter made by HPI to switch over the low voltage lighting because it can handle more lights in the future. Then a micro servo to actuate a lever switch for the high volt lights and ESC enable via a small relay.

Here's a picture of what will be this things electro mechanical brain. I've tried it out seperate from everything and it works but there's a lot of things to tie into to check it on the truck.

[Daves956]

It's tied in and works as advertised. I did it in a modular way with connectors everywhere so if I want or need to remove it, it'll be easy. Speaking of easy, all I have left on the truck side is to put it all under the cab. It looks like 5 pounds in a 2 pound bag to me. I don't think the D style plug will handle the amp load for the lift so that has to be sorted out. Here's my latest rats nest.

[Daves956]

The original idea for this was that it could be a flat bed too. That idea fell apart somewhere along the line and I really wanted to be able to drive it once in a while. With the truck as a stand alone and everything feeding from it, the box can be removed with 4 easy to reach bolts. I wanted to see this anyway.

[Skottoman]

NIce to see you're still at this one. I'm sure the 55T slowed the truck down. I use 60T motors in my trucks and they're still plenty fast. But slow enough in 1st gear...

Cheers,
Skottoman

[Daves956]

NIce to see you're still at this one. I'm sure the 55T slowed the truck down. I use 60T motors in my trucks and they're still plenty fast. But slow enough in 1st gear...

Cheers,
Skottoman

I found a small issue with the transmission that effected the speeds. When I went to the 6 channel transmitter everything worked fine but I found out I really needed to reverse the servo for shifting. I felt really brilliant on that one.

I'm trying to come up with a good connection point or points for everything going to the trailer.I've got motor power off an ESC, interior lights, running lights both high and low volt plus the winch controls with it's own power hookup. I've got a couple ideas but haven't made it work yet. I'm thinking about a small box with a hinged top to hide them when not in use and color coding everything that isn't an obvious connection. I'll be scratch building something.

[bromvw]

How about haviing the wires looking like the trailer air lines ????????? that might work and look cool at the same time .

[Daves956]

How about haviing the wires looking like the trailer air lines ????????? that might work and look cool at the same time .

The problem is that there are 11 wires to connect. 2 are motor size and the rest smaller. A single plug is fine for the small ones but it's not good for the big ones and I'm concerned with running motor and signal so close together. I could seperate them into 2 bunches like air lines but they'd be the size of a pencil if not a bit bigger.

The truck itself doesn't use much power but the trailer is a power pig so I have to be careful with the connections.

A Sucrets box is too big but maybe a little Altoids one might be a suitable size. The flatbed will get run so something less permanent than before is my goal.

[Daves956]

I didn't realize that finding a good little box was such a task. I've looked everywhere I could think of and finally found a travel box for safety pins at a sewing store. It's like the smallest tupperware you'll ever find but the size was right.

Open it's mostly hidden under the front edge of the trailer and closed you can't tell it doesn't belong there.