alfagta

sand scorcher , been putting it off for far too long , gotta have one (unless tamiya pull the trigger on the blazing blazer re-release ! )

hi, discharge it to around 2v per cell , this will take the power down to the point where it cant self ignite , some folks discharge further than this then leave them in salt water over night , the 2v point is IMO low enough and then drop it off at a suitable place , your local authority should have a list on their web site, my local tesco and co-op also accept used batteries , not sure what the low volt cut off is on your esc but its best to go for around 3.2v-3.4v per cell, the 3v that most battery manufacturers suggest is the minimum at 1A drain but when you are pulling 20A+ the actual voltage of the pack may dip far lower , always over spec the discharge C rating on future packs , if you have a 60A esc then think along the lines of 5000mah with a C rating of at least 50C continuous with 100C burst or more , from what i have had the turnigy , zippy and gens ace packs are the most reliable at the price , orion packs are very expensive but the pair i have are very old and still work fine after more than 500 cycles . better luck with the new ones

looks like fun , what happened to the li-po? it may be saveable

hi, get a quick release battery holder set ( 53346 ), also get some 35mm m3 screws and some 3mm spacers , use the longer screws and spacers when fitting the QR hatch and you will have a very secure set up that can be adjusted to accept your existing packs , works a treat and havent had a pack come loose in 10 years , they also stop the chance of the m05 holder grounding out when you run the ride height down low.

had the old mad bull fitted with tyres from one of my axial scorpians out in the snow , drifting madness ! ,

hi mr crispy ,ive been told that before too, however that little glass fibre disc does nothing to stop heat transfer beyond about 30 seconds at which point the disc runs as hot as the motor can , after i discovered this i stopped using it as it was easier to seat the motor without it , then i started eating gears from debris ingress which was evident from the small stones and grit that were embedded in the gears , with a sealed can brushless motor that gets just as hot as a brushed motor and running no disc i have had no issues , this all suggests that its there for sealing purposes and is quite essential , but, if steve was talking about the 380 motor adapter then this is all irelevant

i do wonder why some of the larger stores dont have a web shop linked live stock taking system too, in this age of epos systems and such like it really does make sense , especially in the rc arena , consider trying to keep track of the thousands of different parts for one brand such as tamiya , add another few brands and all the batteries ,esc's and such like and suddenly a live I.T based system would seem to be essential .

hi steve, do you mean the glass fibre motor plate? as in the gray thin plate that looks like its made of cardboard if so then always use one if the motor has holes in the pinion end of the can which almost all brushed motors do , small debris can get sucked into the motor then work its way into the gearbox , i only discovered this when i went through 4 grear sets in couple of weeks on my M03 , its not such an issue with closed/sealed can motors .

hi, first thing i would do is strip it right down and clean it all , check that its fully ball raced and all the ball races are in good shape, check for any worn/damaged parts and reasemble , you could do a forum search for madcap and see what others have had issues with and see what they did to keep their madcap running, brushless is always a good idea as you can tune the esc to give softer punch which is far kinder to gear boxes etc , not to mention the longer motor lifespan of brushless systems , my mate still has his old madcap and still uses it for blasting about with a hobby king system in it , all he did was fit new ball races and some alloy shocks with the metal motor plate , find some good batteries that fit and you should be good to go.

hi steve, although i too would be tempted to go for a brushless set up , if you want to stay with a brushed set up for now then keep it cheap , ansmann , etronix and a couple of others do really cheap motors , i run ansmann clash 21 motors(these actually pull less current than the tamiya sport tuned and give great run time ) with 5 of my teu101 esc's and the esc hardly even gets warm after 25 minutes of driving and they are very quick compared to a stock 540 j, just gear down a little and they become quite punchy and rev quite well so this could be an option for you while you consider what brushless system you want , for batteries i think you will just get the yeah racing 3200 li-po packs in the boom, but, be careful if you go for a li-po as the teu101 has no li-po cut off , for chargers there is the Xtreme 605 (personal fav ) , or the turnigy accucel 6 , they will both need a 12v power supply ,even with that it still works out at very good value and you will be able to charge any battery properly for years to come ,not to mention the in built balance charge function and a plethora of other useful functions such as delt peak sensitivity(handy for stuborn ni-cads that false peak) etc , have fun

i would have to agree about the mardave/schumacher supastox cars, the fast growing 1/12 circuit class is great , very fast , very cheap and super tough, they are superb for teaching the young uns about chassis maintenance and also set up , in my experience the guys that run in these classes are far less ' up themselves ' than some of the off road racers and touring car racers that take model car racing far too seriously for my liking , each to their own though , its just that turning up at a small rc club with over 3 grands worth equipement and sneering at the 14 year old kid with his near stock tc4 or tb02 or what have you does nothing for improving the accessability of the hobby , my best advice is to visit your nearest clubs , talk to people there and choose the one that is most welcoming, they will advice you what is best to run at their events. happy racing,

racing? whats that then ??

hi, if the channels on the radio have been swapped and throttle now works the steering and it steers fine as you said then i think we can say "yes thats an ESC issue " , probably best to grab a new esc , mtronics, ansmann and tamiya teu105 can all be had very cheaply ,as well as many others , if you are fealing like it may be worth it for what you intend on doing with the car then you could worse than grab a budget brushless system from Hobbywing, turnigy, leopard, hobbyking , yeah racing , but, a cheap brushed esc will keep you happy and wont put too much demand on your battery. good luck with it and have fun ,

hi percymon, you may still have to swap the black and red leads around at the servo plug depending on how you have set it up, remember that with a y lead you will be drawing double current from the receiver , i doubt you will have issues if you are not planning to go crawling , thought i should mention it, have fun ,

heat build up from the slipper can cause the spring to lose its temper (no it doesnt get angry ) so they do tend to need replaced after a time, i only suggest the ansmann /team c absima ones as i have had the same ones on my x pro cars since new (5years) and had zero issues , just a tiny bit of adjustment as the clutch plates wear ,

hi, not sure if it will fit but the clutch springs on ansmann buggies are pretty good, they dont go soft over time and offer a good range of adjustment , the lay shaft they fit on is 5mm and held on with an m4 wheel nut .

thats a shame adelowe , these things happen ,sadly, better luck with the new one

hi, try resetting the neutral points on esc for the transmitter as if you have just fitted everything for the first time , once done check to see if you have reverse back, if not then switch everything off then switch on the transmitter, switch on the esc while holding down the esc set up button until the led is flashing then release, if it is flashing once repeatedly then reverse in enabled , if its flashing twice repeatedly reverse is disabled , just press the button until it flashes once repeatedly and it should then reverse again. good luck

hi TA-mark, as you mentioned, the esc has auto set up so i assume that even if the trim has moved a little surely the esc would just auto set to this new position next time its set up?

dont mean to add fuel to the fire here fella's and sorry if this is going a bit off topic in your thread spencertrax , lets not forget that all those world class racers dont buy one esc , they get sent 50 of them , often they use an esc once , same with batteries etc, so IMO its not the smartest decision to buy a system just because the company has a presence in the world class racing scene, as i mentioned in my previous post ,the name can mislead you into thinking that 'they must be good' HK esc's 3of3 0 failures, HW esc's 2of2 0 failures , yeah racing esc's2of2 0 failures , tamiya esc's 12of12 0 failures , novak esc's 3 of 3 total failure , LRP esc;s 6of6 total failures , castle sidewinder sv2 2of2 partial failures , to quantify that is 100% failure rate of the well known brand names and 0%failure of the 'questionable' HK and other budget esc's , so spending the extra on the more expensive ones was the 'actual ' false economy , considering spencertrax is, like me, just a hobby driver these day , the cheaper systems are by far the more sensible and reliable option , but thats just my 20 years of rc experience and others may be different. all the best with your choice spencertrax ,sure you will love the brushless experience , it has IMO transformed the rc industry .

hi again dazsww, i've never ran one of the etronix esc's , but, if it does reverse sometimes it could well be a bad pot in the transmitter , i have had 3 ap202 radios many years ago , they were all fine for about a year but two of them went wonky , i thought my tamiya esc's had lost reverse but it turned out it was the radios , although the third one still works to this day , i replaced my radios and have had no issues since , it may be worth nipping into your local hobby shop and see if they would be kind enough to quickly hook up your car to another radio to see if yours has gone bad , your battery should take 8 hours for a full charge , 400ma x 8hrs =3200 mah , the 200 extra will actually be lost as heat during the charge process , good luck and have fun

lookin good, my old tb02 amg , currently working on a 190mm m04 chassis to go under the shell as i find the tb02 a bit boring to drive , the real thing would be rwd too

i agree with all the replies, go for a 3channel 2.4g radio that uses a bind plug for set up, these have a specific batt input , once the bind plug is removed you plug the teu101 into the batt input and and you wont fry the receiver , they also do away with the need for suppression caps on the motor .

had my m05 out this morning for a blast , ground was very frosty so i ran back indoors and grabbed my M04ss and had a massive giggle drifting it around , was there for about 1.5 hours , didnt realize how cold my hands were until i came back in as i was having such a giggle , 39 going on 9 , i will always be a kid at heart ! so what have you done today?

nice , plenty of room for a good track there ,enough room for a good jump or two too , looking forward to the video's !