Juls1

Both Australian and UK governments are forcing international company’s to do this. I noticed it occurring simultaneously. While I don’t know if PJ are collecting Australian GST yet. Here in Australia any business with a turnover of $70,000 Australian dollars or more must legally collect GST. So customs records the value and qty of parcels coming through and then forces the international company’s to collect GST from Australian customers if they want to continue trading in Australia. So far for me it’s been, eBay, aliexpress, amazon, buyee and rcmart all charging/collecting GST. This is only going to get more and more as time goes on. But what it does do is makes you double think is it going to be competitive buying it locally, which for me if we are talking current models is almost always better buying kits locally. This didn’t used to be the case. However there is still little choice when it comes to parts. They don’t exist here.

17t is 9.3:1 the 19T is 8.3:1 its 0.8 module (32p) so a few teeth does make a fair difference. It will depend a lot on the surface but I melted a few 12T 550 motors in my holiday buggy (dt02) both running 7.4v lipo. All I can say is monitor it closely, my experience was I killed one motor on its first pack, the other was about 6/7 packs in. I think the surface made all the difference, and the run times were fairly long on 5000mah packs.

I had the same issue with the yeah racing 550 motors had to dremel the end off the shaft. Also had to remove the motor sleeve. the 19t might be geared a bit high for the titan 12T, you can burn them up if you load them up too much.

I’ve been racing the td2 for awhile now, on an off road clay track, that’s generally dry and fairly rough, but hard surface. IE: very slippery. I generally get 4th and 5th in a 10-12 car pack, sometimes 3rd. I’m the only tamiya the rest are associated/losi/X-ray/pr racing. the car is very heavy at the rear, despite the forward rear motor. This makes it less great on high traction and better in proper off road tracks. i found the car wants to jump nose high, so I use the lowest wing mount with a TRF201 wing trimmed so the tyres miss it. I don’t know what tamiya are smoking with that wing mount on the carbon tower. But it’s too high IMO. Given I race on low traction the ball diff is the only option, It’s been maintainence free for me so far. My slipper is also set quite light. I run a hobbywing xerun g10 v4 17.5T with a justock esc. It’s a very fast setup, I often get comments on how fast it is on the straights I think it’s partially the 3 gear tranny, and mostly how good the latest hobbywing race motors are. This motor has side tabs to solder, I was initially worried it wouldn’t fit after reading here some thoughts that top tab motors won’t fit. Actually it fits just fine. No problems at all. it is a nice car to drive, right up there with the DN01. If you’ve got any questions feel free to ask.

If it’s true that’s a shame. The one thing glen cannot afford is to divide the minimal community he already has. I’d be interested to hear the other sides of the story.

Seems like you’ve got it mostly sorted. I noted in your first vid, you had toe in at the front. toe in will cause the car to push as you enter the corner then grip as you exit the corner, this can lead to loop outs mid corner. Running tow out gives far more initial turn in grip at the start of the corner but will push slightly on exit, generally toe out is easier to drive. i also noted your running camber adjustable top links. Make sure you’re running negative 1-3 deg in the rear and negative 0-2 deg in the front. more importantly ensure that the camber left to right is identical. This does not mean the camber links are equal length, that makes an assumption that the car is perfectly square. Generally that’s unlikely on Tamiyas cheaper models you’ll need to measure the camber with a testing device. If you have different camber left to right the tell tale sign is that it handles differently turning left or right. If you’re pushing turning left and spinning out turning right then your camber settings left to right are unlikely to be the same. there is little else you can change, generally as you’ve found lowering the rear and lifting the front slightly can help balance the chassis and increase rear grip in corners.

The car is quite lightweight as far as crawlers go, this does wonders for the suspension if you intend to use the kit at moderate speeds. But it’s unhelpful for general crawling/trailing. I ended up adding brass steering knuckles and then internal wheel weights on 1.55” steel wheels and rc4wd crawler tyres. The chassis is a really capable crawler/trail rig then. But it does depend on what you want from the car.

I hate painting and decal work too. Love the mechanical side. Got a number of unfinished bodys sitting. Just like you.

I’m racing the TD2, I know for a fact I’d be struggling to get any of my dt03’s around the track fast enough to not just come last. The TD2 is well layed out and runs well on low grip off road tracks(assuming you set it up properly), it has roll centre adjustments front and back, option rear mount for toe and anti squat, alternate front caster blocks to alter front caster. The level of adjustability is huge. I don’t know why people compare the TD2 to the DT03, they are worlds apart performance wise. There is no comparison really. I’m not sure what tamiya did wrong marketing wise for people to think the DT03 is comparable, because it just isn’t. The TD2 is a viable entry level race chassis (if you ignore the price). The DT03 is not. You will need the alloy diff nut, the stock ball diff is an excellent diff overall once you’ve got the alloy diff nut. I’ve done 8 race weekends and never had to look at it once. It’s the same quality as what comes with a trf201. For slippery dry clay tracks it’s really the best option. If you run high grip you may get better results from the oil filled gear diff although making the gear diff oil too heavy will make the steering horrible. If I was to critique the car I’d say it is a fraction too heavy out back which is why it isn’t as good on high grip race tracks.

Been running xv01 since it first came out, never had the gearbox out. Has done every kind of abusive driving you could imagine. I have broken the plastic suspension mounts, I also broke the carbon reinforced mounts. Alloy ones fixed it for me. To be fair I only broke the mounts by actually hitting something immovable at speed on an angle. Neither the arm or pin or any other parts got damaged. In those kinds of impacts something has to break. The mount is cheap and upgradeable. I wouldn’t call a xv01 an expensive kit. Compared to buying a TT02 it’s very cheap given what it comes with and the performance increase.

I’ve been racing the TD2 for awhile now, it’s fine on low grip off road tracks, but it is still a little too much rear weight bias. In terms of adjustability and general design quality it’s not actually short on much. While I’m not trying to win I’m having no issues staying mid pack amongst supposedly superior company. While I’d still call it mid level, it should never be compared to DT chassis, that’s not what it is. It’s closer to a DN01 but it’s missing a TRF sibling. what id like to see is a 4wd racing buggy based on the XV02 platform. Pretty easy, make a longer chassis, put long arms on it, tall shock towers. I don’t think you should call it a db03, because there is no TRF basis. But the layout is essentially proven and highly adaptable. as for a 2wd racing chassis, just re release the trf211xm. It’s not far enough out of date to prevent me racing it.

110w is a big soldering iron! Are you sure it’s that powerful? I’ve seen many adjustable soldering stations claim big numbers but are actually only 25w or less. I use a 25w station for most general stuff but when soldering 12awg I always reach for my 80w cheapy, it’s just easier. You need loads of current at fairly high temps to be able to heat quickly enough to get a good tin happening. If it’s too low power and heat then you end up heating too slowly and the wire will conduct the heat down it’s length too fast for you to get it hot enough to get the solder flowing. The lumpiness is because the wire isn’t getting hot enough to melt the solder and make it adhere. Sometimes there can be contaminants on the wire that causes the solder to wick away. the wrong solder will make life very hard, I suggest picking up a few different ones in small amounts, trying them all, some will be easier than others. Then stick to what works for you. I’ve not found that sticking to specifications alone gives consistent results, some brands still seem better than others I don’t know why. Make sure the solder is specifically for electrical use. if your trying to solder plugs, particularly like xt90, make sure you have the male and female connected together when you solder one side, this dramatically reduces the risk of melting the plug and moving the pin accidentally. Make sure both plug and wire is well tinned before trying to mate them. Again having a higher power soldering iron will let you rapidly heat the immediate area to get a fast tin without heating everything else up. For applications under 12awg a 25 watt is generally plenty, but it’s often not quite enough for the 12awg wires and connectors we use.

I’m not aware of a composite cap that fits. If you don’t put bottom out spacers on the shaft then you may damage the bladder because the physical shaft is too long. That being said in order for that to happen you’d need to totally bottom out the shaft on the top cap. This can still happen if you remove the bladder and it’s not ideal. The top cap and the damper piston are not designed to hit each other. Building the shock in this way is just failing to use some common sense. The shock should bottom out on the spring retention first. For this reason just install enough spacers on the shaft before the bottom cap to stop this happening. If you are following the instructions it does actually show how many spacers for each car but additionally just use a little common sense, check where the shaft end point is, add enough spacers to prevent internal bottom out.

Nimh generally pretty safe, I have had them fail, but it’s considerably rarer. I don’t think you need to do anything specific however I would remove them from the car after use just in case there is some iron stones or something like that, that might short the pack out. Additionally I prefer to recharge them to about 30% for long term storage. Never store nimh fully charged or discharged for very long periods tends to ruin there capacity if you do. I generally am not too concerned about my lipo’s in terms of storage unless I feel there is an issue with the pack. the thing is I always know my battery’s are stored between 25 and 75% charge and don’t have faulty cells, I never store flat lipo’s, and never store charged ones. Lipo’s don’t magically catch on fire if stored correctly and are not faulty. storing lipo’s fully charged or completely flat long term will cause them to fail. now if a pack is getting sad, one cell of the pack isn’t keeping up or there is any type of puffing. Then I generally dispose of them, or at least store them out of the house in a fire safe container. the reason people have house fires with their e scooters and whatnot is because they have multi cell packs that are enclosed and are not individually cell managed. One cell dies, next time you put it on charge, that cell blows up, taking the rest with it. Probably house and all. (Additionally people probably run the scooter flat, then turn it off and on and it goes a bit further, do that over and over till it’s properly dead, leading to at least one cell failing) we have the benefit of being able to monitor our cells with our chargers, as well as physical inspection. But the downside is we do push our cells to their limits both in charge and discharge, so our rc packs are more likely to fail if we are not paying attention. it’s worth keeping in mind, full size electric cars like teslas have both charge and discharge cycles limited so the pack can never ever be fully charged or ever be fully discharged. That’s how they achieve somewhat long term reliability with so many cells. If you never over discharge and never overcharge your cells they will last a long time. I’ve got a few 15 year old 2 cell packs that are still going strong and making full capacity every charge, I’ve never kept them in a fireproof container in the house. It’s just about understanding your lipo’s and storing them partially charged. It’s actually really easy.

I wanted a TRF211XM for a long time, I waited too long. Now they don’t exist…..