Ray_ve

Worked on the electrification of my Mugen Prime 12 nitro chassis. Looks like it can all (barely) fit. Need to make a new top-plate on the chassis, and a better motor mount as this L-shaped bracket has too much flex for my taste.

Today, I recieved the holy grail!

Maybe a stupid question but that pinion looks very clean. Did you use grease on the gears?

But with a re-designed gearbox for better stronger material gears that can also take bearings, so it can run brushless. And a battery case to hold 3S! And an optional wheely bar. Lighting kit would be nice too.

The 3900KV and esc for my nitro to electric Mugen Seiki Prime 12. Now if only I could remember where I put that chassis during cleanup.....

For any vintage model that comes in without transmitter/receiver/servo, I myself use the modern stuff because in my personal opinion the modern material is simply better. I want the best, not period correct. I have a Marui Golden Eagle that came complete with its AM radio. When turned on, the servo's would 'jitter' a bit because of the low-grade antenna signal and sytem, and the car's antenna that is longer then the entire model is an eyesore. For this specific model I only took out the old speed controller and gave it an ESC so I could also loose the 4 AA batteries and holder and the ESC's seamless motor control is much gentler on those hard-to-replace gears. Any other vintage model I have (Big Bear, Ninja, and at some point when I finish them the Samurai and Shogun) have brushed motors and get an modern ESC and a 2.4Ghz set and a strong metal-gear steering servo with metal servo saver. No more eyesore antenna as this typically sits under the bodyshell. No more AA batteries. Steering servo that is rock steady when turned on and actually capable of turning the wheels at stand-still and not just flex the plastic servo-saver a bit while the wheels will only do the actual turn when the car starts rolling. And the same goes for all the Tamiya's I have. Would have used these better electronics back in the day if they were available and affordable.

That one is still on my Christmas shopping list. I have the 'regular' FDM 3D printer. Its fine for anything bigger then 5cm but not for high detail due to its 3mm material spools and 0.4mm head. Converting it to a finer head and layer height is more work then I care to put into it. I typically use 0.25 to 0.3mm layer thickness which is a rough finish. On a hobby convention, I saw a Dremel 3D FDM printer make a new body for a matchbox car. That used a very fine layer thickness. 0.1mm or maybe even finer. It took 12 hours to make the 6cm body as it was printing at snale speed, but the amount of detail in the printed part looked excellent to me with minimum finishing effort. But I hope to make better resolution small parts with the Elegoo Mars. It would nicely complement my current printer.

Depends on the material it is printed with. Sounds like these are printed in PLA, which is a very hard plastic, and a disaster to sand down. I've finished these parts by using a plastic primer, followed by spray filler. Both from Motip brand, found at automotive parts shops. That gave me a decent enough finish. But pictures could tell us more if you have them.

I have a cheap ultrasonic cleaner and I love it! Just fill it with warm water and washing up soap, add a handful of screws, nuts, small plastic parts, and let it run for a few minutes. Used to do this with a toothbrush, but this saves so many hours of boring manual labour! For really greasy parts like gears and gearboxes, I put those in a plastic sealbag with some terpentine, and place that bag into the cleaner which is filled with water. Greasy parts come out very clean, and one more round in the water with soap removes the terpentine smell. All I can say is, the cleaner is a perfect addition to the tools pool.

Poor-able polyurethane rubber is available. I guess the biggest challenge would be to make a decent negative shaped container to poor it into. Either make a container by copying a good tire, or for increased accuracy make a container using a 3D printer or CNC machine. Sounds like a nice project for the christmas-holiday. But I would buy a better resin-based 3D printer first. Agreed that the rubber should be a but thicker... Difficult to say how much as the suspension of the Bear is like the Clodbuster, the tires are the main springs. That only leaves the gears! Maybe somthing with a negative container made from gypsum and poor molten zink or aluminium into it?? Or try to print resin gears.

Tires are even worse to find compared to gears, as gears will at least not dry out as the years pass by. I was lucky to buy 2 bears, with an extra set of decent tires to make one original bear. And have one other set of used tires that are in one piece, but the rubber feels very dry..... I think that unfortunately, the search, and practical use, for original tyres is over as time has degraded the original rubber too far... Unless they were stored in sealed plastic bags in a dark cool place... Would be nice if a re-production run was done, as tires and gears are the only parts of a bear that need replacing. Most other components will last.

The Marui Big Bear. That saw a lot of action. In Those days, given that charging of my only battery took 4 hours, I could run 3 times a day if I timed it right. Not to mention the nummer of times I tested the range of the transmitter by running the Bear in a straight line away from me, only to have to run after it as offcourse no more range means the servo will keep the speed controller at full speed. Second was the grasshopper, because it was the cheapest Tamiya to be found. But loads of fun too.

Shipped the 1st edition Cold Buster to its new owner. I'm slowely ganing some shelf space again. Took a big box to package that!

Reluctantly attempting to make some shelf-space as things may have gone a bit out of hand with the number cars. Sold the Rising Fighter, still selling some Marui big bears, golden eagle, ninja, the stripped down Samurai..... Original Clodbuster. Business is slow, so plenty of time to change my mind on this. Definite keepers are Frankenbigbear, Bullclod Big Bear, Original Big bear, and another Big Bear variant I have in mind (my Big Bear autism kicks in). And the Shogun, Grasshopper 2, Dual Hunter are on the maybe list. Aaargh this is hard whahaha...

The cheap lazy-runner buggy arrived. It's marked as Amax brand, but the parts are typically HSP Himoto, so cheap on aliexpress. And it is mostly the same platform as Basherbear, so very familiar. 4WD, have to check if it has bearings, complete with radio, ESC, battery, just need 8 AAs for the transmitter. Looks like it has only done a few runs as the tires are still fine and no play on the axels.