MadAnt
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Posts posted by MadAnt
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7 hours ago, Kowalski86 said:
That's an interesting note on the old slipper clutch design, my only gripe with the old setup is that you can't gear it for torque like the modern setup.
Would you say that the Hot Racing heavy duty clutch is a worthwhile upgrade?
It depends on the material used, but there seems to more surface area based on the photo. Usually more material = better grip and heat dissipation.
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Not gonna lie, I want to get the Hornet evo. I'm probably not going to run the stock silver can, I might go with a brushless system. I really want to see if what Tamiya has done works well or if I'm going to have to fix some things. From watching the video, it looks like the shocks need thicker oil, but that's an easy fix.
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A bit of an update...
I ran the car during lunch with the Bandit arms to see how things go. Since the biggest thing I can jump off of is a 5-6 inch curb I had to change my driving style to see if I can run into trouble with the new control arms. So... on dusty asphalt I drove the poor Hotshot II like a mad man. I would get up to speed, slam on the brakes and fling the car into an 180 and punch it. I was trying to see what those control arms could hold up to, whipping the car back and forth and getting into little drifts. There was not much deflection in those Traxxas control arms, they seemed to be doing well, even after a violent rollover, they held up. I was impressed. So maybe for another test in the future, maybe I can get this thing on a track and see how the Traxxas parts hold up after jumping off the bigger ramps. So stay tuned!
In the picture above there seems to be enough room between the shock and the motor. I made sure that the angle was not too much for the operation of the shocks and that the ride hight and travel was still good with the new mounting position.
If you look close in the images below, you can see that I used different rear knuckles/uprights, they are the stock uprights for my TL01 that I had in my parts bin.
More updates!
I ran the Hotshot 2 after work going through another 2S lipo and I was thrashing it. Other than the bumper coming off again, the buggy held up fine, even after a few more violent scrambled egg rollovers. What a machine it was, probably reaching speeds in the 20-25 MPH range. Now I can sorta have fun with this thing and keep all the dog bone shafts in.
Even though it is fun to slide around, it becomes apparent that while on a surface with less grip the factory suspension configuration is not ideal if you want it to handle well. I can see the issue as the car turns and then spins out when the weight transfers. It's the front mono shock and swaybar. If I could just fit a stiffer front sway bar, a good amount of it's oversteer could be reduced, which would help the handling. I have some piano wire, I'll check if it's thicker and see if I can make a new sway bar. If not, maybe put some shock towers on the car and convert it two use a two shocks in the front rather than sharing one for both sides. Anyway, that's for the future, for now I want to fix the broken stuff, like the front bumper and the leaking front shock.
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As someone who has dealt with the 3 shoe/pad slipper clutch system from Traxxas many times when I worked at a hobby shop, I can tell you they suck. Tuning is awful, so they just wear out and the old previous design that many other brands still use was superior. I reckon that Traxxas might do a short run of cars with the aluminum slipper pads(which is worse for performance) until they use some new "safer" material. Although, I could be wrong, it might the cheaper route to go temporarily.
I have an old Traxxas Rustler, it does not have the 3 shoe/pad slipper clutch and it never will.
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Try not to overpower the car, but also choose something that gives good torque, because it takes more power to move when running a 4wd buggy like the Hotshot. My Hotshot II is running with a Team Orion 17t Method SV2 brushed motor with 0 degrees of timing and it's more than enough power for a parking lot runner. If you run on pavement a lot, a set of Duratrax Bandito tires with the soft compound hooks really well and makes the car very drivable with the extra power.
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If you want something for the trails, a small crawler chassis that will work with the sand scorcher body is the way to go. I know you want cheap project, but you will need 4WD just to make it over some obstacles if you want to drive at a relaxing pace.
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On 10/2/2024 at 4:05 AM, Hotshot’07 said:
Hi, I’ve got a retro Nissan king cab and recently I think the receiver unit or esc is playing up as when I was driving it it would drive itself at full speed without being able to control it. The receiver and esc is the original from about 1985 and I don’t know which part I would need to replace to sort this issue thanks.
What radio do you have?
If you can replace the frequency crystals, go to ebay or somewhere and buy a few sets. Just keep in mind that 27Mhz AM, 75Mhz AM and 75Mhz FM are not compatible with each other. Those were the most common radio frequencies, it should list what you have on the receiver.
Now if you want to get with the times like Grumpy said, go pick up a modern 2.4Ghz radio.
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Well... sometimes I don't want to wait and sometimes parts from other stuff look like they could fit with some modifications. Lol, I'll let everyone guess what I did from the photos.
Just keep in mind that it's untested, I'll update in a day or two hopefully.
Edit:
Ok, lol, I'll tell ya'll. I took a pair of Traxxas Bandit rear control arms and modified them to fit on the Hotshot II. If all this works, I will follow up with a guide, this should be sorta easy to replicate if you have the right tools.
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10 hours ago, Mad Ax said:
Yeah, cool but flawed - that's about right!
I had an original HotShot back in the 90s. Well, it never ran, I was given it as a box of parts, none of them good enough to make a running car. I sort of got it mostly together, so I could look at it, but it would fall apart as soon as I touched it.
It didn't have the original chassis - instead it had a custom-made one, or maybe a genuine TMS or Jim Davis chassis. I don't have any pics of that car to compare, and it was given away long, long before I got back into RC.
When the re-re first came out, I knew I had to get one, to experience what I'd missed in the 90s. It ran great - running over smooth grass, it was a joy to drive and looked awesome. I could really see the suspension moving around and complying over the ground, much more than I could with my DF-03. But after its first ever run, without any big jumps, that crazy over-engineered front shock was starting to banana. That's exactly what had happened to my old one. So, after just one run, the HotShot re-re got put on the shelf.
Fast-forward over a decade, and I rebuilt it with my own take on the TMS chassis, and with 4 shocks all round using brackets from RadShape RC.
I also don't like the stupid wide bumper, but when I raced my HotShot last year I kept it fitted because it does offer a little protection for those fragile front arms, and I crash a lot. Actually I've yet to break an arm on the HotShot - so far I've only had a couple of steering hubs die where the balljoint threads have pulled out.
You can find out about my custom chassis here. It is officially way easier to get to the electrics, although it's still seriously cramped!:
Just read your whole build, 10 out of 10.
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Great job! I love the loads of custom work and attention to detail. I have done some diy/custom stuff in the past, even a custom crawler chassis, but your custom build is way nicer. That's excellent work you have done, 10 out of 10.
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I'm sure if you look it up, you can find anyone that owns a new or old one of these 4WD Hotshot's or Hotshot 2's that will say many good things about them along with how fragile some parts are. The stuff not many people talk about though is how awful the design is. I mean it's still a cool buggy, but man! It's like one or a few of the engineers at Tamiya needed the crayons taken away.
Some time ago I bought a second hand Hotshot 2, it was before the it had re-release, maybe 6 or so years ago. I completely gone through it, cleaned everything and got it to be a fully functional buggy again. It was not in the best of shape, but it was now clean and good looking from 10 feet away. Knowing that what parts would interchange from other Tamiya models and parts availability at the time, I was not worried about lightly running it. I had some fun with it for a little bit of time and always kept it clean, I even upgraded the motor and speed controller and had it running pretty fast. I eventually put on the shelf and sort of forgot about it.
Now here in 2024, I feel like making the old Hotshot 2 a runner again. So while taking care of a few things on it, I was reminded of how questionable of how some of the "features" were designed. Although some of these designs were carried over from the original Hotshot, it was clear that these were some of the things that needed drastic improvement. Maybe Tamiya had some new engineers and rather than using the crayons to draw new much better disigns, they were eating them instead. Anyway, while I was installing some new electronics, I was reminded of how bad the design of the radio tray/box is. It's cramped and I'm sure with an ESC it gets hot due to the lack of air flow. Yes, I know, the temps may have been fine when it had an MSC, but it's still cramped and very annoying to deal with. There is the little hatch, ok, that's cool, but could something be done about shielding the drive shaft? I've been doing this hobby and other real life mechanical repairs long enough to know that the wires I tied in there may not stay put all the time. A simple shield around the driveshaft would have been a major improvement, but you know it's the zip ties and tape those engineers have faith in.
Since I'm running new modern electronics and I don't want my receiver in the same hot room as the new Hobbywing 1060 ESC(I fried my Tazer ESC) I've relocated the receiver to small space under the molded driver in the chassis.
I'm sure it would have been fine in the same compartment, but this just seemed to work and with some creativity the plastic packaging from the Hobbywing esc becomes a pretty neat self for the receiver and stays there pretty good with servo tape.
I rambled long enough about one flaw, time for the next one, and it's a big one. The front bumper on this RC buggy somehow looks goofy and like it belongs there at the same time. I kind of dig it's big goofy appearance, but I have one major issue with it. IT'S MADE OF HARD PLASTIC! Not too hard, but hard enough. Both the front bumper and lower bracket should have been redesigned or improved to withstand any higher speed impacts. Tamiya could have used the same plastic blend that is used in the more flexible bumpers used on many of their other models, like the Blackfoot or the Frog. So now I have to glue the bumper bracket back together with some styrene for now until I get new parts. Ok, fine, l can still enjoy running the Hotshot 2. No big deal right now.
If you have seen the photos, you will find that I'm running the 17 turn Method SV2 brushed motor from Team Orion. It's a bit slower than the Reedy Radon I had in it (it's not, it's faster), but I don't like how hot the Radon gets, which is why a cut a hole in the can. Slowing things down should mean reduced chances of breaking stuff (But I really made it faster.) and since I already have a couple of these Method motors in my motor pile, I don't have buy a new motor and still be faster than stock.
Test drive time! It was now night, so I went to the lit parking lot at the local grocery store. I plugged in my old Venom 4000Mah 20C oval lipo pack and did some zooming passes. It was still pretty fast and the old motor was still pretty responsive. The Hotshot 2 would crisply accelerate with no violence. With the Duratrx Bandito tires transferring the power into forward movement it was quick, almost brushless power quick. Things were going great, despite the buggy's flawed sloppy front suspension when drooped, it was running as straight as an arrow. I decided to do some curb hopping, nothing hard or big, infact the suspension never bottomed out. Unfortunately after just running for a very short time my run came to an end when the right rear dog bone shaft came out. Upon inspection I noticed that three of the rear control arms had broke. I really did not run it hard and the plastic at the hinge pins just gave up. One of the biggest flaws with the Hotshot 2 and other models using similar parts is the brittle plastic suspension arms. They could have been made a bit more beefy in certain areas or used a different type of plastic. Maybe they just got weaker over time, but they were just fine 6 years ago, it's a bummer. Well... now I wait for the new parts to come, thinking maybe I should find some replacement parts that are a bit more heavy duty and a bit more flexible.
I'll update when I fix it.
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I kept track track of spending on one of my cars once just out of curiosity. It was my TL01, I forgot what I have spent by now, but it was more than I would have liked to spend. I started with a clone, and the clone was so bad that I replaced the entire car. No really, I built a new Tamiya TL01 from new and upgrade parts. I even went as far as replacing all the screws, but in the end I think most of the cost was from upgrade parts. So now I have a Tamiya TL01 and an HBX or whatever TL01 clone(That's two cars now) from this deal.
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With the self tapper screws that go into plastic on like every Tamiya kit, I try to avoid retapping new threads when putting the screws back in by turning the screw backwards until I feel it fall into the already cut threads(many other people do the same thing), then I send it in. Sometimes I'll just use my fingers to feel the screw go in. I know many people like to use a power screwdriver, I've used them before too, but I never use it for assembly with old or new plastic. I need to feel how each screw goes and then tightened to what I feel is correct.
For rattling bodies, I too use foam and silicone fuel tubing on the posts. It just works.
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The Traxxas 4-tec slicks are pretty bad with a hard compound and bad traction. They could be made that way because the nitro 4-tec can reach some pretty high speeds. You can buy a set of four premounted on rims and might work for your application if you are not running a lot of power.
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Wow! 25kg-cm is a way overkill servo for a monster beetle, but it's really nice to have all that torque.
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I am not familiar with the XV-01, but I have been running diffs with grease for years. I would assume yours is oil filled to give it a limited slip effect, so running grease will eliminate that function and just operate like an open diff. The O-rings will need lubrication, but grease can take care of that.
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Really neat! Wish you a speedy recovery.
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I've bought multiple projects in a short period of time before too. Back when I worked at a hobby store, we would host swap meets sometimes and I got some good deals. The sellers went home with a bunch of cash and I had boxes of new old but good junk lol.
Years later I still have stuff that has been waiting for resto or repair or whatever I planned in the past. In the future(hopefully this year) I want to shrink the collection and maybe make room for something else.
Anyway, good luck with the new projects.
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I love stuff like this. When you got to make something work for what you want it for, sometimes you need to be creative. It's very easy to buy a race buggy, but for me the fun challenge is re-engineering what you have.
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I used shims in mine when I built it years ago. I forgot what thickness shims or washers I used, but it helps enough to make think that Tamiya should have included them in the kit in the first place. Oh well, it's a cheap fix that works. I'll update my post later with some pics of the shims and stuff.
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Back when I was a young teen I was gifted my first hobby grade electric RC car. It was used and abused before I had it, the re-release Grasshopper did not exist then, but I made it work and gave it new life again. I had loads of fun with the old grasshopper over the years, going through multiple bodies, motors and evolutions, it was the one car that was always working despite being the worst sometimes and always fixed for as cheap as possible and back in action quicker than anything else. It was terrible at everything and yet it was so fun.
Now here we are in 2024. I have not used the old Grasshopper in years, it was still in the sorry state that I left it in, which was borderline trash. I really wanted to bring it back to life, which would not take much, but I just kept putting it off, letting it collect dust. While recovering from my recent brain surgery(which I still am), I decided that it was time and I wanted something to do and enjoy since working on big cars was not an option while recovering. Well... I did more than just fixing it, I made it better than ever-ish.
Just fix the steering and body post I thought to myself. We know that did not happen, it got the special treatment.
There is a story for why the chassis has metal bracing. Anyone would say it needs a chassis, but I don't want to take all of this buggy's character away, so I'm keeping it the way it is.
So I started with analyzing the steering to see if I can just fix it with some other junk that I have stored. Well... I have lots of junk, new and old hornet spare parts and some Ampro parts that I bought from Shapeways in the past. I think you can tell where this is going.
I don't need this jank repair in the pic above anymore.
Yes, I know I have the Ampro 10mm offset control arms on opposite sides and upside down. Trust me, it works better that way for what I wanted to do and it allows the room needed for the lower shock/spring perch end. Using hornet front o-ring dampers takes out a little bit of bounce and the longer shanked screws for the shock shafts give the suspension more travel along with my larger springs. I still need to make bump stops, I might get to that someday. Anyway, besides fixing the steering and having a new servo saver, this suspension conversion is a big upgrade for this pile of trash.
Installed some new spare hornet rear shocks too with miss match lower spring retainers.
Ok, so the suspension got some special treatment. Why not improve things just a little more with what I have laying around? Since I had a spare Futaba S-FHSS 2.4Ghz receiver it seemed like a good idea get with the times and bind it with my Futaba 2PL. No more crystal swapping nonsense when ever I get radio interference.
In the pic above you can see that I upgraded from the mechanical speed controller. So out with the old and in with... the old! Well, I had a couple of old Novak 610HRV electronic speed controllers in my inventory, so I figured why not. Also, under the styrene repaired shock tower, I downgraded the motor from a Venom Fireball 19 turn double to a 25 turn Tamiya Torque Tuned motor from my spare motor pile. I figured and was right that the slower motor would help make the old Hopper more drivable. To help the drivetrain run smoother I replaced the brass bushings with ball bearings from Panther Products, which was from my bearing stash. My recommendation for RC hobbyists is to buy the most common bearings in bulk, it will save you money.
Now in its final form, I can enjoy the old hopper again. I tell you what? I had a smile on my face running this old buggy again. It still has it's charm, but with slightly improved handling. It will always be special to me, I've learned that built instead of bought can be more fun sometimes, or maybe rebuilt several times can be more fun lol.
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Oh man that's a big oof! I know the feeling, hopefully the paint can be removed with paint remover. My best guess is that the smoke paint went on too thick. Painting lexan can take longer sometimes just because it can take so many very light coats to get the correct coverage. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not.
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Thank you all for the kind welcoming.
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I use Tamiya's masking tape for most of my painting, It just works better. I also did the same when I worked at a hobby store in the past.
In the picture above there seems to be enough room between the shock and the motor. I made sure that the angle was not too much for the operation of the shocks and that the ride hight and travel was still good with the new mounting position.
Installed some new spare hornet rear shocks too with miss match lower spring retainers.
Silver Can vs Torque Tuned
in All things electric...
Posted
For what it is, the Torque Tuned motor is a peppy motor, almost matching the Sport Tuned motor and a 2S lipo battery really does wake it up. For certain cars in certain driving situations, like my my Grasshopper or a touring car on a small track, I'd say the Torque Tuned motor is the sweet spot.