FTX Outback Mini-X - Wilts Off-Road School Car

[Mad Ax 10843]

I got one of these for my daughter almost two years ago, but she hasn't really driven it that much.  With the winter looming and less opportunity to do stuff outdoors, I figured now is the time to get back to some indoor RC training, and what better way to show her how it's done than getting my own 1:18 crawler to lead the way?

I considered one of the bigger brands - the new TRX-M came out a few days after I bought this and it looks seriously good - but at more than double the price, it was a bit out of budget for an impulse purchase.  Plus, I figured it would be better to show her what can be done with the same truck, so there can't be any "but my truck can't do it" type arguments.

I didn't entirely like the black wheels on the LC90 variant that I got for my daughter, so instead I bought the Cub version, which comes with a sort of IH Scout body sort of thing, if you squint, with built-in lights and plastic parts and grey wheels.  And then I bought another LC90 bodyset, because I really, really like that Toyota body.

It might not be a perfect replica, but the Cub body is cute, too.  It's a really nice colour and the light buckets are a neat touch.  It's just a shame about the stick-on windows.  More on that in a later update.

 

[Mad Ax 10843]

So, first thing you do when you buy an RTR rig, naturally, is paint up a new body for it.

The RTR LC90 variant comes in a beautiful gunmetal colour, and I kinda fancied doing the same on mine, only with masked windows, for that not-a-toy look.

Alas, the problem with gunmetal, is I can't make any decals to go over it, because I can only print dark colours to stick onto light backgrounds - so, this Tamiya gunmetal is painted on the outside.

With the overspray film and window masks removed, the final colour is revealed.  Core RC Shark Grey - same as my LMT Ford body, this time backed with silver for a nice vibrant finish, and then black, so the interior of the truck looks like an interior of a truck and not the interior of a toy.  Also note the masked headlights.  More on that in a later update.

More photos to follow later, when I get around to taking them.

For now, though, a quick update on the Cub body - the window decals came off easy with some nail-scratching, tugging and Sticky Stuff Remover (tm), and then a wee dab of Carson Paint Killer from a rattlecan onto a piece of kitchen towel scrubbed over the inside of the windows took off the paint well enough.  So, I now have a vaguely kinda-Scout body (Cub is a pretty good name, actually - it's like Aldi's chocolate snack naming convention) that can go on when I'm not Toyotering it around.  With decals in the right place, I think it'll look pretty good.

The thread title will make sense when I get around to photographing the decals  

[Mad Ax 10843]

I dusted off the photo shelf earlier today, so I thought I'd add a couple of photos of the Cub body.  It's quite a sweet little thing, and with some decals and details I think I can make it look quite good.

I might even dig out the gunmetal LC90 body that came with my daughter's truck and clear the windows on that, too.

I left the rear windows body-colour, like a panel van.  I'm not sure if there ever was a panel van Scout, but this one doesn't have the little angular cut-out that I'm pretty sure all tin-top scouts had, and this makes it less obvious.  Alternatively I could outside-paint this in canvas white, like a soft top.

[Mad Ax 10843]

Anyway, I didn't dust off my photo shelf just to take pictures of a silly Cub body that I didn't even paint.  No, I did it so I could get some photos of the LC90 body (which, confusingly, actually appears to be an LC80 Land Cruiser shape).

The grey decallage was designed by myself and printed on clear laser vinyl.  I tried to get the tone similar to the gunmetal that I used to paint the arches and body trim, but it looks a little lighter in the photos.  The company name is fictitious, but I figured if I'm going to be instructing my daughter how to drive by letting her follow me around, I should probably be driving an instructor's car, right?

Sponsor decals on the windows are from a variety of small decal sets I've acquired over the years.

Right side of window intentionally left blank.  The official LC90-bodied kit comes with a proper spare wheel with a proper tyre, but the Cub doesn't.  I've got a solution to this problem which will be revealed when I have time to sort it out.

[Mad Ax 10843]

The eagle-eyed among you may notice that the wheels don't 100% line up with the arches.  I noticed this on the other LC90, too.  IIRC the stock body had the holes drilled slightly off of the moulded markings, and I did the same on my daughter's truck, so it fits better (the front axle is a little too far forward but it really doesn't show).  On my truck I forgot all about this, and drilled as per where the mouldings are, only to find the rear axle sits too far back.

The obvious solution to this is to get some 2mm threaded rod and make custom links to shorten the wheelbase.

Anyway.  Everybody needs to know when they're following the instructor.

Still more to come on this project - light buckets have been designed but not printed yet, and I've designed a roof rack as a solid shape but will need to break it down into parts to print it successfully on the resin printer.

[Mad Ax 10843]

I somehow managed to accidentally post the next couple of updates in the wrong thread - now here where they belong:

I had a spare 30 minutes to do a bit more on this truck at the weekend.  As I mentioned earlier, the Cub model doesn't come with a spare wheel, so I figured I'd make one.  The lid from a Halfords primer can was a perfect tolerance fit over a stock tyre, so the perfect size for a scale wheel cover.  I trimmed it down to size, but I needed something to back it, as I didn't want the hollow inside to be visible.

I started with a rough-cut piece of 1mm plasticard, centre-drilled and mounted in my precision lathe.

Using a series of precise and careful cuts with specialist lathe tools, I was able to sand it down to a smooth round puck

Which fits nicely on the back of the body

[Mad Ax 10843]

I smoothed off the inside of the lid and prepped both sides with Tamiya plastic cement.

That's that - next step, prepping the surface and paint!

[Mad Ax 10843]

Got a few updates on the roof rack that I 3D printed this week.  I got the design locked in last weekend, and split down into 2 parts so I could print it easier, then I left it running most of Sunday and into the early hours of Monday morning.  In the end it took nearly 14 hours:

I grew the upper bar direct off the foot.  This leads to some distortion, as the lowest layers shrink (they are over-exposed to help them stick to the foot and not the resin tray) and also makes the part a little harder, but it reduces any likelihood of warping due to inadequate support or lugs left from the support pillars.  The base plate is moulded on both sides so didn't really make sense to print off the bed.  It's a long part, hence the long grow time.

Apologies for the poor lighting - it's been a strange week and I've had to do my photos in non-standard places, the light shines into this desk from the window during the day so everything is always in shadow.

It's hard to see, but there are 2mm lugs on top of the upright supports coming from the base, and there should be 2mm recesses in the underside of the top bar, but these didn't come out as they were on the lowest layers of the print and got distorted due to overexposure.

The front part of the base plate grew off the supports, which left some distortion.  Fortunately this resin is fairly easy to sand, and I printed it this way on purpose as this part is the least visible.

This shot shows the underside of both parts.  On the left, you can clearly see some lines where something has shifted.  Fortunately this doesn't show so much on the top where it's visible.  It's hard to know what causes this - the resin isn't supposed to be used below 20 degrees C, and the printer is in an outbuilding, and I turned the heating off before I went to bed around 10:30pm - it wouldn't be much longer after that when the first line appeared.  Alternatively there could be some play in the lifter gear, especially down that far, as I don't use it for long prints much.  In fact this is only the second print it's done since I reconditioned it, the last use was probably over a year ago.  When I started another print the next morning it made a terrible graunching sound when the foot went into the resin tray - at first I thought there must be something in the tray which was being forced down into my sensitive UV emitter screen - but it sorted itself out after a couple of layers, so maybe there's a problem in the gears.

Anyway, it isn't a problem on this print, so I'm not so worried, and subsequent smaller prints have been fine.

On the right, you can see where the bottom of the top rail has flattened off due to being grown off the print foot, and the recesses for the uprights have closed off and shrunk.  I would fix those later with a drill bit.

 

[Mad Ax 10843]

Printed resin is very soft and easy to drill, so I drilled out my missing recesses with a 2mm bit in a screwdriver.

With the holes drilled, the finished article just kinda snaps together without too much fuss.  Better than anticipated, really.  In this shot, one lug isn't perfectly snapped down, hence why it looks warped.

The holes in the light buckets should be 3mm, but they closed up and ovalled off due to being grown off the foot.  I had also left a 4mm recess behind the buckets to accept the ring around the end of a 3mm LED, but that didn't really come out at all.  I re-drilled the holes to 3mm, but the surface was still a bit tacky and the swarf is stuck in the buckets.  I'll clean that up with some IPA on a cotton swab, assuming I can score some swabs off the local contraband dealer.

Some soft white 3mm LEDs are on order.

[Mad Ax 10843]

I put a few dabs of Tamiya plastic cement in the recesses and left them to settle overnight, although I don't think Tamiya cement works on resin.  There's probably a glue that works really well, thought.  Maybe superglue, although I have bad luck with the stuff, and the last pot I bought emptied itself in my pit toolbox and stuck all my tools together, so now I don't have any tools or superglue.

Anyway, it fits nicely on the LC90 body.  I'd been worried about making it too big, but if anything, I think it's a bit too small.  It could definitely be wider.

[Mad Ax 10843]

Fitted with the lugs I'd moulded onto the bottom of the base plate, it was too close to the body for the body posts.  On a 1:10 car I'd have come up with an alternative body mounting solution, but for something so small and fiddly, I wanted to stick with body pins.  In some case that's why a narrower rack works well, as I can at least just about get to the tops of the body posts.

I put a 2mm screw over the thread on the rear of the rack, and two to level it at the front (if fits in the recess where the sunroof should be, which is neither entirely scale nor good for the resulting level).  This now gives space for the body posts.

Also worth noting here that I'd made recesses in the base plate to accommodate these screw caps, but holes can close up a little during printing, so I should have made them a bit larger to start with.

I didn't get any proper photos of the finished article as it's either been raining heavily or I've been busy with other stuff, but I'll try to get the little beast outside over the weekend and take some better shots.

My daughter still hasn't decided to join me in a driving lesson with her purple Land Cruiser.

[Mad Ax 10843]

Bit of a while since this last had an update - I have been slowly working on it here and there, so here's a quick update on what's been going on:

I designed these little badboys in Fusion 360 and printed them on the resin printer.  They were grown directly from the plate, from the flat rear of the part, so there was very little distortion in these ones.

I designed them to accept 3mm LEDs.  I had to re-drill them with a 3mm bit, but the fit was good.  I allowed space for indicators, but I have no plans to make a light controller for this rig so I'll just install head and tail lights.

I did have to file away quite a lot of the print to get them to fit snug under the body.

I'll put the parts up on thingiverse when I get around to it.

[Mad Ax 10843]

Glued in with hot glue.  I really need to go around and add some black poster paint or similar here to stop any light bleed.

how cool is that?

[Mad Ax 10843]

I have started adding LEDs into the roof bar too, but that's trickier as I need to keep the wiring tidy.  I'll finish it off when I have a spare evening and it isn't too cold in the workshop.

[Mad Ax 10843]

I've been trying to finish off a lot of smaller jobs recently to make way for some bigger summer builds, and this little truck has been hanging around my workbench for an age.  The job I've been putting off is fitting the 3mm LEDs to the roof rack - it's a tiny, fiddly job and I wasn't looking forward to it at all, but in the end it took an hour or so and went fairly smooth.  Getting all the wires neatly through into the cab was the hardest part!

headlights and tail lights powered off the standard lighting plug, roof lights powered off the aux light plug that's normally tied down by the battery connector and not used

I really love the look of this truck now

There's some bleed from the back of the lights.  I probably need some poster paint to hide it.

The wiring is about as neat as I can manage, although it occurred to me I could probably do away with the heatshrink altogether if I cut the tabs super-short on the LEDs and used a rubber-based black paint to insulate it

I still have to sort an issue with the wheelbase - it doesn't 100% match the body, so I want to shorten the rear links just a little.  But really I should just start driving this little thing now, it's barely been used since it came out of the box last year