WANTED: Maverick DesertWolf Centre Diff

[wintersdawn]

Cool. Never really thought of it as fancy, they are £45 on MIBI.

Going to put the overlander 3s on eBay?

Still been slow selling on eBay, only managed to sell a traxxas titan 12t brushed motor for £15 recently.

Just charged my 2s battery for the morning and 4 AA batteries for the controller.

[wintersdawn]

We've made it to page 9 of this thread but I don't know your name? Mine is Martin.

[TrueBlue]

I did actually put the Overlander LiPo on eBay and it did sell for £40...but had to issue a full refund, as when I was arranging shipping, found out that DPD don't accept batteries unless they're connected to the device that uses them. I also tried Hermes/Evri and it was the same thing. Tried Royal Mail, but they don't accept batteries even if they ARE connected to a device. So I can't sell this Overlander battery, I'm kinda stuck with it.

Name? Didn't even think of that, lol... hello there Martin. My name is Alex.

[wintersdawn]

Hey Alex. Sorry you had problems selling the 3s battery. There are many for sale on eBay so must be a way of sending it.

Gave the DW a run this morning and went well, wasn't out long though as it tipped down 😆

 

[TrueBlue]

Not sure why some sellers can send batteries like that. I tried looking but couldn't find a courier that accepted them. I didn't look at all couriers though, so I might have missed one.

Looking good there! Until it started tipping it down of course... have you taken it out again since? Also.. your shell is on the wrong way round, lol.

And I'm still waiting for my DW shell from Modelsport. It looks like they still haven't received it from their suppliers. I bought it on the 16th... been like 7-8 business days, not including the Bank Holiday or weekend. No idea why it's taking so long.

[wintersdawn]

What you could do re the battery is find some eBay listings of reputable sellers and click on their postage terms to see what courier they use. There's also the possibility that some sellers send the lipo's etc but do not declare them.

Haven't took the DW out again yet been too wet but hopefully soon. Thanks for the heads up on the body shell being wrong, guess I'm glad its reversible, so there is no 'wrong way round'! 😆

That body shell is taking its time, hope you get an update soon.

[ad456]

1 hour ago, wintersdawn said:

do not declare them

This is exactly how it's done. Most companies get an agreement that allows them to send them for a little more money, as for the rest of the public, I guess we aren't allowed.

I heard of someone that got court action for repeatedly sending lithium batteries for phones through Special Delivery.

[TrueBlue]

Yeah, I'm guessing we simply aren't allowed to sends batteries because we're not a company or business or anything like that. Don't some couriers x-ray the packages to make sure there's nothing in there that shouldn't be in there?

Well, no.. there's no "wrong way round" for that shell. Just looks peculiar that way round, lol.

I'll give them till Friday afternoon or something then email again. They did say they should have it this week, but the week is practically over and the order still says "On back order" so... yeah, will wait till tomorrow. If nothing, will chase them again.

[ad456]

46 minutes ago, TrueBlue said:

couriers x-ray the packages

Yeah, Royal Mail does this when the stuff is coming to Orkney as we have a pretty restrictive service with the mail being flown to the island. No spray paints, lipos, gases etc. It makes for a tricky time. 

[wintersdawn]

6 hours ago, TrueBlue said:

Yeah, I'm guessing we simply aren't allowed to sends batteries because we're not a company or business or anything like that. Don't some couriers x-ray the packages to make sure there's nothing in there that shouldn't be in there?

Well, no.. there's no "wrong way round" for that shell. Just looks peculiar that way round, lol.

I'll give them till Friday afternoon or something then email again. They did say they should have it this week, but the week is practically over and the order still says "On back order" so... yeah, will wait till tomorrow. If nothing, will chase them again.

I know what you mean about the body shell, sometimes I look at it and think it looks like its on backwards!  But I like the steeper angle on the front cockpit so stick with it, saying that it looks good the other way round too.  Supposed to be dry in the morning so might charge a battery and take the DW out again.  Had a few teething problems the other day so want to check things out.

What shipping did you choose for the body shell to be sent to you?  If you chose DX it should come the next day once dispatched.

 

[wintersdawn]

There's a spring sale on at MIBI and so, although I wasn't planning on it, I'm doing another Timberwolf body shell as just bought another clear body shell for £22.98 (19% discount).

Just got to decide what colour will go with the included decals...

 

[TrueBlue]

Well, shortly after posting my message about Modelsport, they go and email me that it's finally on it's way, lol.

Hmm... you've got green and blue shells? Hehe, blue shell.. like Mario Kart... anyway, maybe... go for an orange like the Desertwolf? Or some metallic colour... Tamiya PS-46 iridescent purple and green!

Really though, I've no idea what colour will suite the Timberwolf. Given my recent colour choice for my DW shell, not the best person to ask, lol. Saying that, I've resprayed the DW shell silver on the outside. Not ideal, will scratch easily of course. But doesn't look TOO bad in silver.. I guess. Maybe paint the TW in silver?

[wintersdawn]

Glad you got the dispatch notification from Modelsport 😃

Like the silver colour of your DW body shell 👍

I've got the original green ones and the blue/black one below, now fully decaled. I'm in no rush to do the new clear shell, got it really as it was cheap, will do some research and see what's compatible with the decals. For the blue/black I couldn't use the TW decals that included green colour so used them to replace damaged decals on one of the original body shells.  

Yes, thinking orange, like the DW, but haven't thought about the decals yet.

[wintersdawn]

On the first run of the DW on Monday that was rained off I lost reverse and had signal issues so took it out again this morning to the local sports field.

The reverse problem was just an adjustment of the throttle trim but I still had loss of signal within quite a short range so ran the battery till cut-off and came back home.  I had several spare receivers so fitted a different one, balanced charged another 2S battery and went back out.  This time no signal issues so assume a dodgy receiver, although I had used it before, so may had developed a problem over time.

From balance charge of 4.2v down to the cut-off of 3.5v I got 15 minutes out of a 2S battery doing mostly full-speed running.  I believe if I lower the cut-off to around 3.1v I should get 20 minutes run time so will have to re-familiarise myself with programming the stock ESC.

   

[TrueBlue]

I thought you were going to say you lost reverse and slammed it into a tree or something, lol. But thankfully no, just lost reverse and had signal issues that did not result in a horrific crash.

At least you managed to sort it by using an alternative receiver. So hopefully no more signal issues. 

15 minutes of full speed runs. You should get yourself a GPS speed meter and see how fast it goes. I need to get one as well, but they're like £60... need to wait a little while to afford it. 

Also, my new DW shell arrived a few moments ago. Two weeks after I originally purchased it... better late than never. And indeed... came with a brand new spare wing! Woo!

[wintersdawn]

Hey Alex, that's great that your body shell came with a wing!

Thankfully no accidents upon losing reverse and when signal was lost think the fail safe kicked in and so it just stopped.

I use an old Garmin GPS watch for speed runs so will have to charge it and test the speed of the DW.

[wintersdawn]

Starting to think about colours for the new clear TW body shell and its not going to be easy and I keep changing my mind.  Might use the decals for the windows and windscreen as masking for the inside to keep the windows and windscreen clear.

Probably get these HPI decals from Wheelspin for £1.19 each, hopefully be able to use some of them regardless of what colour(s) I go with.

[wintersdawn]

The clear body shell came today and these are the decals that came with it.

I couldn't use them all last time as some of them clashed with the blue but would really like to use them all this time, if I can find colours that work with them.

[TrueBlue]

How about something a little crazy? Tamiya iridescent Purple and Green... or iridescent Pink and Gold?

Or the colour I was going to use on the DW shell, Metallic Orange?

Oh wait, something I've always wanted to try. A translucent colour backed with silver or gold. Like translucent green backed with gold, should give the green a nice metallic candy style colour. Silver will give it a slight different look. 

Other than that, not really sure what colours match with green. Other than blues.

[wintersdawn]

Thanks for all the colour ideas, much appreciated.

Although subject to quite possible change, I believe I have identified two colours that will be compatible with the colours in all the decals.  If I chose a strong colour I think some of the colours in the decals would have clashed.

The first is silver (PS-12) for the back section, with this hopefully working as there is silver/grey in the decals for the lights, rear vents, Maverick logo and side windows/windscreen decals (which I will now use).

The other colour may be a bit controversial and seem like an unusual/plain choice, with myself still being a bit unsure, as its difficult to fully imagine/realise what it will look like when completed.  The colour for the main body at the moment is white (PS-1).  I like white in RC body shells and have a white Sand Scorcher body shell that I love.  The HPI Jumpshot SC Toyo Tyres edition pictured below might also have influenced me. White should go with all the decals and hopefully there will be enough decals to prevent it looking too stark or sterile. 

    

[TrueBlue]

Silver should work... I think that colour is almost a universal colour, and fits with many other colours. In my opinion, it looks good with red, blue, green and purple colours. And black to some degree. 

If you're going to use white, may I make a suggestion that'll help make the TW look a little more unique? Use a few coats of Tamiya PS-57 Pearl White. It'll give the white a nice pearlescent look to it. This is a video of the pearl white on a Ford GT shell:
https://youtu.be/5ier06YP2NU?t=821

I do like the blue and white scheme of the Jumpshot though.

I might be a little crazy, but there's a chance I'm gonna get a third clear DW body shell and give the translucent colours backed with gold or silver a go. I want to try translucent red backed with gold, should give a nice vibrant candy red look. Won't suit the DW's colours on the wing decals, but.. I could always remove the decals off my original wing, since I now have a new one.

 

[wintersdawn]

Thanks for the idea about the pearlescent white, watched the video, looks nice and a bit different.

Cool about you possibly doing another DW body shell, why not.  Not sure about you, but RC is my main hobby, so its always good to have something planned to continue enjoying it.  Also nice having a new RC related delivery to look forward to, I even take delivery photo's and some as I'm unpacking it, sad I know!  Below is a photo from my TW clear body shell delivery from yesterday.   

I didn't think I would ever do another TW body shell and now I'm really excited about doing the new one.  It means going back to cutting lexan but its been almost a year since I cut one out (a Kamtec Sand Scorcher body shell), so I'm going to approach it pretty fresh and I'm almost (!) looking forward to it lol.

  

 

[TrueBlue]

It does.. I wish I did it to my white Ford GT as well. I have another GT in silver.

I kind of have two main hobbies... gaming (PC and console) and radio control. RC is by far and away the one that takes most of my time... and money... compared to gaming. Yep, nothing like receiving a huge box of RC bits and pieces, or even a whole new car. Like Christmas has come early every time. And it's not sad, lol... it's a good idea to have photo records just in case, but also to just have the photo in the first place. 

Same... I think once I've done a third DW shell (possibly) I'm done with painting them. I have two original shells, that iridescent shell that I might keep since no-one seems to buy it, and a silver shell which MIGHT get thrown out since it's painted on the outside and the overall finish is a bit naff.

My last Lexan shell that I cut out was a few days ago. Not counting the three other shells I've cut in the past months. The recent one was a Tamiya Subaru Impreza WRC 2007 for my rally modded TT-02. The large Subaru decals on the sides were nerve racking to put on, lol. I'll take a photo later.

[wintersdawn]

You might be able to use some kind of solution to remove the silver paint back to the lexan and have the metallic orange back...

I guess for removing paint from the inside but would imagine should work outside.

[TrueBlue]

It was actually just normal orange, I didn't end up doing the metallic orange like I originally planned.

I do have some acetone free nail polish remover that I use for paint removal, so I can use that... but I think I'll either leave it or bin it and do another one in the future.