So, What Have You Done Today?

[•Axle 143]

Safely cut down some carbon fiber tubing last night ready to sand down the edges this evening, going to couple them with full ceramic bearings received in the post.

[TurnipJF 8539]

So far I have cut out some window masks. Soon they will be applied to my runner MX-5 shell which I plan on painting today. 

[Badcrumble 3873]

Agreed a day in the garage with my wife. Having (mostly) worked at home since March, her being furlough and having cancelled holiday, I’ve not had as much play time as usual. Time for me to take a day and see if I can get some work done on some of my projects. Now, where’s that list of jobs...?

[Lee76 638]

3 minutes ago, Badcrumble said:

Now, where’s that list of jobs...?

Let me know if you can’t find it, I’ll send you mine...

[Lee76 638]

I also have a day pass to personal time.. having a trimathon.. tea brewing and sausage sandwich on the way for second breakfast.

[c64orinoco 652]

1 hour ago, Lee76 said:

 second breakfast.

 

is my favourite breakfast.

[Lee76 638]

I think it’s time to build a custom spray booth. Trying to decide on the hole positions and sizes to get a good draw along its length. I think I might actually model this up and do some CFD... Yes, I am that sad..

[stuhas 268]

After 3 weeks of stripping  (walls) and generally gutting our bedroom back to Brick, floorboards and electrics. i had a couple of hours to myself to pick up the Bowler again. I must admit i got to a point where i didn't even want to start it. I was struggling with the magnetic body fitting. i generally know where to start but this had me stumped. I still am as i am not overly happy with the rear end sitting so low. Front end is good but without having very high posts with magnets on the back end is just bugging me. 

 

 

[nowinaminute 2780]

Finally managed to solve an issue that has been bugging me for years now.

Another one of my numerous Nikko projects. This particular chassis type takes a 380 size motor. I wanted to fit a brushless. Seems easy enough, doesn't it? Just fit a brushless 380 motor!

But nope. 2 issues plagued me. The first is that 99% of brushless 380 motors have a 3.17mm shaft whereas a BRUSHED 380 has 2.3mm. This wouldn't normally be a problem except the stock pinion is an unusual 0.7m pitch and isn't available for 3.17mm shafts (or 2.3mm for that matter) so I have to reuse the stock pinion so I need a brushless 380 with a 2.3mm shaft.

To get around this, I had been using a smaller 280 class brushless motor that worked pretty well but was a little anaemic and suffered from cogging at low speeds. I wanted to badly to put a nice 380 size in there but it has eluded me.

But the I FINALLY found a 380 with a 2.3mm shaft! 



So problem solved, right? WRONG! Another characteristic of brushless 380 motors is that they are about 1mm wider than brushed ones. The nikko gearbox has a kind of tunnel that fits the stock motor like a glove so the brushless one won't fit!

Well I finally decided to throw caution to the wind and got a set of sanding drums for hand drills.



I used the 25mm one and just gave the "tunnel" a quick once over and as if my magic, the motor now fits! Years of plotting and deliberating and waiting and suddenly it was solved in seconds!




So now the gearbox has a nice 380 motor which should have considerably more oomph than the little  one that I was previously using. When you consider those finned 380 motors will quite happily haul around a 1/10 vehicle if you stick with a  modest KV, a 380 should have no problems throwing this light weight 1/12 rig around!

I have about half a dozen vehicles that use this type of gearbox so suddenly I have a way to finally get a decent motor in them!

Another rather pointless endeavour but it's so satisfying after all this time lol. Like a lot of Nikko stuff, these rigs have sturdy little transmissions in them with even a metal spur gear so hopefully it will cope with the power.

 

[nowinaminute 2780]

On a Tamiya related note, I think I finally solved the throttle lag issue I was having with my Neo Frog and more specifically the Hobbyking 120a ESC and flysky radio.

It was lagging significantly both going on and coming off the throttle once the car was over a certain distance away. I had this happen before a year ago and changing from one type of flysky transmitter to another seemed to magically fix it but the problem then came back again this year. 

I couldn't get my head around it because I had been through all the fault finding processes last year and the only thing that seemed to make a difference was swapping the TX to a different but still flysky model.

Anyway, I was out driving it the other day and getting the same issue but this time I noticed something that I hadn't before, the battery connector was hot! I unplugged the battery and noticed the male deans plug on the ESC looked a little tarnished! I gave it a little rub over with 3000 grit wet and dry paper and all of a sudden everything seemed to work fine!

I'm not sure exactly what was going on there but I guess the connection was poor and causing a current bottleneck. I guess the electricity always takes the path of least resistance ie: the motor so perhaps the radio was getting close to browning out and the signal was weak which became more of an issue the further away the car got?

I still need to test it further but I could get the car a good 70m away in the carpark I was testing it in and before, I was lucky to 10 meters away before it began to play up. The battery connector doesn't so much as get warm either now. 

So it looks like that might be solved now. I'm interested to see if it now works fine with the previous flysky transmitter I used too, if so I guess the connector was the problem all along and maybe it was just a coincidence that switching it seemed to help last year. Maybe I just happened to displace enough crud by plugging and unplugging the deans connector so much back then when I was fault finding?

Lesson learned? Make sure you always wipe thoroughly. A little left over dirt can be a real PITA!

[Nicadraus 5610]

Did some upgrading on my XV and went to the clubhouse parking lot for some tarmac racing with my daughter and RC buddies.

[DeadMeat666 1672]

1 hour ago, Nicadraus said:

Did some upgrading on my XV and went to the clubhouse parking lot for some tarmac racing with my daughter and RC buddies.

 

 

I'm trying SO HARD not to buy an XV01 right now.... and you're not making it any easier!!!

[Nicadraus 5610]

11 minutes ago, DeadMeat666 said:

I'm trying SO HARD not to buy an XV01 right now.... and you're not making it any easier!!!

Oh ok. Sorry about that. Maybe this will help...

[DeadMeat666 1672]

1 minute ago, Nicadraus said:

Oh ok. Sorry about that. Maybe this will help...

It helped me make up my mind, but it didn't sway me in the direction that would please the wife.

Darn you! Darn you all to heck!

[Ferruz 10051]

1 hour ago, DeadMeat666 said:

I'm trying SO HARD not to buy an XV01 right now.... and you're not making it any easier!!!

I'll second that 100% 😬😰😁

[Ferruz 10051]

Not really RC related, but still. This rainy Sunday started off the right way for me, with a 1:1 scale buggy experience before I even had coffee or breakfast! 

This ATV vehicle belongs to my in-laws. We use it to carry the kids around the fields and neighbouring trails, and it's normally driven with extreme care and a feathered foot.

But it happens that sometimes the kids aren't around (you know, school, life...) and the trails are deserted and free, that's when the overgrown kid -me- gets to take it out for a legit spin! 👹

The thing has some real fun potential, the engine is just powerful enough and I like the suspension system. By adding a bit of my own fantasy and concentrating on the looks of the rims and tires rather than the golf cart stance, it almost feels like I'm at the wheel of my Hornet or some other 1:10 buggy (yeah, almost, but still, I'll take it!).

I think that tires and rims look great and very much like the ones on some of our 1:10 cars.

If only it had a shorter wheelbase and a lower center of gravity, this thing would really rip. Still, once you learn its limits (I had it on two weels a few times while cornering, lol) you can still enjoy some mildly reckless driving, and it definitely shreds these trails more than my Big Boss can do 

Anyway, I'm lucky I get to drive this caddy on steroids on my own terms once in a while. Great way to start a day.

[wolfdogstinkus 1636]

 

[topforcein 1755]

well today i cursed myself for a while and tbh i still am as i thought hey i will start my 1.1 car as it has been sitting on my drive for the past 4 years (i do start it every month)

and i deceided to put some leather cream on my seats as i aint done it for a year while i was doing the drivers seat the wind took the door onto my sons car door mirror parked next to me and put a dent in the door

[JYCM3 235]

Fresh paint on the seats formy future project. Tried Rustoleum 2x coverage paint for the first time, very happy with the results. Dries semi gloss and no primer needed as it’s primer and paint in one. USD $3.99 for a big can, cheap!

sorry for the bad cellphone picture

[Jonathon Gillham 4429]

My son was off sick today and he asked to run some cars, who am I to say no?

Top Force with kit silvercan (hicaps, turnbuckles etc) vs Ae B6D setup for 17.5T stock racing (low grip, 4 gear standup, flat front arms etc).   I adjusted EPA so the speed was even, Top Force easily won. Added a bit of speed to the Ae. Top Force still easily won. If i drove the TF I was miles ahead, if my son drove I was struggling to keep up, I had to drive well to keep up, a mistake and it was all over, even with a 7yo driving the TF.

He has improved heaps, we had a practice day yesterday at our offroad club and he spent around 2.5 hours on the drivers stand running his B6D so he works at it. But still, a 1991 car vs 2016(?) you'd expect the B6D to run rings around a TF

[lsear2905 1268]

I forgot to mention that I sold my MERV rolling chassis on Saturday. Then this:

Was I clear enough about there being "no electrics"? What a pain! I had an offer for $230 about an hour beforehand (it's up for $299, I had 6 watchers so sent an offer of $250) but this guy must've accepted that offer. Now I've relisted it I only have one person watching it, and that $230 offer is gone. So that guy has put a real dent in my plans to sell it.

Yesterday my 0.05" allen key arrived - so I excitedly got out the mini Grave-Digger to fix the "slop" in the wheels. Well, as much as that helped, there was a bigger problem - one hub was completely missing a bearing, there was absolutely no trace of it either! So, having re-done the suspension a couple of weeks ago, I pulled apart every axle carrier, cleaned, adjusted, replaced bearings, ready for its next outing. That was today, and it is running so much nicer now. It is still a short wheelbase, high CoG, mini monster truck but it is so much more controllable that I can get it around my little track. I also did some driving on my crawler track and drove the mini Lunchbox around the front room while waiting for the F1 to resume after the red flags.

nb. for those of you with an eye for detail I know the front bumper isn't sitting right in this photo, it had just taken a tumble and I didn't notice as I was taking the photo.

 

[DeadMeat666 1672]

19 hours ago, DeadMeat666 said:

I'm trying SO HARD not to buy an XV01 right now.... and you're not making it any easier!!!

 

19 hours ago, Nicadraus said:

Oh ok. Sorry about that. Maybe this will help...

 

19 hours ago, DeadMeat666 said:

It helped me make up my mind, but it didn't sway me in the direction that would please the wife.

Darn you! Darn you all to heck!

 

Now, can anyone GUESS what I did today?

I am sooo dead.... 

[jonboy1 2583]

On 9/12/2020 at 1:45 PM, Aerobert said:

Worked a bit on my DT-02 "Sand Blitzer" and give a quick test drive 

Love the wheel/tyre combo on this!!  👍

Are they 3D printed rims?

[Badcrumble 3873]

2 hours ago, DeadMeat666 said:

Now, can anyone GUESS what I did today?

I am sooo dead.... 

Hence the user name?

Remember, you can convert this one to 'T' spec so it is really two cars in one .

And belt drive so you don't need to buy any other belt-drive chassis...

[Aerobert 1970]

35 minutes ago, jonboy1 said:

Love the wheel/tyre combo on this!!  👍

Are they 3D printed rims?

That are M-Chassis wheels. When I build my Sand Rover on the shortens DT-02 chassis I searched the internet for suitable wheels for the Sand Blaster tyres. An obvious wrong information I found was that the M-Chassis wheels would fit. Therefore I've ordered them. When they arrived I was clear that they are not usable in that way. So I decided to make them bigger. I've searched several hardware stores until I found a plastic tube for toilet flushing which had the right inner and outer diameter. This was cut in thin slices of about 5 mm and glued onto the wheels. Then shaped with a blade and abrasive paper and painted. This is the short version. It took some hours to finish them but like the Beetle-look for the VW based Sand Rover.