So, What Have You Done Today?

[Twinfan 1796]

Today I've made my Top Force start to look like an RC car, and I even found a crappy old brushed motor lying around to throw in it...

[jonboy1 3319]

17 minutes ago, Twinfan said:

Today I've made my Top Force start to look like an RC car, and I even found a crappy old brushed motor lying around to throw in it...

if that's your idea of a crappy old brushed motor, can I have a look through your scrap pile please?!  

[Twinfan 1796]

2 minutes ago, jonboy1 said:

if that's your idea of a crappy old brushed motor, can I have a look through your scrap pile please?!  

I have a few of them as I love the look and spec of them, but I've never run one.  This one was more used than the others so I thought I'd give it a go.  I've cleaned the comm but may need to get a comm lathe to get it back to almost-new spec.  The comm doesn't look too bad after cleaning though, fortunately  

[sparky(2) 21]

Finished my Super Sabre in Blockhead Motors style with Willy!

[chris.alex 1050]

Today I took my XV02 and the new XM01 to the race track of a local club. It was a successful premiere for the XM01, the vehicle runs wonderfully. At the same time, my driving skills on this narrow race track still have room for improvement. 😅

 

[svenb 3879]

7 hours ago, sparky(2) said:

Finished my Super Sabre in Blockhead Motors style with Willy!

 

Your willy is sticking out a bit! Be careful 

[sparky(2) 21]

@svenb - Yes, Willy is out and about to see the town!  He will see it fast with a 15.5T Tamiya brushless and 2S Lipo!  :-) 

 

[technics 3161]

Been working on a "commission" build for a childhood friend and his hobby car. It will be is his first and only RC so it will be a very simple TT02..

I am delivering it RTR minus a battery charger. Budget is tight so I won´t be going bonkers with the chassis or electrics but it will be with lighting, brake lamps, one off custom decals, mudflaps, exhaust etc.

 

My aim is to try to match is 1:1 car faithfully. I am about a days worth of planning, research and executing the initial body work.

 

 

[nowinaminute 3319]

Working on a few different things as I've suddenly gotten an interest in my RC stuff again.

Currently working on a Nikko "Bobcat 99" which despite the daft name is a fairly capable twin motor buggy based on the classic Dictator family chassis.

When I've modded these in the past, I've usually just put brushless 380 motors in place of the stock 380 or 390, but with this one I decided to put 540 motors on it just as a cheap upgrade and something to do.

It's a fairly easy conversion in principle, as it's one of the models nikko made where the screw spacing for the cradles the stock motors sit in happen to be exactly the same as the screw spacing for a 540 motor, possibly intentionally, as some models were available with either motor size.

Anywhoo, I started working on it several years ago, solved an issue with binding in the driveline, but lost interest. 

So fast forward to today, and I have the motors all fitted and decided to use the stock electronics just to do a few test drives but while the stock board is making an admirable attempt to power twin 540s, it seems to be causing a brown out on the BEC side of things, as the servo will randomly pull to one side going on and off throttle.

It's uses a sloppy old tamya style servo saver so not the tightest steering at the best of times plus having two motors hanging off the same side always made for some interesting weight distribution, so I've decided it's time to swap the electronics out for hobby stuff so I can at least go in a relatively straight line.

This evening, my plan is to remove the stock servo and circuit board and put in a Hobbywing 880 esc which already has twin motor outputs. At the same time, I'll switch over to a cheap metal gear servo and make some slightly better steering links from m3 rod.

I should at least be able to take it out for some proper testing then without the neighbours possibly hearing me curse under my breath when it randomly veers toward one of their cars.

[Mouc-RC 469]

Thanks to a TC Member suggestion to use 12mm hexes for QD Monster Trucks, I now have an even-better looking QD Pumpkin

[JeffSpicoli 1521]

On 6/9/2024 at 8:52 AM, Empty_Hand said:

Decals and lights yesterday.  

Antenna hole and driver still on the to-do list (and an air intake decal I just noticed ).  Light rain today so first run on hold for a sunny day. 

Hobbywing 1060, Yokomo Esprit 27T brushed (re-re), NiMH battery, Futaba 304SB, ProTek 160T servo, Fast Eddie’s bearings.  

 

How did you mask the outside for the rollbar painting?

[Verskis 345]

I finished the Peugeot 205 T16 Evo2 body shell for the XV-02.

[nowinaminute 3319]

17 hours ago, nowinaminute said:

Working on a few different things as I've suddenly gotten an interest in my RC stuff again.

Currently working on a Nikko "Bobcat 99" which despite the daft name is a fairly capable twin motor buggy based on the classic Dictator family chassis.

When I've modded these in the past, I've usually just put brushless 380 motors in place of the stock 380 or 390, but with this one I decided to put 540 motors on it just as a cheap upgrade and something to do.

It's a fairly easy conversion in principle, as it's one of the models nikko made where the screw spacing for the cradles the stock motors sit in happen to be exactly the same as the screw spacing for a 540 motor, possibly intentionally, as some models were available with either motor size.

Anywhoo, I started working on it several years ago, solved an issue with binding in the driveline, but lost interest. 

So fast forward to today, and I have the motors all fitted and decided to use the stock electronics just to do a few test drives but while the stock board is making an admirable attempt to power twin 540s, it seems to be causing a brown out on the BEC side of things, as the servo will randomly pull to one side going on and off throttle.

It's uses a sloppy old tamya style servo saver so not the tightest steering at the best of times plus having two motors hanging off the same side always made for some interesting weight distribution, so I've decided it's time to swap the electronics out for hobby stuff so I can at least go in a relatively straight line.

This evening, my plan is to remove the stock servo and circuit board and put in a Hobbywing 880 esc which already has twin motor outputs. At the same time, I'll switch over to a cheap metal gear servo and make some slightly better steering links from m3 rod.

I should at least be able to take it out for some proper testing then without the neighbours possibly hearing me curse under my breath when it randomly veers toward one of their cars.

Oh dear. 

Well I finally got up to my desk at about 11PM lol.

Made some decent progress. First removing the stock circuit board as (I thought) it wasn't quite up to powering twin 540 motors and there was some kind of servo brownout situation happening.



While these all in one ESC/RX/Servo controller boards were always seen as toyish, they were actually quite impressive kit for the time. Fully proportional throttle (More than could be said for most hobby grades at the time) and steering and a decent amount of oomph.

 

Being a dual motor model, this one has two Mosfets and a nice chunky heatsink.



All scooped out and ready for hobby electronics.



I decided to keep things simple and old school, so I I put motor wires on and added the old style bullet connectors onto them for easy connection. This pleased me as I think it's the first time I've actually used this crimp tool outside of playing around with it when I first got it!










Excellent! All looking good. And the 880 esc fits under the hood fine, too. Great stuff!



But then, "disaster" struck. I randomly discovered one of the rear tyres was slipping....which almost definitely caused my steering issues...not the electronics struggling with the motors and the servo browning out etc....me of all people, had made an assumption and misjudged Nikko! the horror.

Now I have to put the stock board back in and try it because it will eat at me for the rest of my life if I don't find out if it would have been fine 

[Honza 1088]

I released some magic smoke today

 

 

 

[Hrimfaxi 60]

Just simply went for a blast with the DT03 

[Empty_Hand 203]

21 hours ago, JeffSpicoli said:

How did you mask the outside for the rollbar painting?

Fresh Xacto blade lightly dragged over  the overspray mask film, then pulled and peeled section by section. 

Worked great - surprised how easy it was as I had not previously attempted this technique.  

For the roof line I laid down some Tamiya masking tape and dragged the blade along the edge to keep the line straight.  All other areas there was a natural line between the roll bar and window. 

Would have been far less neat and quick had I attempted to mask from the inside (which would have also resulted in a gloss black look).  

[Kowalski86 3983]

I sold off my final WPL, for all of the criticism that I've given Tamiya, at least their manuals are well done and they play nice with 1/10 parts.

It did look nice sitting on my desk though, I'll give it that.

[babab 40]

Recently, I have updated the rear end of my grasshopper.

I printed https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6455927 This design and the 3D printing is amazing!

The weather was good today. So I have shakedown it on the river bank.

It was very, very hot today. But I was happy with my grasshopper's updated behaviour.

It was a good day 👍👍👍

[Andreas W 2170]

Finally manned up to sticker the Porsche 914-shell. Marking up the window trim with sharpie would have to wait for a day when I feel for it. Feels good to finally finish this shell.

[Grumpy pants 5178]

Well my June plan is still on track…

Yesterday a small amount of driver painting.

And then today I then ran a battery pack through the Blitzer, cracked the nose cone, fitted the door mirrors and a heat sink. then cleaned it all up. 
 

Also had to re glue the rear number plate and then I’ve put a battery on charge ready for the next Blitzer blast, happy ‘T’ day 😎

[Verskis 345]

Tried to get the Peugeot dirty today with my brother's Lancia. 

[silvertriple 3990]

This week-end was busy. Yesterday I build a gaming computer for my son instead of working on my cars, and today there was another vintage event at about one hour and half drive from home...

I was there at 9 this morning with my son to set the my stand...

There was two track, one with carpet and some very wild jumps for 1/10 (you can see it in the back ground of one the two pictures of my stand), and another one bigger, more old fasion with a table, and a few jumps looking more acceptable for vintage cars than the ones on the smaller track...

My son was there without cars  and juts the camera this time... I started runs on the smaller track with the Ninja, first with some very timid jumps...

Then with a few more laps, I started to get over optimistic...

I took the picture at the end of the day, but I guess I will have to reprint some rims :-) (they broke at the same place than original ones, and it is not really surprising, and I did not broke anything else - which is good).

I also ran the Lunchbox, Turbo Optima and Hilux without damages... And the PETG parts of the Hilux seems quite resistant...

Others ran cars (some are even really difficult to define, as there is many ways to have fun in vintage events)...

We left early as my son was quite impatient to run his new gaming machine... Which allowed me to do the cleaning and to put the stuff beck in place. Not other damage than the Ninja rim, and I will need to inspect the Tomahawk combo as two faulty sensor cable one after the others seems to indicate another problem...

[Ray_ve 1160]

Came across a Tamiya static kit on a local trades site. Got inspired and bought it for a new project rc car. 

[nowinaminute 3319]

On 6/15/2024 at 12:36 PM, nowinaminute said:

Now I have to put the stock board back in and try it because it will eat at me for the rest of my life if I don't find out if it would have been fine 

Ok so I put the stock board back in and glued the slipping tyre, much much better. Still a tendency to veer slightly to the right when you come off the throttle, but manageable. Genuinely impressed that the old circuit board can handle two 540s with a lipo. I knew they were good, but wow.

So anyway, at this point, I decided the steering issue probably wasn't the fault of the old electronics, so put the hobby ESC/receiver and servo back in, and took her out for a spin.

Still has the tendency to veer off under breaking, so safe to say it wasn't the stock board.

There's loads of things it could be at this point including but not limited to:

Still using a flimsy Tamiya style servo saver.
Still using the stock linkages that are basically piano wire looped through the holes in the servo saver and knuckles (lots of slop)
Still using the original tyres that are shot to bits and cracked.
Still running the original plastic bushings in the knuckles which may be giving asymmetrical drag.
Using a dodgy fake Towerpro MG996R which may or may not contribute.
Maybe just the extra weight hanging off one side is the problem when combined with a sloppy steering setup. Could be a little bump steer when the weight shifts?

I'll address one thing at a time and see how it goes.

But even with the small issue, it's still 100% more drivable with that tyre glued and I could live with it even it came to it. 

I really enjoyed just bombing around a carpark for a little while. 

So good to finally drive it properly after starting on it years ago and leaving it to gather dust.

The driving experience is what I have come to expect from Dictator family cars, it's kind a weird hybrid of unsophisticated but surprisingly capable. The 4wd definitely helps, as does having what is effectively an electronic centre diff on account of the gearboxes not being mechanically linked. Considering it has just the standard friction shocks, and the old falling apart tyres, it actually handles pretty nicely. It corners pretty well and it's easy to adjust the steering line by slightly altering the throttle.

I love the sound these make, too. Very much like a clod or a Twin Detonator/Wild Dagger etc. Because the gearboxes aren't mechanically linked, they often aren't perfectly in sync, and you can often hear the two separate transmissions whirring away at slightly different pitches. I guess a bit like a twin engine vs single engine plane.

Anyways, great to finally get it properly up and running after all this time! Now to refine it.

I got a quick bit of video, but it was made after sunset so please excuse the motion blur (and of course the dodgy one handed driving)

 

[Pizza Frog 682]

@babab It's nice to see a Grasshopper rear suspension that's true to the box art.

I recently put a torque tuned motor in the Fire Dragon, I also found a way to fit a 1060 esc and still have the switch on the outside, it's stuck on the side with double sided tape.