So, What Have You Done Today?

[Grumpy pants 5178]

On 7/2/2024 at 11:29 PM, nowinaminute said:

You're right, I just find it hard to switch off. 

It's totally true, though. Solutions, or even simply good fault finding ideas often just pop up randomly while laying in bed or doing chores etc. 

It's bittersweet, because it was nice to drive it and have full control for once, but obviously opened a can of worms for my "go to" radio system!

Once you’ve nailed the issues, the sense of satisfaction will be sweet and you’ll enjoy driving it more I suspect 👍

[Nikko85 3766]

3 minutes ago, Grumpy pants said:

What a great line up and a really decent modern twist on some Tamiya classic’s.

Thanks - I like these as they fit nicely with the 1/12 scale I have already with my other cars, and also I'm less worried about running them as I can pick up a spare shell really easily.

Technically the Kei truck is 1/10, but it is such a small truck in the real world I can just pretend it's the XL version. It was very tippy and top heavy, but widening up has really helped give it some stability.

 

 

 

[Grumpy pants 5178]

1 minute ago, Nikko85 said:

Thanks - I like these as they fit nicely with the 1/12 scale I have already with my other cars, and also I'm less worried about running them as I can pick up a spare shell really easily.

Technically the Kei truck is 1/10, but it is such a small truck in the real world I can just pretend it's the XL version. It was very tippy and top heavy, but widening up has really helped give it some stability.

 

 

 

I think it’s ingenious the designing of the 3D parts and reuse of old lower value models, turning them out into modern, shelf worthy runners is golden imo 👏

[jonboy1 3319]

12 hours ago, Grumpy pants said:

I bought a 2nd XV-01 today as I’m all out of love for the ‘Salt ‘n’ Sand’ version I have 😂

Off the back of that I’ll stick the MB-01 up for sale - 1 in, 1 out 😂

Does this mean you're selling the salt n' sand XV, or are you going to wait for the right 'season' to 'spice' it up?

[Grumpy pants 5178]

24 minutes ago, jonboy1 said:

Does this mean you're selling the salt n' sand XV, or are you going to wait for the right 'season' to 'spice' it up?

I only want one XV jonboy, so the redundant one will be moved a long, very likely as is. 
I figured I could swap the arms, bumper, body shell and wheels over as I have them already - to make a back yard runner. 

[alvinlwh 6884]

2 hours ago, Grumpy pants said:

One of my favourite chassis’ the WR-02 👍

This is my second WR-02, the other one is the CB.

[Aerobert 2323]

Finished my beach runner for this years holidays at the danish north sea. 

Will see how it will perform and how it will last in comparison to its predecessor the lovely Blitzer Beetle which was my beach car for the last years. As I love the way how the wing is adjustable on the Avante, I've designed and printed a adjustable wing mount which is currently adjustable in three steps. More of a gimmick than a necessity. Additionally as the space under the cage was too empty I printed a V8 motor I found on Thingiverse and adapted it with a lot of carving on the air intake of the TD2. Not perfect but looking cool from a distance. I will do an updated version later for better fitment. 

Please excuse the crappy pics but weather doesn't allow outdoor pics at the moment. Hopefully more from the beach...

Edited July 3 by Aerobert

[Jason1145 4683]

Plodding through a TT02 “kit in a bag” I got for a good deal, being made 251mm for the RSR shell.

[Rinskie 851]

So not to take a dark turn but Sat morning I had my 2nd heart attack. Coming out of the hospital and feeling a little down about it I decided today to order an Alpine body for my M08 that's been naked since last year. Since I put the electronics back in the M08, I have been having so much fun driving slow tight precision driving. Need to practice for the postal racing and I figured a street rally version of the Alpine 110 on a M08 would be quilt the weapon. 

[nowinaminute 3319]

On 7/2/2024 at 10:11 PM, nowinaminute said:

Working on my Nikko project and just getting a bit stressed, really.

If you read my earlier post, you'd see I was having occasional "brown out" type issues with a loss of control. It would sometimes lose control, but wake up again, other times just shut off and need a power cycle. Sometimes it would just seem to lose power but then go back to normal again. Sometimes it seemed to lose power while turning but then be normal again when straightening up etc etc

I initially assumed it might be my Quicrun 880 ESC, as it was an unbranded "OEM" version from Aliexpress. From good previous experience from the seller, I'd always assumed they were genuine and just the same as the unbranded ones that get bundled with RTR cars, but it seemed like the first thing to rule out. So I fitted a genuine 880 but still had the exact same issues and even a couple of crashes.

So next step was to change out the fake MG996R servo, surely that's the issue? 

Well I changed it and still had the problem! Obviously frustrating, but another thumbs up for cheapo MG996R servos!

This time I didn't even need to leave the desk. I just put the car upside down and played around with various combinations of throttle and steering and it almost cut out a few times and there seemed like what I could almost describe as interference between the channels as steering one way seemed to slightly reduce throttle and then it would go back to full when I let off again, which seemed to happen during driving sometimes. I even made sure the channel mixing/tank mode on the Dumbo was disabled, just in case I was unwittingly mixing throttle and steering, but it's definitely set to normal.

That only leaves the radio system....but it's Dumbo RC and I've never had issues with Dumbo! I even switched from flysky to Dumbo because I was getting annoying issues with range and delays going on and off throttle etc. It would happen with all 3 of my Flysky transmitters and various receivers but seemingly only in certain places. I went over to Dumbo and the issues were suddenly gone and I had amazing range etc....so until now I've had the utmost respect for DumboRC radios.

Well, I decided to put in a flysky receiver just to try it and.....problem solved!

But a huge can of worms opened....I literally abandoned Flysky for the most part because I was frequently getting issues, and Dumbo is renowned for being a good quality budget option with good signal, range and resistance to glitching.

So I don't know what to think about that. Was it just a duff receiver? Has my transmitter gone bad? Does it just not like that type of ESC? I usually love problem solving with RC, but when it's something like this, it stresses me out a bit because the myriad of potential issues to do with something that had previously been dependable. I don't know if it's because I'm probably a bit on the spectrum, but I tend to obsess over stuff like this. 

Was it just a bad receiver? Has my transmitter gone bad? Is running a fairly power hungry dual motor rig showing up a problem that has always been there but just doesn't always rear it's head? Did either the transmitter or receiver just not get on with either of my 880 ESCs? Seems implausible, but don't want to rule it out! Arghhhh!!!


I've definitely narrowed it down to the radio system, and I know the batteries in the transmitter were good and I've used 2 different sets in there and had the same issues.

I know that transmitter was definitely tip top when I first got it. I could drive cars so far away I could barely see them with no glitching, latency or lag etc. I used it a lot at the local beach where my flysky stuff would have the weird range issues (maybe interference from coastguard radio or something?) anyway the Dumbo was in another league for range etc.

I guess I just need to try and methodically check different things. I know electronics can fail at any time. Maybe because I used it at the beach a lot something got corroded inside? Also my house has pretty high humidity and it's been sat dormant for over a year, so again, could be something to do with that. Maybe I'll take it apart and do a visual inspection.

I was going to order a second dumbo transmitter, anyway, so I guess that might be an idea if I get the same behaviour after trying a different receivers with my current one. 

Anyway, sorry for waffling on! Kind of frustrating again, today! The Flysky definitely solved the issue, but I have different issues with that stuff sometimes, so I'll be worried about that rearing it's head. Still, though, it was nice to have a drive without any kind of glitching, loss of power, or head on collisions with walls!


 

Following on from yesterdays post where I discovered the DumboRC radio system was the cause of my glitching and loss of control etc.

My DumboRC gear has been amazing until recently, but by the process of elimination, it is the only culprit left.

I'm eager to work out the issue, because my older flysky stuff is just too flakey in terms of range for me to use on a daily basis. No matter what combination of flysky RX and TX I use, there are some places where I just start getting massive latency (ie delay between applying throttle and anything happening, delay between letting go of throttle and anything happens) DumboRC was my saviour in this situation and solved all my issues, but now I seem to have an issue with Dumbo!

Logically, it can only be a few things:

Bad receiver.
Bad Transmitter.
Either/or just don't seem to agree with quicrun 880 type escs (seems unlikely)

The logical thing would be to just try a different receiver, so with that in mind, I went ahead and took the transmitter apart 

At first, I had instantly found the culprit, what looked like water damage, no doubt a result of using it at the beach so much, perhaps combined with having a really humid/damp house.

But now I'm not 100% convinced. There's definitely white deposits in a few different places, even across the legs on one of the ICs, but it doesn't quite look how I'd expect such damage to look. Usually water/salt damage looks much more chalky and "wispy" and often with green areas etc.

What I found seems to be pretty self contained for the most part, almost looks like some of that silicone stuff they sometimes use to hold components down. It doesn't feel crumbly and dry like water corrosion usually feels:


Notice the blob on the legs of the IC:


There's quite a lot of it, but it almost looks like overspray of that silicone stuff they use sometimes. It doesn't seem to have that chalky/cloudy quality and hasn't spread out.




This bit looked a bit more like what I'd expect of water damage:



So I'm not sure what to think? I'm not a big electronics expert, so this could well be corrosion/salt deposit I just haven't seen before?

To put it in perspective, this is the kind of thing I was expecting to see, if salt/water damage was the issue:

Mild:



Severe:


I did find this while googling, and noted how this person had the random blobs, too, which appears to just be stray silicone or thermal compound:

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/162161/what-are-these-cream-plastic-like-blobs-on-my-circuit-board

I might see how it reacts to some iso alcohol on a q tip.

If it is corrosion, I could try cleaning the whole board in an ultrasonic cleaner in a sealed container of alcohol, but I don't know if it would fix the issue and if it did, would I just have a liability on my hands?

Hmmm annoyingly inconclusive. I was partly hoping for something more obvious, so at least I'd know for sure.

 

 

 

[Grumpy pants 5178]

4 hours ago, Rinskie said:

So not to take a dark turn but Sat morning I had my 2nd heart attack. Coming out of the hospital and feeling a little down about it. 

That’s tough news, you have my best wishes for your health and well-being.

Hopefully you have some family and friends close to hand to help and support you.

[Grumpy pants 5178]

4 hours ago, nowinaminute said:

Following on from yesterdays post where I discovered the DumboRC radio system was the cause of my glitching and loss of control etc.

My DumboRC gear has been amazing until recently, but by the process of elimination, it is the only culprit left.

I'm eager to work out the issue, because my older flysky stuff is just too flakey in terms of range for me to use on a daily basis. No matter what combination of flysky RX and TX I use, there are some places where I just start getting massive latency (ie delay between applying throttle and anything happening, delay between letting go of throttle and anything happens) DumboRC was my saviour in this situation and solved all my issues, but now I seem to have an issue with Dumbo!

Logically, it can only be a few things:

Bad receiver.
Bad Transmitter.
Either/or just don't seem to agree with quicrun 880 type escs (seems unlikely)

The logical thing would be to just try a different receiver, so with that in mind, I went ahead and took the transmitter apart 

At first, I had instantly found the culprit, what looked like water damage, no doubt a result of using it at the beach so much, perhaps combined with having a really humid/damp house.

But now I'm not 100% convinced. There's definitely white deposits in a few different places, even across the legs on one of the ICs, but it doesn't quite look how I'd expect such damage to look. Usually water/salt damage looks much more chalky and "wispy" and often with green areas etc.

What I found seems to be pretty self contained for the most part, almost looks like some of that silicone stuff they sometimes use to hold components down. It doesn't feel crumbly and dry like water corrosion usually feels:


Notice the blob on the legs of the IC:


There's quite a lot of it, but it almost looks like overspray of that silicone stuff they use sometimes. It doesn't seem to have that chalky/cloudy quality and hasn't spread out.




This bit looked a bit more like what I'd expect of water damage:



So I'm not sure what to think? I'm not a big electronics expert, so this could well be corrosion/salt deposit I just haven't seen before?

To put it in perspective, this is the kind of thing I was expecting to see, if salt/water damage was the issue:

Mild:



Severe:


I did find this while googling, and noted how this person had the random blobs, too, which appears to just be stray silicone or thermal compound:

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/162161/what-are-these-cream-plastic-like-blobs-on-my-circuit-board

I might see how it reacts to some iso alcohol on a q tip.

If it is corrosion, I could try cleaning the whole board in an ultrasonic cleaner in a sealed container of alcohol, but I don't know if it would fix the issue and if it did, would I just have a liability on my hands?

Hmmm annoyingly inconclusive. I was partly hoping for something more obvious, so at least I'd know for sure.

 

 

 

Great patience and perseverance.

I would have swapped out the R/X and if the replacement receiver worked, then I’d open up the rogue one as you have, but I wouldn’t expect it to be salvageable, it does very much look like corrosion from beach running was the culprit.  

[Re-Bugged 11262]

Take it easy and all the best @Rinskie 

[Re-Bugged 11262]

10 hours ago, Aerobert said:

Finished my beach runner for this years holidays at the danish north sea. 

Looks like fun, enjoy 😎

[nowinaminute 3319]

7 hours ago, Rinskie said:

So not to take a dark turn but Sat morning I had my 2nd heart attack. Coming out of the hospital and feeling a little down about it I decided today to order an Alpine body for my M08 that's been naked since last year. Since I put the electronics back in the M08, I have been having so much fun driving slow tight precision driving. Need to practice for the postal racing and I figured a street rally version of the Alpine 110 on a M08 would be quilt the weapon. 

They don't get rid of you that easily! 

Best wishes to you!

[nowinaminute 3319]

12 hours ago, Aerobert said:

Finished my beach runner for this years holidays at the danish north sea. 

Will see how it will perform and how it will last in comparison to its predecessor the lovely Blitzer Beetle which was my beach car for the last years. As I love the way how the wing is adjustable on the Avante, I've designed and printed a adjustable wing mount which is currently adjustable in three steps. More of a gimmick than a necessity. Additionally as the space under the cage was too empty I printed a V8 motor I found on Thingiverse and adapted it with a lot of carving on the air intake of the TD2. Not perfect but looking cool from a distance. I will do an updated version later for better fitment. 

Please excuse the crappy pics but weather doesn't allow outdoor pics at the moment. Hopefully more from the beach...

Can't wait to see beach pics! That engine looks really cool!

[Pizza Frog 682]

I put a 16t steel pinion in the Fire Dragon.

The Fire Dragon now sounds like a circular saw when I have it lifted off the ground,   It sounds and runs normal when on the ground however.   

The Boomerang is next, I'll be putting a 15t pinion in it;

[jonboy1 3319]

13 hours ago, Aerobert said:

Finished my beach runner for this years holidays at the danish north sea. 

Will see how it will perform and how it will last in comparison to its predecessor the lovely Blitzer Beetle which was my beach car for the last years. As I love the way how the wing is adjustable on the Avante, I've designed and printed a adjustable wing mount which is currently adjustable in three steps. More of a gimmick than a necessity. Additionally as the space under the cage was too empty I printed a V8 motor I found on Thingiverse and adapted it with a lot of carving on the air intake of the TD2. Not perfect but looking cool from a distance. I will do an updated version later for better fitment. 

Please excuse the crappy pics but weather doesn't allow outdoor pics at the moment. Hopefully more from the beach...

I really love this! Makes the best use of one of my favourite bodies - it just looks so right on this chassis! My favourite TD2 so far!

Hope you have a great holiday and get to have lots of fun on the beach with this!  

[jonboy1 3319]

8 hours ago, Rinskie said:

So not to take a dark turn but Sat morning I had my 2nd heart attack. Coming out of the hospital and feeling a little down about it I decided today to order an Alpine body for my M08 that's been naked since last year. Since I put the electronics back in the M08, I have been having so much fun driving slow tight precision driving. Need to practice for the postal racing and I figured a street rally version of the Alpine 110 on a M08 would be quilt the weapon. 

Sending you all the best wishes I can fit in a forum post. 🐧

Hope you make a good recovery and that you get some positive therapy from practicing with the M08 👍

[Badcrumble 4401]

As above @Rinskie, best wishes for a full recovery and enjoy your RCing.

[Andreas W 2171]

9 hours ago, Rinskie said:

So not to take a dark turn but Sat morning I had my 2nd heart attack. Coming out of the hospital and feeling a little down about it I decided today to order an Alpine body for my M08 that's been naked since last year. Since I put the electronics back in the M08, I have been having so much fun driving slow tight precision driving. Need to practice for the postal racing and I figured a street rally version of the Alpine 110 on a M08 would be quilt the weapon. 

All the best for the recovery and good luck practicing with the M-08. When you get the hang on the  M-08 it really satisfying. Almost feeling you are gaining newwon competece. 

[Elbowloh 1230]

@rinskie Hope you have a full and speedy revovery!

[Jason1145 4683]

11 hours ago, Rinskie said:

So not to take a dark turn but Sat morning I had my 2nd heart attack. Coming out of the hospital and feeling a little down about it I decided today to order an Alpine body for my M08 that's been naked since last year. Since I put the electronics back in the M08, I have been having so much fun driving slow tight precision driving. Need to practice for the postal racing and I figured a street rally version of the Alpine 110 on a M08 would be quilt the weapon. 

Take care buddy, hope you enjoy the Alpine.

[Rinskie 851]

Thanks for the well wishes. It was aa bad one, almost didn't make it much like the first. Oh well, my faith is strong and I know where I will be soon enough. Thanks for the love all, it is truly appreciated more than any of you will know. Thanks fellas. 

[Aerobert 2323]

7 hours ago, Re-Bugged said:

Looks like fun, enjoy 😎

 

5 hours ago, nowinaminute said:

Can't wait to see beach pics! That engine looks really cool!

 

5 hours ago, jonboy1 said:

I really love this! Makes the best use of one of my favourite bodies - it just looks so right on this chassis! My favourite TD2 so far!

Hope you have a great holiday and get to have lots of fun on the beach with this!  

Thank you guys, I really appreciate it. 

@Rinskie All the best for your recovery and take care.