So, What Have You Done Today?

[Grumpy pants]

3 minutes ago, nowinaminute said:

Getting there 

Is there a weight bias with one side over the other? 

[Ferruz]

First use of RC equipment on vacation was... structural. During the first overnight in the Jeep Hotel on the way down, the Mid was propping up both our privacy and our entertainment 

Upon arrival, the Hornet was immediately out to stretch its legs 

And after settling in, straight to the scruffy nearby beach for some sunset action 

So far those spikes have kicked up dirt, sand, gravel, snow, grass... but this is the first time running on shells! 

 

 

[Ferruz]

On another note, I just got notified by Ebay that I got issued a full refund on both the wheels and side bars from Pargu, with no need to send back any item as the seller didn't give me any means to do so 😳 bit puzzled, but you know what, I shouldn't feel bad after all. I was all out for communication while he wasn't, and now I have the wheels and two sets of side bars, one of which is actually good color and will be used for the build, and my money back.

I will use the refund to source the wheels somewhere else, and here it gets interesting: apparently the guy I was going to buy the Yeah Racing Mid wheels from, owns an actual LHS 10 minutes away from where I'm now on vacation, so I will be able to just drive up there! What are the chances... 😅

[nowinaminute]

1 hour ago, Grumpy pants said:

Is there a weight bias with one side over the other? 

There must be, surely, but I can't say I've ever noticed much of an issue.

Possibly more of an issue with the bigger motors, but we'll see.

I would say it might have been responsible for the slight deviation in steering when going on and off throttle but that seems to have gone away since I swapped out the dumborc radio.

[nowinaminute]

Stopped here for today. The eso servo still leads nead shortening, but otherwise, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out!

Was really wary of doing it at first, as it's been a while, but it went fine.

I managed to hook up both ESCs to the stock Nikko power switch, too.

 

[nowinaminute]

Just out driving her right now.

Still managed to make the motors get a bit hot, but I was giving it the thrashing if it's life. The first video clip I captured alone was over 8 minutes continuous, so not out the of realms or ordinary. 

Talk about fun, though. So much power and responsiveness!

I even ran it on 3s for a while. The escs didn't seem to like it (much more cogging) so I just got some quick footage and went back to 2s!

I do want to pop the motors open at some point and see what they are like inside, as I noticed the wires coming off them are pretty anemic for 3650s. Sometimes with cheapo ones they are a bit smaller than inside, sort of like those "finned" motors but less honest lol.

If it takes that much to get them toasty, then I'll probably be fine, but I am curious to compare one to some of my other cheaper (and not so cheap) motors.

These ones could always find homes in something a bit lighter if I think there's a better budget option out there, but we'll see how it goes.

Getting ahead of myself now, anyway, as you'll see in the footage later, it rips!

 

[Kowalski86]

It's not perfect, but I did some work on Project "Blue Angel", a Super Hornet painted to look like one of the planes that the Blue Angels fly. The Super Hornet is probably my favorite iteration of Tamiyas solid axle buggies.

[nowinaminute]

41 minutes ago, Kowalski86 said:

It's not perfect, but I did some work on Project "Blue Angel", a Super Hornet painted to look like one of the planes that the Blue Angels fly. The Super Hornet is probably my favorite iteration of Tamiyas solid axle buggies.

Great idea for a colour scheme!

[nowinaminute]

Whew, what a buzz!

That was really, really good fun, and satisfying!

There's still  room for improvement, as the even the brushless motors ended up getting a bit toasty, but then again, was it any hotter than my brushless slash, or any other brushless rc I own, after such a thrashing? I guess it's easy to be over paranoid and lose sense of what's normal and abnormal.

Now that I watch back the video footage I took, the first clip alone is 8 minutes of non stop hard driving with brutal punching of the throttle over and over, especially on the loose gravel, so it's not as if I was going easy on it. 

It was an absolute blast to drive, power on tap! And although they hot after a while, it never caused any issues.
 

They were the cheapest brushless 540 motors I've ever gotten, so it might be worth taking a look inside, just to see if they have undersized rotors (like those finned 540 motors but being less honest about it) I also noticed the motor wires were much thinner than I'm used to from a brushless 3650, which might be another clue. But either way, they worked great, and I doubt anything could take that kind of abuse and not get hot, anyway! If I determine there are better budget motors out there, so be it, but if not, I think they will do the job just fine.

I even tried them on 3s, but the ESCs didn't seem to like it. For some reason, cogging on 3s was much, much worse than 2s, especially the one driving the back wheels, but both were worse. Never experienced an ESC like that before. Usually if a cheap one doesn't like 3s it will die, but these ones just didn't like moving off the line. Once they got going, you could be as rough as you wanted and they delivered totally decent performance. Quite odd.  Once they car actually got moving it worked just fine and the power was even more awesome. And for all the talk of motor temps, I still managed to have a quick bash on 3s, including mashing the throttle in the dirt, without anything catching on fire!

Some 3s footage.....probably a bit too much power, but addictive! I left in some of the cogging to show what I mean. 
 

Star of the show should probably be the Nikko itself for putting up with it all! Even the handling surprised me, considering it has a lot of slop and as a later dictator variant, a lot of the plastic is that really flexible stuff, so wobbles about a lot. All that considered, it does an amazing job, especially now with the oil shocks I added actually working at least somewhat properly. And the gears can take a lot of power, as long as you don't do anything wreckless.

So, yeah...that was really fun! Great to see that larger than life body shell actually moving around with the kind of performance it's OTT looks promise, too!

Plenty to do with the car, still, including a better servo saver and proper steering links, which should sharpen the handling up nicely. 

Will also take a nose inside the motors at some point, just to compare the innards to other cheap ones. They seem to work fine as they are, but if I can get better ones by spending literally a few £ more on superior cheapos, I might go for it.

[Pylon80]

I went to the track again to run my B7d. I had an absolute blast and met some friendly racers who had lots of good advice. I'm glad I picked that buggy as everybody's running it now which enables me to get help and tips... It was all part of my grand plan

So after 3 hours of running it as hard as I possibly can I only broke the rear wing (11$...). I have to say this thing is indestructible.

I was glad to discuss my choice of slick tires and a 21.5 motor, both smart picks according to the local drivers. 

Got home with images of flying cars in my heads and a broad smile I can't quite wipe off my face 😉

Note : the stick transmitter is a great conversation starter!

A fun day in the desert.

[Ferruz]

1 hour ago, Pylon80 said:

Got home with images of flying cars in my heads and a broad smile I can't quite wipe off my face 😉

Sounds like a great day out! The buggy looks the part👍

Glad you had fun at the track! 

[Grumpy pants]

Just ordered the last part wanted for my Lunchbox build, used the sale proceeds for the wheels @Jason1145 bought last week.

Tamiya pocket money 😂

[Jason1145]

15 hours ago, Pylon80 said:

I went to the track again to run my B7d. I had an absolute blast and met some friendly racers who had lots of good advice. I'm glad I picked that buggy as everybody's running it now which enables me to get help and tips... It was all part of my grand plan

So after 3 hours of running it as hard as I possibly can I only broke the rear wing (11$...). I have to say this thing is indestructible.

I was glad to discuss my choice of slick tires and a 21.5 motor, both smart picks according to the local drivers. 

Got home with images of flying cars in my heads and a broad smile I can't quite wipe off my face 😉

Note : the stick transmitter is a great conversation starter!

A fun day in the desert.

That track looks sick! Imagine a bunch of Lunchboxes and Wild Willys flying through the air 😇

[Jason1145]

@Grumpy pants glad to have helped (myself too!)

I did a quick test fit of the MST adjustable wheels for the RSR shell, 3mm front and 9mm rear offset just about looks ok.

Decided this will be a blue paint job as it will look good with the gold wheels… not sure if I’ll use all the decals, wait and see.

[donfilippo]

21 hours ago, Kowalski86 said:

It's not perfect, but I did some work on Project "Blue Angel", a Super Hornet painted to look like one of the planes that the Blue Angels fly. The Super Hornet is probably my favorite iteration of Tamiyas solid axle buggies.

Looks really great! I saw a film about the Blue Angels in an Imax cinema some years ago, pretty impressive.

[ThunderDragonCy]

Found my pin vise set, so got back inside the dampers on my Grasshopper 2 Ultra G Evo Black Edition and opened out the holes. Also cracked open the trans to get some thicker oil in the diff. 

 

[Andreas W]

22 hours ago, Kowalski86 said:

It's not perfect, but I did some work on Project "Blue Angel", a Super Hornet painted to look like one of the planes that the Blue Angels fly. The Super Hornet is probably my favorite iteration of Tamiyas solid axle buggies.

A bright idea and it looks superb. I see you are going with Kyosho tyres on the normal Grasshopper/Hornet rims,  which also is a good idea. You will love how calm it is gonna be (for such a car).

[Kowalski86]

28 minutes ago, Andreas W said:

A bright idea and it looks superb. I see you are going with Kyosho tyres on the normal Grasshopper/Hornet rims,  which also is a good idea. You will love how calm it is gonna be (for such a car).

Thanks, I think Tamiya had jet planes in mind when they came up with the Hornet, specifically the "Anytime Baby" phrase was used by a Tomcat Squadron.

The Kyosho tires are noticeably softer than Tamiyas, which makes fitment easier and should lead to better grip. I kinda missed my other Super Hornet, I forget why I let it go. It handled pretty well with Brat tires all around.

1 hour ago, donfilippo said:

Looks really great! I saw a film about the Blue Angels in an Imax cinema some years ago, pretty impressive.

Thank you, I'm trying to figure out how to go about painting the lights atm. I might go body color and add a decal to the front.

[toyolien]

Made a start on a LWB Optima Mid. I've booked in for Modelsport's Vintage National race event in February, so I'd better get practising... 

[gogsyfinnie]

Fat fox getting there, had hoped to have ready for a shake down run at the track tonight but still a wee bit left to do.  Ball studs for the CVA shocks should arrive tomorrow, then just a few more decals and we are done! 
 

 

[nowinaminute]

Gave these two cheap Aliexpress brushed ESCs a quick test.

First one is like a Quircun 1060 look alike but not a direct clone:



Tested it on 2s with 27T and sport tuned motors. Seems to work great. Cost about £5.50 at the time of purchase on Choice day.

Second one is more of an original design and has a fan:



This one seemed to work fine, too. There's a similar looking ESC that's been around a few years now that looks like this one but minus the fan. This one looks different internally, though. This one also worked fine with 27t and sport tuned motors on 2s. This one cost a ridiculous £3.80 during the aliexpress choice day promotion.

So, yeah, they could be decent cheapo options if you see them on sale for cheap. Both offer the same basic functionality such as lipo mode and a forward/reverse crawler mode with drag brake.

The former one boasts being waterproof, the latter one claims to be more powerful. I'd take both claims with a pinch of salt!

They both seem like decent enough budget options, on the surface. Time may paint a different picture.

[Ferruz]

Back to the beach with one Mad Van today! So.Much.Fun.

[alvinlwh]

Finished stickering the Farm King.

[Grumpy pants]

Did a little reassembly of the Rough Rider shell last night and realised how fragile they are, even from new.

The A pillars, the A pillar mounting points and the roof mounted spot lights…look like they’d last about 5 minutes of run time! 
 

[bRIBEGuy]

Started designing some stands for a few of my cars to keep the tires from flatting.  Starting with an ascetically similar stand for the Thunder Shot, DT-03, and Frog... these will "key in" with the bottom chassis features for alignment, and will be 3D printed...