So, What Have You Done Today?

[Badcrumble]

I should have listed at least one car for sale today. Instead, I cleaned the 1:1 and did some gardening.

[Grumpy pants]

3 hours ago, Badcrumble said:

I should have listed at least one car for sale today. Instead, I cleaned the 1:1 and did some gardening.

Well I did list the 2 x TT02’s today and a bit of gardening as well as 2 x wash loads, haircut and food shop 😂

Makes me sound like Cinderella 🤦‍♂️

[nowinaminute]

Tried to see if if I could fit two Hobbywing ESCs in my nikko project....

Like a glove 

Now, I wonder if there will be any improvement on the cogging with those cheap Chinese moto....wait a minute!!

Testing the cheaper motors will have to wait.

But I can tell you the combination of hobbywing esc and motors is much, much, much better.

Probably the best I've seen outside of a sensorless system!

Just about to take her out for a run! 

[Nick-W]

1 hour ago, Grumpy pants said:

Well I did list the 2 x TT02’s today and a bit of gardening as well as 2 x wash loads, haircut and food shop 😂

This is just making the rest of us (by which I mean me) look bad! 

[nowinaminute]

Omg that was fun and eventful!

Broke the goofy back bumper off 

Made the fatal mistake of trying a little jump and realising it jumps quite well for what it is. Then the whole "treat old stuff gently" wisdom got lost in red mist for a while. 

I usually keep it off for running, cause it's asking to be snapped off, but I keep it on when I make videos cause it's all part of the look. 

It's ok, though, I have plenty of spare parts.

The hobbywing ESC/motor combo is superb. I still think the other gear is great for the price, but there's a clear difference. Much smoother startup and it's just as smooth on 3s whereas the other controllers I had in there seemed to cog more on 3s.

I'm interested to try the cheaper motors with these escs, and the cheaper escs with the better motors etc.

Very fun and interesting drive. I'll elaborate a bit more soon. I went to a place that has short, bumpy grass. Suspension is better than stock but definitely needs more tuning.

[Ghostpig]

Continued cleaning this mess.

But why? Because it's Kyosho SuperTen Sports Ford Escort. New bodies are hard to come by.

It's painted both inside and out. Twice on the outside. Three different types of paint was used, I think. White paint on the inside just melts into this goo. Red on the outside crimpled and flaked off. Black paint beneath the red needs a lot of scrubbing but it's coming off slowly. I've been using Revell paint remover and just switched to nitro fuel. I need a tub of elbow grease for this.

[Kowalski86]

I took the Stampede for another run and decided to tackle some gravel/rock piles, surprisingly it didn't climb too badly for being 2wd and open-diff. I seriously doubt that a short course truck or "truggy" could have done the same.

[Grumpy pants]

1 hour ago, Nick-W said:

This is just making the rest of us (by which I mean me) look bad! 

I’m hoping the rest of you had a much more restful Saturday 👍

[Grumpy pants]

3 minutes ago, Kowalski86 said:

I took the Stampede for another run and decided to tackle some gravel/rock piles, surprisingly it didn't climb too badly for being 2wd and open-diff. I seriously doubt that a short course truck or "truggy" could have done the same.

Great action shots 👏

[nowinaminute]

49 minutes ago, Kowalski86 said:

I took the Stampede for another run and decided to tackle some gravel/rock piles, surprisingly it didn't climb too badly for being 2wd and open-diff. I seriously doubt that a short course truck or "truggy" could have done the same.

Love this thing!

[Kowalski86]

1 hour ago, Grumpy pants said:

Great action shots 👏

Thanks, I'm lucky to have plenty of open area when I take them!

[Gun Slinger 393]

6 hours ago, Nick-W said:

My continuing search for space in the house took a turn today as I sorted out the cupboard under the stairs and moved a lot of the fleet away. I still need to find a home for three of the cars as my wife disagrees quite strongly on them making nice ornaments for the sideboard.

Love this! I had a early finish the other day and there are now 4 mounted on the kitchen wall, we have been arguing since, she may have to pack her bags 

[Gun Slinger 393]

4 hours ago, Grumpy pants said:

Well I did list the 2 x TT02’s today and a bit of gardening as well as 2 x wash loads, haircut and food shop 😂

Makes me sound like Cinderella 🤦‍♂️

Haha, do something nice for the Mrs and then tell her about the latest purchase 

[Ferruz]

We got back from the short vacation almost a week ago, but I'm far from done sorting through the photos and videos as it was quite eventful RC wise.

While I can't wait to get to the footage of the jumping battle between the Hornet and the Mad Van, here's a geared up Mid on the quest to conquer a small, quaint lakeside town. It's almost freaky how silent it is, especially when compared to its current travel mates.

[alvinlwh]

Installed more blue bits to my TT-01(Ra), this time steering knuckles and servo mounts.

 

[Pizza Frog]

I put some Vanquish wheels on the Fire Dragon

(I'll use the Vanquish wheels for running and keep the black stock wheels for the shelf)

 

[nowinaminute]

This is from a few days ago, still with the cheap motors and WLToys 45a ESCs. The performance is really quite decent for the cost of the parts, the only real downside is cogging if you try and make a smooth start at low speeds. It's not particularly bad on 2s but is worse on 3s for some reason, which I find odd, especially as when it finally overcomes the cogging, the performance is superb and there wasn't any kind of magic smoke issues after a full 3s pack.

I've since tried these ESCs in a DT-02 and the cogging was much less (on 2s, haven't tried 3s) so I guess half the issue is the Nikko is a bit of a porker with tall gearing, so it really makes life difficult for cheap gear. I know this same WLToys esc is in my WLToys 124016 and the G1 version cogged badly but they released a G2 with the same ESC, lower gearing but a faster motor and it totally cured the cogging. I do wonder if I could get the Nikko back down to the stock 10T pinion how much of an improvement it would make, and I'm confident a relatively simple 3d printed motor mount could realise that goal, but I might need to get help drawing it, as I'm rubbish with 3d software.

Anyways, as you can see, it still runs great on 2s for a cheap setup. 
 

Next up, I will post a video of the car with Hobbywing ESCs and motors. I'm not sure if it's the ESC,  motors, or a combination of the both, but they are exceptionally smooth for sensorless, and clearly have a better cogging tolerance than the cheaper setup. The significant thing, for me, is how they maintain this smoothness on 3s whereas the cheaper ESCs really struggled to get off the line with the same 3s battery, for some reason.

[Jason1145]

It’s feels like it’s been a couple weeks since I got any RC works done, but today was an e clip battle with some red JazRider arms for the M05 2cv Charleston… I hate e clips.

 

[Nikko85]

Not sure I will keep it this way, but for the 1/16 slash body on the MF01x to make a mini trophy truck

It is all a little musical chairs with bodies and different chassis at the moment!

 

[nowinaminute]

Ok here's yesterday's run with the Hobbywing motors and ESCs.

It starts off with a little demonstration of how free of cogging it is. A great performance for a sensorless setup, especially considering the weight and gearing of this vehicle made life really difficult for the cheaper ESCs (which work much better in lighter stuff)

Some stupid clouds went in front of the sun while I was at it, so I might go back later today and try and get more "pretty" footage, I wasn't about to run around behind it with a selfie stick in anything but perfect light, I already looked like a plonker with the head cam as it was!
 

 

[alvinlwh]

First i replaced the rear gearbox cover with an aluminium one from JAZRider.

Don't think it do any good other than looking nice.

That was the easy bit as i then worked till the wee hours of the morning to get the TA-02 carbon conversion kit from JAZRider to work. Bought it thinking it will be a cheap upgrade, but there are no instructions and no information saying that lots more are needed to complete the conversion. Other than a varity of screws, it need 9118018 and 9804959, at a minimum, to work. I made do with what I have, ordered the rest from Ebay.

Finally I found the instructions for Tamiya 47479 online and followed it to get to this stage. I used and adopt whatever fitting hardware I have on hand the best I can to make it work and ordered the rest. Problem is it needed a 3x8 step screw for the front, which don't seem to exist anywhere.  If I cannot make it work with the 3x10 I ordered, I may go aluminium shock tower for the front.

Will need the steering posts to arrive before I can get the front end on.

[JimBear]

4 hours ago, Jason1145 said:

Now that is one of the blingiest 2cv I've seen in a good while - pure Charleston (as in 1920s' glamour).

[nowinaminute]

Well I was going to go back to the same place as yesterday, to hopefully get more video, this time without the sun going away halfway through.

But after standing waiting for a bus for 20 minutes, I realised I'd got the times mixed up.

The buses here are terrible on Sundays. 1 every 2 hours and the last one back from town is only 5:30PM I wanted to get the half 3, get to where I wanted at 4, and then catch the last bus up about 5:45.

Turns out the buses are half 2 on the way out. The next one out is half 4 which doesn't give me enough time to do videos etc and get the bus back!

I might try somehwere else in the valley, but I'm going to wait till a bit later when it cools down a bit. Not like i'll be going anywhere by bus, now, so I can come back home whenever I want 

I might go to the other place early tomorrow morning and try again, before it heats up (meant to be a scorcher in the UK tomorrow!)

Urgh....frustrating though. Stood obliviously there like a manchild with backpack full of toy cars.

 

[Grumpy pants]

No ‘T’ time for me this weekend, today was a  tip run, lots more digging and then the cinema with my wife and daughter 4 aka, kiddo 5 😳.

Got my sold TT02’s packed and sent out, which is great, hopefully a smidge of Tamiya is on the horizon….

[nowinaminute]

22 hours ago, nowinaminute said:

I might try somehwere else in the valley

Well I did go somewhere else, somewhere new.

I'd been eyeing up a forestry road and turning circle for logging trucks near the top of the valley I live in. They did some logging a year or so ago, so it's all been refreshed with new stone.



It was a bit of a trek to get to, but not too bad. My eyes list up when I first got there, it looked perfect! But in reality, the stones used for the road are a bit too big for 1/10 scale, especially a buggy like the Nikko, even though it has pretty big wheels. It was bouncing around a lot unless I went really fast but that was a bit nerve wracking!

After a while, I discovered one side of the turning circle was a fair bit smoother, so I had a lot of fun driving there, although it was a bit cramped compared to how much room I thought I had initially.

I had to stop every few minutes as various screws backed themselves out from all the vibrations, it was a good way to tease out all the weak spots, though! It sucks having to keep stopping for repairs etc, but on the other hand, it's really satisfying doing "iterative development" and addressing little things as you go along, finding all the little flaws and fixing them.

In the end, the car held up fine, but I did have a casualty. The end of the lower shock cap at the front somehow managed to shear off! Never seen anything like it. It's a totally clean break, almost like it's been in a can opening. The shaft is bent as well, so it clearly took a big knock, but it's still puzzling how the end of it has been cut off so cleanly. Need to work out what to do about fixing that, now! Obviously that put going back to the grass place this morning off the table for now.

I do wonder how much better it would manage with a more optimised suspension setup, too....always things that can be worked on.

So although I had a breakdown, the actual buggy itself stood up to the abuse. Continues to amaze me.

Glad I went overall, found a cool new place which should be good for larger MTs and anything larger than 1/10. And there IS an area that's great for buggies, too, just have to stick to a certain section. that part has plenty of glorious dust to kick up, too!

It should be a great place to take crawlers and trailers, too!

Got some great video clips before the damper broke. This kind of thing sums up what I love about RC perfectly:







I'll show you the damaged shock later on, it's really odd!