Help Identifying Some Parts/bits

[mongoose1983]

Hey TC friends!

I'm sure someone in here can tell me something about these bits and electronics. What are these for? Is this ESC a Kyosho one?

Thanks in advance to y'all!

[Wrecked]

Hey TC friends!

I'm sure someone in here can tell me something about these bits and electronics. What are these for? Is this ESC a Kyosho one?

Thanks in advance to y'all!

EB

--

The metal (part of the resistor cage) in pic 1, and the MSC in pic 2, is for SRB's (Sand Scorcher/Rough Rider/Ford Ranger)

Pic 4, is a homemade device that makes your car run faster, using 8.4 V instead of 7.2. You are ment to put it in series with yor stick/humb battery.

Pic 3, some damper parts. No clue to what car, maybe terry knows...

[mongoose1983]

Thank you for the info, Wrecked!

The damper parts are really strange. No Tamiya marks anywhere in the tree. Maybe not Tamiya?

[Wrecked]

Thank you for the info, Wrecked!

The damper parts are really strange. No Tamiya marks anywhere in the tree. Maybe not Tamiya?

They are HPI:

http://www.toysonics.com/hpi-6817-shock-parts-set-10mm.html

[Wrecked]

The ESC is a bit strange. It looks like the previous owner mounted one of the mosfet's outside for better cooling. (and what better place is there than the resistor cage)

Don't know what brand it is though. Isn't there any letters or numbers on it anywhere?

[mongoose1983]

Wow. that was fast.
Thanks again, Wrecked!

Have a great Friday!

[Live Steam Mad]

Hey TC friends!

I'm sure someone in here can tell me something about these bits and electronics. What are these for? Is this ESC a Kyosho one?

Thanks in advance to y'all!

EB

--

That ESC looks like an early Acoms unit. Volksrod has one ;-

http://tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?c...660&sid=140

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[mongoose1983]

That ESC looks like an early Acoms unit...

Thanks, Alistair! I had no idea what was this thing. I'll PM you right away!

[mongoose1983]

That ESC looks like an early Acoms unit. Volksrod has one ;-
Cheers,
Alistair G.

Hey Alistair. I sent you a PM a while ago, have you got it.
Have a great Friday!

[Live Steam Mad]

Hey Alistair. I sent you a PM a while ago, have you got it.

Have a great Friday!

EB

--

Yep, reply coming right now!

Cheers,

ARG

[Live Steam Mad]

LOL. It was my misunderstanding, I was waiting for piccies you mentioned and I forgot you needed my e-mail address. I'm such a dummy sometimes LOL.

ARG.

[mongoose1983]

LOL. It was my misunderstanding, I was waiting for piccies you mentioned and I forgot you needed my e-mail address. I'm such a dummy sometimes LOL.

ARG.

No probs! Now it's everything okay

[Live Steam Mad]

OK peeps I bought the controller from Mongoose1983, he's a great guy. If the ESC is dead (he had no way of testing it as it has an early type Acoms plug on it by the looks of it) then I will probably be able to get it working as I know that the external transistor used (which is the first thing to blow usually so I believe with this particular ESC) is a Darlington TIP140 ( 10 Amps continuous, 15 Amp peak ) so that would be easy to replace if it blows, plus I will be using the Tamiya inline thermal resettable fuse ( circuit breaker ) for the SRB's. I got conflicting information as to what the characteristics of the controller were, when I asked a few members some questions, which was odd, so I thought I would buy it and try it, after all it's also a piece of history and this Acoms AP35 ESC is Acoms brand and I like Acoms brand as some of you already know from my exploits with vintage radios

DeeMiller sent me a great scan of the box (see below) which was awesome and a great help. I assume that he scanned in 300 DPI, so if I reproduce at the same DPI I should get the original box size correct. A mm or 2 out is no big deal. EDIT: Dee just e-mailed me to confirm that he scanned it in 300 DPI.

My preference was to remove the price sticker in software for now, and add the missing section of the letter "i" in "Electronic", it came out reasonably I think. See below.

The instructions for this AP35 ESC are at http://www.studio68.no/rc/default.asp?id=6400 . Interestingly the guy there says it was designed by Riko, the UK importer of Tamiya at the time.

My fears at the moment are 1) whether this is a reverse delay type (I assume it is) which I don't really like (!) and 2) whether the brakes are sufficient to stop a heavy car like the SRB (RR, Sand Scorcher ).

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[mongoose1983]

OK peeps I bought the controller from Mongoose1983, he's a great guy. If the ESC is dead (he had no way of testing it as it has an early type Acoms plug on it by the looks of it) then I will probably be able to get it working as I know that the...

No problem, Alistair.
Next month I'll get into fixing an old Novak ESC that I have. Seemingly, you are the one in the know, so I might contact you with that purpose in the next few weeks.
Oh, and I'll stay tuned to your YouTube channel, too!

[Live Steam Mad]

LOL Dirt coming up very soon, but it was an SOB to convert.

The ESC box looks very good I think when printed out in colour. I have no idea how it is supposed to look. I am assuming almost black, maybe a very very very dark green LOL a bit like the Acoms radio sets (just a very dark green!) themselves!

I think I should have bought thicker A4 photo' paper, it's only 170 GSM, my 6 x 4 photo' paper is 260 GSM Still, got the A4 photo' paper 2 years ago and never got a printer to work until now (marvellous one now, a Canon MP610 !).

2 possibilities - glue it into thick card or print on thicker photo' paper!

Also printed the instructions. Here they are, cleaned up and as JPEG's (see below). There are only 3 pages but I put them together in pairs to make it easier to dump out at about the correct size onto an A4 page. I printed the 1st A4 sheet as scale to page, but the 2nd A4 sheet as 104 per cent scale and it worked great.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad]

I think that the instructions are supposed to be A5, with folds that you can see when you look at the manual in PDF form that web page.

I have done the box and instructions now, looks quite good, see below. Needs glue LOL.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad]

Next month I'll get into fixing an old Novak ESC that I have. Seemingly, you are the one in the know, so I might contact you with that purpose in the next few weeks.

Kind regards,

EB

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What model Novak is it? I bought a Novak 4 a little while ago and the heat sink stuck out of the case at a 5 degree or more wonky angle which annoyed me so I opened up the case and put some foam pad (sponge tape) out of the re-re Frog tool bag, cut down to half height, under 1 corner of the PCB and that sorted it out. I must say that I was not stunningly impressed by the ESC's plastic case when I tightened the screws, maybe the plastic had gone a bit soft with age however. Also it's only held by 3 screws which sucked as the case distorted a bit as a result. I didn't like the inline fuse which I couldn't reset so I'll put in a Tamiya or similar thermal type.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad]

OK the Acoms AP35 ESC just arrived and because the casing was broken I was able to remove the PCB and take a few pictures for posterity (I was kinda curious to see what was inside it). Then I cleaned up the black plastic casing and cleaned up the PCB and relays and wiring and then tested it and made sure that it was adjusted properly (the potentiometer (' pot ') settting) and then put it back inside the case and cold welded the plastic with MEK / liquid Styrene (I used Tamiya Cement , the stuff in the hex shaped bottle with the orange cap ) and it came out quite reasonable. There is one more crack running 1/2 way through the top but I thought that I might get cement on the top and get into a mess so I left it for now.

Pictures below for those interested to see this SRB era controller . More details later on plus a video to show what the control is like in a static bench test with a 540S motor.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad]

Well the video is now visible here ;-

...some of you might find it to be interesting. Click on the HQ button for better quality.

The Transmitter is just one I happened to have to hand at the time and is an Acoms AP227 MK1 ( ATA 227 ). Battery pack for the main drive motor in this case is 7.2V NiMH and connects to the ESC on the thick red and black ESC input wires.. I am using 4 NiMH cells in a separate receiver pack. The ESC draws it's supply from the receiver battery pack. The motor is a Mabuchi RS540S.

The Receiver is an Acoms ARB227 ( from an AP227 MK2 radio set ), I used it because this Acoms AP35 ESC needs this style of socket (early Acoms socket, not later Acoms), unless you modify it I suppose, but since this is an Acoms MK1 and MK2 era ESC it IMHO should be used with MK1 or MK2 radios from Acoms for 'originality' LOL.

As can be seen the control is interestingly not a chopper drive it seems ( not PWM pulsed ) and instead is linear. The control is proportional fowards and proportional reverse , with no reverse delay and it is not the 'double tap' for reverse type that e.g. the modern Tamiya TEU101BK is. There is unfortunately not much in the way of fine control at slow speed since there is a minimum amount of voltage that can be applied to the motor and you can't apply any lower voltage via the Transmitter stick since the main output transistor (which is an external Darlington TIP140 type ) is only switched on when the first forwards relay cuts in (you can hear it clicking in and out at very low throttle). There is also a 'full speed' relay that cuts in near full throttle to give no resistance and avoid the volt drop that the single output transistor would add to the output.

Overall, not that stunning an ESC, kinda poor control and low current capacity (10A continuous, 15A surge, which is the spec. of the external output transistor , which needs heatsinking onto the SRB resistor cage as it gets HOT!). I wonder what the brakes are like? I will only find that out when I get the ESC into a chassis sometime in the future.

All in all a curious part of RC history that I bought because I was an Acoms fan and curious about it as it was from the Sand Scorcher era and was Acoms' first ESC. It was actually designed by Ripmax , the UK importer , so I read.

Hope some of you found it to be interesting

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[TomEG]

deleted

[Live Steam Mad]

Not Ripmax, but RiKo (Richard Kohnstam ltd). I got that piece of informatin from an old Norwegian RC-magazine, that had a small "review" of the AP35.

Tom

Yep. Sorry Tom, a brainfade of mine. Ripmax did Kyosho imports, RiKo did Tamiya imports LOL.

Cheers,

ARG

[fatboyslim]

Not seen this thread before

I had exactly the same esc on my first RC which was a Sand Scorcher,I was 13 at the time so that was back in 1982!!

The original one I had dies so it went back to RiKo who replaced it FOC under warranty

I had the original circuit breaker inline from the battery but for some reason when ever I hit what it just popped

So i rang RiKo and they said replace it with a normal fuse holder and use a 13a fuse!!

So I did what they said and never had anymore problems

I had a few friends who also had the same esc and it became apparent it wasn't a particularly good item it was pretty fragile and NOT waterproof!!

One of my friends had one in his Rough Rider and it was a PITA it just didn't like much hard off road use and seemed to rattle to bits

IIRC it cost around £35 at the time which is one reason why my friend went back to using the msc on his RR!!

[TomEG]

deleted

[max69vk]

This is what I love about this site, 6yrs later and this thread has helped me solve a few mysteries surrounding the AP35.

I recently took a punt one one of these as the price was too good to turn down, 

After reading the somewhat confusing manual it became apparent that the wires to connect to the receiver were missing as was the all important transistor.

Thanks to the pictures in this post I now know where to solder them & more importantly, in what order! Also the mystery of what transistor to fit has been solved. 

One thing I have noticed is that compared to the original AP35 referenced in this thread mine appears to be the MK1 version of this ESC, the giveaway being the size of the grey wire which solders to the transistor and the Ferranti control chip (8239 vs 8241). If anyone else finds themselves in a similar repair/install situation, the MK1 requires a 10A transistor while the MK2 requires a 15A version.