Hello again

[Boothy]

Firstly hello,

I have not been around these parts for a while as I have had a little break from Tamiya.

A couple of years back I was given back my old monster beetle that I had sold to a friend just short of twenty years earlier, clearly I had to start restoring it which then lead to a re re Hornet for Christmas (my brother had one) and a re re fire dragon.

Shortly after a house move a year or so ago I managed to bust my hornet chassis at the rear and as I have been mad busy with work and the new place I have not had time to re build her or play with the other two cars.

I am guessing everything has been stood now for just over a year so my first question is the nimh battery, I have an Mtronics 3800 battery and before doing anything I thought I would ask the experts what the best course of action is before re charging?

I am guessing it was not fully discharged last time I used it as the Hornet came back in bits so do I need to try and run it down or just stick it on charge?

My charger is only a pro peak delta 3 so nothing fancy and does not have a discharge function.

I have just picked up a team orion rocket pack 5100 from my local hobby shop just in case mine is stuffed but obviously it would be nice to have two. Also will the team orion battery come charged or will I need to charge it before use?

Still as the bug has bitten again and its Christmas I have treated the Hornet to a new chassis (she could do with a body too really) so I am hoping to get her back on the road in the next week or two but the postman has also just delivered a Stadium blitzer so the hornet might have to wait

My next questions are with regards to powering them all, last time I fitted a GT tuned motor to my hornet which went really well and an EZ run brushless to my fire dragon which tbh was just far to quick and really spoiled it for me as it was a struggle to get power down even on mini spike tyres and I damaged it far to quickly after it landed on its roof at high speed

So I am thinking that I might pick up a sport tuned motor for the Hornet as even though it was a blast with the GT tuned I am slightly concerned at how quickly I bust the tub when the one we had years ago lasted for ages running a stock 540 or am I just unlucky?

I might stick the GT tuned in the Blitzer for now and see how I go possibly fitting the EZ run if I feel its up to it later on which leaves the fire dragon, I want it to have a good turn of speed but still be controllable do we have any suggestions?

Out of interest whats happened to 40mhz? two years ago I got an acoms techniplus and a couple of receivers but they do not seem to sell them now only the 27mhz.

My vintage techniplus is on 27mhz which is in my monster beetle but I had wanted all of my new cars to run on my new handset, does it look like I will be running on 27 now as I would rather have the receivers already fitted in each car rather than keep swapping over.

Also does anyone sell the stickers for the front of the vintage acoms controllers like the one in this link?

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/getuserimage.asp?t=g&id=img1274_24112012151004_1_350.jpg

Sorry for rambling on

Andy

[XV Pilot]

Greetings and welcome!

As for the battery, ideally you'd cycle it a few times to "wake it up", but since your charger doesn't have that function, I would suggest charging it up, running it in a car with an ESC that has a NiMH cutout, charging it up again, and so forth until it gives you the runtimes you expect.

Your new battery will likely be partially charged. NiMH batteries don't like being stored fully discharged. Charge it up on a slowish charge, and give it a run. It too will probably take a few cycles to reach peak performance.

Regarding Hornet motors, I have two Hornets, one with a Sport Tuned, one with a Dirt Tuned, and neither have broken their tubs. These motors give adequate performance in a Hornet for it to be fun without propelling it to silly speeds where breakages are likely. The Dirt Tuned, although more expensive than the Spport Tuned, has replacable brushes, so is probably cheaper in the long run as it doesn't need to be discarded when the brushes wear out.

As for radios, most people have gone over to 2.4GHz, with 27MHz only really being used on very low-spec cars, or by people who like running their vintage cars on vintage radios. Which to me makes 40MHz more desirable than ever, as it is far less prone to interference than 27MHz, and hardly anyone uses it anymore, so finding a clear spot frequency is easy, even at a busy meet. But as you say, it is hard to get the gear nowdays.

[Boothy]

Hello,

Thanks for the swift reply, do the tamiya esc's have a nimh cut out? Looks like I need to get my hands on a couple of acoms 40mhz receivers. I will have to keep my even the bay.

Andy

[XV Pilot]

To my knowledge, most if not all Tamiya ESCs have LiFE cutouts, which are not perfectly calibrated for NiMH, but are close enough for our purposes.

Most other manufacturers offer ESCs with NiMH and/or LiPo cutouts. These are the battery types used by most hobbyists these days, so it is a mystery to me why Tamiya continues to calibrate their ESC cutouts for LiFE. Maybe LiFE batteries are very popular in Japan?

[Boothy]

So I am guessing I just run it down until it starts to judder?

[XV Pilot]

Aye, if it cuts out when you give it full throttle from a standing start, time to go and recharge.

[Boothy]

Great stuff, I did not realise that was what that was when it did that. I was just running them right down till the car was going really slow then started to judder. I am guessing I was running them too low then.