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Mad Ax

The "oops, I broke it" thread

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Too many breakages to mention. Notable ones are my first RC, a Tamiya Lamborghini Cheetah that I steered into the path of my mates Raleigh Chopper in 1981. Second was my Tamiya Grasshopper around 1984 that I hopped up to be a Hornet and made the fatal error of installing a Technigold motor. A rather unsuccessful jump caused the chassis to snap in half. Since then a few touring car and F1 mishaps mostly in the last couple of years.

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Reading through this thread has made me realise how fortunate I have been with my RCs - I haven't had a single incident that I would consider worthy of these pages. When I raced my TT-01s and M-03, I had the usual scuffed bodyshells, occasional cracked hubs and suspension arms, and once I bent an axle on my rally car. However nothing ever went spectacularly pear-shaped. Perhaps I wasn't trying hard enough?

One vehicle that I owned did suffer relatively severe damage, but the incident occurred before I owned it. One of the members of my RC glider club decided to try his hand at cars, so bought a DF-01 Manta Ray, which he drove under a moving fullsize truck. The front half of the car was driven over by both sets of rear wheels, and was quite squashed.

The front wheels, gearbox cover, gears, hexes and one front axle were unsalvageable, but the tub survived, as did the dogbones and shocks. The shock tower was broken but repairable, so I traded him some glider parts for what was left of the car, performed a few minor repairs, and ran it quite happily as a RWD for several years.

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Talk of racing incidents reminds me of the time the carpet tape came loose and my Corally RDX actually went under the carpet. The thing was, I was looking two corners ahead and had the corner of my eye on the car, so I didn't even notice until I reached the end of the main straight and couldn't turn the corner. It made a very interesting ramp that the other cars had to go over to get around the track, until someone managed to unstick the carpet to get it out.

A worse racing incident occurred on a special all-day event. My club usually ran evenings only but once a year they did a special all-dayer on a weekend. I went out in the first race with my TA05, end of the start straight I turned in too early and clipped the barrier and the entire rear right suspension was ripped out. Snapped lower wishbone mounts, bent pins, snapped shock tower, ruined ball studs :(

I retired to the pits, went over to a mate who was selling a used Team Magic chassis, and said "£40 cash and that's my final offer, it's all I've got and I need a chassis to race."

He said "Deal, if you trade me your wrecked TA05." I didn't really want to, as it had a few hop-ups on it and was repairable, but I'd come a long way for a day's racing and didn't want to be sat on the sidelines, so I reluctantly let it go.

I managed to transfer over all my electrics before the next heat and went out for the first time, first lap, turned in too early, hit the corner and ripped the rear right suspension off :angry:

I then discovered that someone had fitted the track barriers incorrectly, with the open edge facing the oncoming cars, so instead of glancing off the barrier, anything protruding (like wheels) gets hung up and ripped off... I called a halt to proceedings after the heat and went in to fix the track so nobody else had to have an expensive day out.

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Today i "broke" my middle finger, getting in a spinning loose driveshaft/universal in my Sand Scorcher.

My finger is not broken but badly hurt, a lot of skin of the front part of the finger is missing and there was a lot of blood...

The worst part is that I feel so dumb and angry with myself for not turning the car off before I lifted it up to check why the left wheel wasn't spinning....

Btw, the Sorcher is OK, :D the grub screw of the driveshaft was loose and the joint was spinning freely.

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Today i "broke" my middle finger, getting in a spinning loose driveshaft/universal in my Sand Scorcher.My finger is not broken but badly hurt, a lot of skin of the front part of the finger is missing and there was a lot of blood...The worst part is that I feel so dumb and angry with myself for not turning the car off before I lifted it up to check why the left wheel wasn't spinning....Btw, the Sorcher is OK, :D the grub screw of the driveshaft was loose ant the joint was spinning freely.

I think this one can break the rule. No Pictures Please!

Glad the car is ok, skin heals, chicks dig scars.

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a great thread. My last accident was last year (haven't had much time to drive this year or there would be sure to be others!). The sand scorcher was one of the wants as a kids, and when I got back into collecting cars around 4 years ago, it was on my list to get. Eventually I did get a re-re, and I decided to custom make a chassis for it from 2 mm aluminium. I also made a gearbox cover and thought why not have a go at a bull bar.

Well, it ended up taking me around 1 year to make the chassis and built it up, although I used another body I'd bought off ebay. Now, when I drive I usually have the kids with me and they were riding their bikes, which can make driving the cars a little interesting. Also of note is that I found the sand scorcher hard to control and ended up rear ending my sons bike tire while he was stationary. Luckily it was mainly the nose cone and the bull bar that was damaged.

Sand-Scorcher-Build08.jpg

bullseye! I got the bike tire dead on by accident

Sand-Scorcher-Build14.jpg

I have another one of note that involves a Celica LB Turbo and some rocket engines.

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The worst part is that I feel so dumb and angry with myself for not turning the car off before I lifted it up to check why the left wheel wasn't spinning....

If I could have a penny for every time I've done this, I'd be a rich man. Or have a lot more Tamiyas.

My current favourite habit is driving a car from my house to my garage, usually while trying to carry 3 hands worth of stuff in a single hand, and the controller in the other, then stopping at the garage to lift the car over the step. I always think it's a good idea to try to trap the controller under my elbow before I bend down to pick up the car, and almost always manage to snag the throttle on something just as I pick the car up.

And if I could have a penny for every time I've said "I'm not going to do that again"...

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AAAAARGH!!!! 

Today's plan was to post a thread about my latest, greatest new acquisition.

It begins many years ago, when some mates bought Traxxas E-Maxx trucks.  I'm not a fan of RTR, Traxxas styling or anything they embody, but when I had a play, I was swayed.  I couldn't afford one then, and focused my moneys on Tamiya instead.

The story advances when a mate upgrades to a Brushless E-Maxx, with the Castle Creations Mamba Monster setup.  What a beast!

The next chapter arises when he decides to sell of most of his collection to fund his racing habit.  He offered me the CC E-Maxx, but the price was too steep for me.

We met up on Christmas Eve for a day of general tomfoolery and fun, and he spots some furniture I'm getting rid of.  He's furnishing his new flat.  A quick conversation ensues and suddenly I'm the proud owner of a used but well loved brushless E-Maxx, a load of furniture is gone, and I'm a fair few pennies lighter into the bargain.

Work and weather have conspired to prevent me from taking the beast out into the fields since then, but today I finally had a spare lunchbreak while the sun was shining, so I popped out to the local bashing ground to give it a try.

What a truck!  Sooo fast, so stable, so forgiving.  Awesome.  Just what I've always wanted.  After years of dealing with Tamiya's temperamental reliability, often lacklustre performance, or fragility when made to go fast, it's nice to own a single truck that can just be charged up and run without any care or thought.

Or so I thought.

After 15 mins of playtime, it did an unexpected forward roll.  It landed on its wheel but wouldn't move, making a strange clicking sound.  I figured I'd damaged the gearbox.  Not the end of the world, it'll be repairable.  Things break.  Hey-ho.

I get closer to and a cloud of smoke issues forth from under the shell.

Cursing, running, expecting a LiPo fire, I picked it up to find it cold and dead.  LiPos intact.  Smoke curling out of the Mamba Monster ESC.  :(

Fortunately it got hot enough to desolder the + connector before it blew the batteries or melted the chassis, but the ESC is toast.  I tried touching the + wire back on but it just spits sparks and smoke, so it must have shorted internally.

The motor still spins (although it's quite noisy, but was apparently always like that) - but the ESC is the single most expensive component, a used one goes for pretty much what I paid for the truck.

Not a happy bunny today :(

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MadAx, 

I think hobbyking do a 6s ESC.

Dont own one, but have heard good reviews.

Mine all have the Castle system in them.

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Got myself a Hobbywing ezrun Max8 on order - has higher power rating than the Mamba Monster for a much lower price, hopefully it'll be up to the job :)

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In November I sold my second motorbike (XT660Z Tenere) after I finally got my GSX1400 registered in Germany and learning green landing is completely illegal here :(.

So with some free cash I bought something I had hankered after for a while...a Baja 5B. I looked for used but in the end bought a King motor clone. 

First trip out (after a careful pre run check) I want to keep it civilised to run it in softly...I hit a divot which launched it 3ft in the air and in a roll. It landed hard on the back corner and as I was 20 or so meters away thought I would bring it back for a look before carrying on. It moved about 1m then revved without moving. It turned out It had sheared a steel link from the A arm to the rear hub. Me spinning the motor hand launched the driveshaft into the field somewhere so play stopped until I could get a replacement (which took 6 weeks as it was lost in the mail). Then the weather set in and I haven't run it since. Total usage...3 minutes 23 seconds according to the timer in my Tx :(

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I first got into RC Cars in 2002. Had a Tamiya RTR then an HPI RTR 1:10. I thought i'd mastered the art of RC Car wrangling so had a HPI Sprint for Christmas. That had bad bad habits of hitting curbs and taking front suspension uprights out, then the belts, then the waterproof ESC.. Touch wood as a more so called mature 45 year old I bought the RR Brat and so far its stood up to hoon-ing around and i'm impresses. Only breakage of late is actually an abs sensor on the Car touch wood.

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19 hours ago, richb77 said:

In November I sold my second motorbike (XT660Z Tenere) after I finally got my GSX1400 registered in Germany and learning green landing is completely illegal here :(.

Good choice - I always wanted a GSX1400, since one overtook me on a local bypass back in 2002 when I was riding my VFR400.  I finally bought one in late 2015 with a payout from an old claim.  Two months later I hit a big stone on a roundabout and slid it down the road, putting scratches on the tank, light, mudguard and exhaust.  Fortunately it has engine bars which saved it from more serious damage.

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