Radio control

[creative]

Originally Posted by .:4:.

Yeah dude. Im a paranoid android when it comes to charging lipo batteries. I will only balance charge. So my 2 3s 4500mah only get done at 4 5A. My 2 4s 6500mah get done at 6.5A. And my 2 6s 4500mah batteries also get done at 4.5A.
So yeah, charge time is around an hour. But, they get a lot longer run time in an rc car then an aircraft.
On 4s i get between 30 or 40 minutes depending for my monster truck. Running it on 6s, its hard to tell. Mainly because its a tad bit too easy to crash.
My short course truck. I dont doubt the batteries, but considering its stock with a pinion and tyres on it, on 3s the thing is awesome but for reasons unbeknown to myself, it overheats and says no.

you wont be getting 6.5a out of a 6bac. ;)

3 min in an fpv quad is hard work! strange to say that but the concentration needed for 10+ batteries back to back is exhausting!

Been tempted to get into rc cars again ( havent raced since I was a kid ) but I have to much sunk into the quads to go down the car route! ( I am toying with selling the quad stuff off though... Im just not sure! )

This was the daddy when I used to race .. I so wanted one of these but the 90's child me, could only dream!

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by creative

you wont be getting 6.5a out of a 6bac. ;)

3 min in an fpv quad is hard work! strange to say that but the concentration needed for 10+ batteries back to back is exhausting!

Been tempted to get into rc cars again ( havent raced since I was a kid ) but I have to much sunk into the quads to go down the car route! ( I am toying with selling the quad stuff off though... Im just not sure! )

I use a 12A traxxas charger for the 6500mah 4s. I have 2 chargers

[.:4:.]

I understand that the title radio control sounds that way. But im surprised people into model railway or slot cars havent chimed in. Its more or less about what you spend your off time doing.

[.:4:.]

So the 1 thing more times then nessisary i check is the gear mesh on the traxxas slash i have. Only because the 1 screw adjustment i reckon is a bit poxy. Ran it yesterday then nothing. Free revved. Instant thought was the grub srew for the pinion backed out. Nope. Motor plate hadnt moved. I had obliterated the plastic spur gear. To be fair, im not nice to it, i give it heaps. So i couldnt find a metal spur when googling the ebays, so using part numbers i ordered another plastic one for $6. Not the end of the world.
I really like how the slash goes. Its deffinately slow compared to my other modified rc car, but im happy to keep this one pretty stock as to not modify the fun out of it. I did today order a cooling fan for the esc to hopefully end its over temp issues.

[DJM83]

I went through a cpl plastic spur gears on my slash before i got the irrits and bought a metal one. Along with many other parts it chewed through

[.:4:.]

So my kid was super exited yesterday to tell me he ran his rc drift car for the 1st time. He's pretty clued on, his initial impressions was its different to what he is used to.
I spoke to him today, he has subsequently run a couple more batteries through it and acclimatised to it and reckons its really fun. I honestly think 50% of his happyness towards the thing is that he got to choose what he wanted without anybody in his ear.
I did ask him if he has crashed it properly yet. He said no, so i told him he isnt trying hard enough.
He knows what i mean, and its not intentionally crash the thing, its find its limits by pushing past them.

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by DJM83

I went through a cpl plastic spur gears on my slash before i got the irrits and bought a metal one. Along with many other parts it chewed through

I could only find plastic spur gears on ebay. But theyre cheap. Atleast its not axles.
With my other rc, the maxx, yeah metal spur in, it murdered axles untill i put pricey ones in and had to do ally hub adapters and 17mm wheel nuts and all that expensive stuff to stop it breaking things. It is not running stock power though. General rule of thumb is more power moves the point of failure down the line.

[.:4:.]

So ive had nothing to do with my kids rc drift car. Thats his project.
He asked me something to do with it today, and i had no idea. Rc drift cars i know nothing about.
So i looked up the model he has and found a very informative video explaining that chassis, the diffs and front to rear bias etc. So i sent it to my kid and said we'd speak after he looked at the video. So it made sense to me, but me being in this case a teaching role, i asked my kid to explain what he now knows about his drift car project. And he explained it well, he learnt a few things.
He contacted me later saying he ran it again, and now knowing it only engages the front wheels under acceleration but only brakes the rears, he is heaps better at driving it.

[.:4:.]

My kid also asked me, because apparently drift rc cars work best on polished concrete, do i know anywhere? Initial answer was no. But then i remembered. I grew up around the corner from where he lives and theres a skate park 1 street away. So the drift car wont be jumping the funbox, backflipping the quarter pipe. But it is polished concrete on the flats. I did give him the heads up to say dont run if people are there. Its a pubic skate park not an rc drift track. But he is keen on that idea to hone in and get some skills before joining a club.

[.:4:.]

My kids pretty stubborn, but kind of in a good way. Ages ago i took all the good parts out of a traxxas rustler i had and gave them to him for his traxxas bigfoot. A bigfoot is just a stampede with a good looking body. So apart from the stampede being a monster truck and the rustler being a stadium truck, theyre for the best part the same. So all the good bits he put in his truck, but not the brushless esc and motor i gave him. I was on him for ages saying it will be heaps better, but he was more of the attitude his stock brushed setup isnt broken yet.
So anyhow, he has now put the brushless gear in and tells me its now heaps fast.
So he threw down a race. Just a drag race on grass, but off the bat wanted to go my heavily modified 6s monster truck on 6s batteries to his with 7 cell nihms.
I said no, so negotiations, round 1 (once i fix it) will be my short course truck on 3s and ill lend him my other 3s battery. I reckon his truck on 3s will get my stock short course truck off the line. Round 2 i proposed his truck on 3s vs my monster truck on 4s (the esc is 4s minimum). That will for him be like taking chopsticks to a steak restaurant.
So no round 3 i dont think. Instead ill slap the 6s in the monster truck and he can thrash about with it.

[.:4:.]

I finally received the replacement spur gear for the traxxas slash i have. In the mean time i ran my traxxas maxx a number of times. No news there, its got all the good bits in it so it goes silly fast and hasn't broken.
The slash, heaps easy to take apart. Swapping the clutch to the new spur and doing that bit, simple. Getting the driveshaft and diff to align, whoever designed it, i want to kick them in the spine. Then the groin when they're down. Yep, a cheap shot, but a crap design.
Whilst the car was down, i received and installed a cooling fan to the electronic speed controller. Again anpther design foible. Stock it would shut down due to overheating.
So test run today, didnt overheat. I really like how it handles. Unlike my maxx, this one is stock bar tyres and i want to keep it that way. Something reliable that i dont need to throw money at. Its not stupid fast, unlike my other one, but plenty fast to just have fun with without lazer focus.

[nearlythere]

A fun and cheap R.C. buggy is HSP. $260ish ebay and brushless. Plenty of grunt but you'll need to have some maintenance experience

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by nearlythere

A fun and cheap R.C. buggy is HSP. $260ish ebay and brushless. Plenty of grunt but you'll need to have some maintenance experience

Hsp is a common brand, thats my segway into 1 major factor when purchasing an rc anything. Parts availability. Granted you dont run the things with the intent to break stuff, but it happens from time to time. So its less unhappy making if you can get parts local as opposed to waiting 6 weeks from overseas.
When i gave my kid money to get his drift car (i knew nothing about drift cars) i asked him to let me know before he made a purchase. He didnt do that. He did it anyways. He bought a team magic ed4mf. Never heard of it. But yeah, a bit of a google, theyre not uncommon and parts can be had from local hobby shops so he did good.
Its an interesting thing to me being a 4wd drift car. So 1 way lsd front, 2 way rear, so it only brakes in the rear. 64%/36% gearing difference rear to front, so you cant run anything but slippery drift tyres otherwise the drive train will bind and things break. He paid (well me, but i was the financial backer) sub $370 but it does have a carbon fibre chassis and threaded shocks.
He likes it, and im happy that parts are available, hopefully not needed.
Maintenance on electric is pretty much checking screws and gear mesh. Its not difficult.

[.:4:.]

So on my monster truck, its been reliable lately. No mechanical failures. Its stupid overpowered etc. The belted tyres on the beadlock rims those have been awesome. Ive never been able to properly wear a set of tyres down on any previos rc car without debeading prematurely and killing a tyre or 2 that should still have heaps of life left.
So not the end of the world as i have a few sets of rims and tyres, but a few days back, at a decent rate of knots i wasnt looking at the speedo, but at a guess +- 100kmh on the grass to concrete change i copped the sidewall hard. So debeaded the tyre and munched the beadlock ring. So yeah, couldnt re seat the tyre as the bead had stretched, 2 screws on the rim bent and the bead lock ring was munted. So the tyre was past the point of being worn in, closer to being worn out.
It was a road tyre, yeah sound dumb running road tyres on an off road thing, but i prefer running them instead of the agressive off road tyres i have for mechanical sympathy. Less constant driveline shock = less breaking ****. Got the new pair of rims and tyres today to replace the stuffed one. But other then that minor foible, which i wouldnt consider a mechanical failure more my own driver error, as stupid as the thing is, its holding up really well.
I will say though, i think i have more fun with the short course truck i have. Its stock bar tyres, its slow, booring in comparison, but slap a battery in it and rip it and theres no worries about breaking anything.

[DJM83]

I really need to get mine out again, i havnt driven it for a while now.

[.:4:.]

So even though i put 2 rew tyres on my maxx, i didnt run it today. Same tyres, less worn, pretty much will be sama same.
I did run the slash. I like that thing.
I run pretty tame tyres on it because when i bought it my initial plan was to modify the crap out of it. But i changed my mind. The maxx is modified to the 9's, the slash is staying stock. So im in the thought process of more agressive tyres for the slash.

[.:4:.]

So you dont need a degree in rocket surgery. I had my suspisions this would happen with my monster truck, but i didnt think it would go down like last i had electronics let go, and act like a suicide bomber and take other bits with it.
So a 6s esc capable of 25.2v connected to a 4s motor that should be running 16.8v, yeah, the motor wasnt going to last forever. But when it grenaded it also blew up the esc.
So i had 2 options. Didnt go with option 1, and that was put the 4s esc back in and just order a new motor. I went with option 2, order 6s esc and a bigger motor.
I am a sucker for punishment.

[.:4:.]

Got the new esc and 6s motor today for the monster truck. The motor is considerably larger, as in it only just fits. So ive only got it test fitted at the moment because i need to be in a patient mood to button everything up. Heaps of small screws and stuff like the motor temp sensor is a real headache to fit. And its raining anyways so i cant run it today even if i did get it all in. Should go fast.

[.:4:.]

I did end up getting bored and buttoned up all the bits for the 6s motor in what should be a 4s monster truck.
So its all same same but the motor is different. I had a vxl6esc in it before but just a 4s motor in it. Now its same (part wise) esc but the 6s motor.
Its a bit different. The 6s motor is considerably heavier, so handling is actually better. Power delivery, thats the surprising thing. So the 4s motor with a 6s esc on 6s battery was lightning off the line, a bit hard to handle really, but at about 100kmh would taper off and then it would take time to gear out at 131kmh.
Thats gps speed, i have a gps thing in that rc car.
The 6s motor, i wouldn't say its doughy off the line, but it starts off soft then ramps up and just keeps on going untill it gears out. So same esc, gearing and everything but the motor. 141kmh and 140kmh on the gps speedo.
So yeah faster on the top end, a bit of a softer start, but i kind of like that. Less driveline shock, so less of the launch then nothing, ie driveline breakage. Higher chance of hitting stuff at speed and catastrophic breakage. But hey, thats what i have the stock short course truck for. Its not fast, but its fun and you really have to put in an effort to try and break parts on a stock rc.

[.:4:.]

So, not thats its been an issue yet, but with the amount of cash thrown at my monster truck i thought hmmmm, cooling may be a cheap insurance policy. So i ordered a heat sink for the motor with 2 cooling fans for $15 off shebay. The seller messaged me straight back asking what rc its for as, whilst he put it more politely, hes jack of people ordering the wrong crap and making returns.
So yeah kits what fits the motor in my monster truck, but the motor shouldnt be in that chassis. So the seller says he doesnt know if the kit will fit that motor in that chassis. To be fair, great transparency. But it was all on me from there, so i ordered the kit anyways.
The seller messages me later saying the heat sinks are good but the fans are ****house and he has better fans.
So i faffed that off, ill be the judge of crappy for a $15 heatsink and dual fan kit.
Well, turns out, heat sink is really nice, worth the $15. Fans were $15 crappy.
Contacted the seller, not complaining, but asking for a recomendation.
Turns out he's a good dude, did me well on aluminium body fans for the motor and one for the esc, also free express post.
So with all 3 fans fitted, the motor fans fitted sweet, the esc fan required a heavy hand, but anyways. Due to torrential rain i havent run the rc car, but when i turn it on it sounds like its about to take off.

[.:4:.]

As i said i would, i gave the shebay seller honest feedback on the fans and fitment. Went forward and back, the bloke just wanted to know more then a return and a bad seller rating as to why they do or dont fit etc. I think 90% of that is theyre polarity sensitive with a bisexual plug and have only black wires. So plug it backwards, it doesnt work.
Anyhow, said seller messaged me at quarter to 2 last monday morning to say he sent me a package. So a freebie. I was half expecting it to be a fart in a jar.
It wasnt, the legend sent me 2 extra fans. Theyre $27.50 each. Cant complain about that at all.

[DJR-351]

Will keep you fit to

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1086156168637383

[wodahs]

RC going EV
https://youtu.be/GIrocZa5fWk

[.:4:.]

Not to much to report on. So the short course truck i decided to keep stock is reliable, not heaps fast, but doesnt break stuff. Yeah it has aftermarket wheels and tyres on it and cooling fans, but still stock everything else. I did make a wiring harness to put the spare fancy ally 21000rpm fans i have on it. It doesnt even need cooling fans at all, but eh.
Odd issue with my overpowered monster truck. Yes its modified to the 9s, but i reckon the stock short course truck is more fun even though its comparatively slow.
So the issue i had with the monster truck, initially i thought I'd munched the centre diff. Thought 2 was stripped a spur, thought 3 was the grub screw on the pinion had backed out. So i was wrong on all 3. Thankfully the centre diff was fine (they're not heaps expensive yet not what I'd consider pocket change). Spur gear, its an upgraded steel wide one, its fine. It wasnt the grub screw for the pinion, the 27 tooth pinion was now a 3 tooth.
I have the bits to sort it, new peanut and a spur just because. But normally upgrades move failures down the line. Going from street tyres to aggressive off road tyres sent the failure point the opposite direction.

[.:4:.]

Like most things in general, when you put bits in that shouldnt be there, even basic maintenance stuff proves to be 10 times more fiddly/frustrating.
Anyhow, replaced the pinion gear in my monster truck and even though side by side with a brand new spur gear the existing one was fine, i replaced it anyways as i was already in there.
So spur gears are easy in that truck. If you have a standard sized motor for that truck pinions too are easy. But me being me i have a physically larger motor out of a ⅛th scale in my ¹/10th. So its a pain in the hole.
Ive run a few batteries through it in the past couple days. When it works, it works good. When it breaks, no comment. I do really like the upgraded fans. Stock fans work, but after 1 battery it gets to the upper warm region, so needs to cool off for a bit before running it again. The high speed ally fans, 1 battery it doesnt sweat it. Back to back it with battery 2, it gets warm, but not as warm as 1 battery run when it had stock fans. So theres a built in temp sensor in the esc, i have optional temp sensor on the motor so its a somewhat more scientific fan comparrison then the back of the hand temp comparison.

[.:4:.]

So today i decided to run my traxxas slash. So the stock short course truck. So lately ive been back to honeymooning my traxxas maxx. Only because its fixed. But that thing, well the sum of the aftermarket parts surpasses the original purchase price by quite a bit. The maxx is stupid fast though.
Anyhow. The slash, that thing is awesome. I like it because its stock but typically doesnt break. Well, not untill today. That being said, i crashed it pretty hard and all it did was pop off a shock cap. Not the end of the world as i have a bottle of shock oil so putting the shock back together was a simple job.
What i like about the slash is, and this might sound silly. Because i have a fast rc car, but having a stocky, it keeps the fun in it. So the slash doesnt have the gps in it or anything like that in it. The only aftermarket electronics are cooling fans, but they're cheap insurance not go fast bits. So i dunno how fast it is, at a guess maybe 60kmh topped out. But, its snappy, handles good and i like it.
The maxx, well, thats more of a because i can kind of thing. I do like it, but ive got that much into it that crash it properly, thats expensive. Stuff like extended suspension arms and all the associated that goes with that. It does have the bluetooths, gps and all the other sensors. It gears out at 141kmh on the gps. The maxx isnt on the stock 4s esc or motor. And tyres. So even before i ran the slash out of the box, i put on aftermarket mounted tyres and rims. Thats a whatever. You wear out the stock tyres you'll change them anyways.
So before i threw bulk power at the maxx, i had already put in the gps doodle and gears. Didnt like how unpredictable the stockys were as theyd balloon and just unsettled things. So belted tyres on beadlocks was the way forward. It gps'd 79kmh. 6s esc and battery on the 4s motor upping the 26t pinion to a 27t. 130kmh. I knew this, so no comment, when the stock motor grenaded it took out all the electronics bar the gps.
So new steering servo, new reciever, new telemetry expander, new esc, new motor. It was like a breand new rc car! This time was with the 6s motor that i complain about but do really like. When i say it tops out at 141, its not a claim that its done it once, thats its ceiling. Its hit that more then enough times.

[.:4:.]

Hmmmm. So after last rip in the short course truck the clutch was slipping. Slipper clutches are supposed to do that, they're a traction aid. Anyhow, it was slipping pretty bad. Checked it today. I typically run slipper clutches tight to lock them up as i dont race rcs cars. Clutch assembly exploded. So much for the reliable stock rc car. Parts are on the way, but upgrades. So hopefully i dont speak too soon again.

[.:4:.]

Got all the bits to sort the clutch out for my short course truck today. I will start by saying its much easier in theory to do then actually doing it.
So, could have just ordered the stock preasure plate and clutch pads. But instead i ordered all the factory upgrade bits for the bigger clutch setup. Reason being, they come in kits not individual parts, and if the thing stock can roach a clutch, for an extra 5 or $6, eh, cheap insurance hopefully.

[.:4:.]

A couple runs on the new clutch, it does what its supposed to. Only minor issue was my fault. Unrelated to the clutch assembly. The 1 screw i forgot to check was probably the most important. The one for the motor plate. So i set the gear mesh, and forgot to nip up that screw. Not the end of the world. Chewed the pinion gear up, but they're cheap and easy to get. Up untill then the thing went good.
Also replaced the front tyres on my monster truck. I run belted tyres as theyre way more predictable on an off roader that goes twice as fast as its supposed to, but one of the front tyres snapped a belt. So at high speed having 4 tyres that dont balloon is good. At high speed when 3 dont balloon and 1 does, it makes the truck very unstable and hard to keep in control.

[.:4:.]

So since replacing the fronts on my monster truck, i gave it a run today. Main reason it took me this long was just my attitude. So its modified to the 9s, when i thought it was fully sorted it was fine, then as common sense denotes, it wasnt.
So ran it today. All tyres behaved beautifully. Im back to liking this thing again. On the mad thrash, esc temp stayed low, 68° max, motor temp on the mad thrash peaked at 94° but dropped quick when not flat out to the mat out. Fancy upgraded cooling fans do their job pretty good in my opinion. I was a tad bit surprised not only that the gps still works, but on a lipo thats been sitting for a few weeks it still clocked 139kph.