My Maverick ION MT project Brushless!

[bosq]

Below some pics of my newest modification. I used metal steel gear (exportpro no. 28600) and duratrax miniquake ball diff + alu shaft.





After several packets I can say that it works well. The only problem was with the shaft too short (but I had the same problem with stock setup - I think shafts are 0,5-1mm too short in general) - just added 2 plastic washers to make offset between gear and bearing on the center shaft and make gear fit tighter so that it does not skip some teeth.

[ostewart]

Ftx colt gears are metal and should fit. I've got a few alum bits that should fit for sale in the fs section if you want to take a look

[jehosophat]

Just out of interest, has anyone tried the "stock" brushless system (under the "Himoto" or "Iron Track" brands and possibly others). I am pondering ordering a replacement whole car, given my ION XB RX/ESC has died and much of the car is quite tired, and looking at the Himoto "spino" buggies (which seem the cheapest way of getting effectively a new ION) the standard is

Edited March 13, 2015 by jehosophat

[bosq]

Stock system is the same as leopard and other. It's just weaker KV as far as I remember.

Stock:

Leopard for example:

 

http://www.asiatees.com/display?Himoto-Mastadon-Parts-Hop-Ups-Upgrades&brand=Miscellaneous&model=All&id=60653&pid=1

 

... the same

 

Costs: original spare: 40usd. leopard 19usd.

 

To be honest now instead of buying stock (even brushless) I'd go for building myself using upgrades where needed and stock where it could stay. Only several parts is reliable from stock car. From whole this thread you can easily see what is needed and I'd bet most of these reliable parts are still in good shape in your old one.

 

I have 4800KV leo and it gets hot, but I drive it with crazy offroad a lot and never had failure. Stock brushed was burned after first contact with grass, so no comparison at all. As stock BL is lower kv it will not get even so hot most probably. Stock BL motor is also some clone, but a good one.

 

edit: but in fact i'd never buy this car second time...

Edited March 14, 2015 by bosq

[jehosophat]

Thanks. I decided to go with the factory brushless car (Himoto Spino) - the

[bosq]

 

 It's just a shame the standard motor connectors/wires and ESC don't seem up to it, I'm hoping the brushless one is better in this regard. Looks like it still uses Tamiya connectors so that may be an obvious early upgrade. 

Yes, thats so true. Everything is better than brushed. If I were smarter I'd return to shop the truck after first brushed motor burned down (or at least put many reklamations so that it is not cost neutral to them).

 

When installing alu center shaft make sure it is not too short (small conical gear at the end of shaft shall almost touch diff housing in optimal state - otherwise put some plastic washers or they (gear teeth) will get damaged soon with BL setup - the same inside diff housing - small plastic washer made a trick and stock diff is undestructible now - unlike the version without tightening).

 

Regarding shocks - all tests led me back to stock ;P - the only change is oil - with 1300 shock fluid they stopped leaking and work pretty decent. And I glued together whole bottom end.

 

The only problem now I have is pinion gear which is consumed too quick. If the pinion gear chamber would be dustproof at least Id oil that. Dry friction is killing for this part whatever its made of (tried alu, brass and stock plastic - I havent find steel unfortunatelly - if someone knows - please link)

Edited March 16, 2015 by bosq

[jehosophat]

The "Spinon" brushless arrived - the instructions for the ESC looked pretty complicated (I don't mind spannering, but electronics scare me) but it was all set up out of the box - I'm running it standard for a bit before adding the pointless but pretty gold "upgrades". 

 

It is a little bodged compared to the brushed car - the receiver sits atop the battery cover and pushes the body up, but the ESC and wiring look a million times better than brushed stock. The motor gets pretty warm but the wiring and connectors don't. It looks pretty identical to the ION XB otherwise as you'd expect, though I noticed the pinion is metal not plastic and not greased - weirdly as the ION was originally greased despite that being plastic/plastic. I added some Teflon grease to that and the driveshaft ends as I run it in pretty clean conditions. 

 

I don't know what KV the standard brushless motor is, but it's plenty for the car. On new tyres it is all over the place on dry tarmac, with the short wheelbase the rear is trying to overtake the front - a lot! You have to build up to full throttle very slowly and it is often on a costant slight slide. Reminds me of when I had a "full sized" caterham on crap tyres on airfield concrete. I may try some traction compound on the tyres off the ION XB spares mule, which are nearly slick.

 

I ran my stock GT14B sport afterwards and performance wise it was totally pedestrian compared to the Spinon - although very stable. I tried a decent NIMH battery in the Spinon and even the (presumably low rated) standard brushless motor wants more than it can give, it was much slower so I think I'll sell my NIMH sticks - or convert to saddle packs for the GT14B - along with the TX and other bits from the XB I won't need as spares.

 

Does anyone know if you can easily get some semi-slick tyres, more like the GT14B standard ones, for the ION XB/Spinon? That would sort me out... I may need to investigate some form of LSD, for the rear at least, also...

Edited March 20, 2015 by jehosophat

[bosq]

If you wonder: "what is this?"

 

 

It an "upgrade"...

 

This seems to be real upgrade... but how to buy it in EU.

http://www.firelandsgroup.com/product-p/HLNA0163.htm

[jehosophat]

Some interesting finds with the Spinon brushless. It was handling awfully compared to the brushed but otherwise near identical Ion XB, spinning out in a straight line on tarmac, totally unable to handle brushless power. I noticed it was sitting very high on its suspension compared to my GT14B and my old Ion, and assumed that was the brushless setup being lighter. But no - I checked on the Ion and the springs are both shorter and softer than the original and the gold tarty option Spinon ones. So I swapped them over, filled two of the gold shocks with oil as they were half empty on arrival, and hey presto the thing grips like my old Ion XB, just is a lot faster. 

 

Brushless / LiPo run times are insane compared to brushed/NIMH. I don't know how long it lasts as I get bored, but its easily two packs of NIMH in the GT14B, I have never noticed any performance drop, I just swap out the battery after a long run. Good stuff. 

Edited April 8, 2015 by jehosophat

[bosq]

 I don't know how long it lasts as I get bored...

 

Yes, that's true - however I usually rather finish with something broken than with being bored

Edited April 7, 2015 by bosq

[jehosophat]

I'm having some issues now!

 

Firstly both the (2S 1500mah) LiPo batteries are refusing to charge with the "in box" 3s 1A balancing charger. They will show both cells 1 and 2 charging (red light) for a short while then cell 2 goes green, cell 1 will stay red all day, there is nothing in the battery when used. I'm running on my NIMH sticks for now - the standard Maverick 1000mah one sometimes fools the ESC into thinking it has no charge, the upgrade HPI Plazma 1100mah one seems fine, slower than LiPo especially in acceleration but still about the same as brushed (faster than the GT14B with upgraded brushed motor, for example). It happened after about half a dozen charges each, weird - I'm assuming my charger lacks the juice to do the job and have ordered a better one. 

 

Edited to add - darn it, the charger (switcheable 1/3/5A) just came and on any of those settings both batteries won't even start charging - just show full - can they really both have faield at exactly the same time??

 

Edited again to add - actually I think I'm just being a muppet with the new charger which appears to need the balancing cable and the main battery terminals attached to charge, seems to be charging now, trying 3A as not sure these cells can take more. 

 

Second - after an innocuous little frontal crash the transmission jammed solid. I took the body off (I'm using the old ION XB body with holes cut in it for the RX and other bits as the NIMH batteries sit too high for the Spino brushless body) and the bottom of the motor had fallen off, see below. The coil had come forward in the crash - the pinion was half a cm forward! I took the motor out, pushed it back in place, it came off again so I glued the base in place. Nothing else seems damaged, amazingly. Very odd though! At least it gave me a chance to swap in the gold "upgrade" motor carrier, and check out the pinion gears, which seem fine (second and third shots) - the teeth are a similar shape to the 2 new plastic ones I had as spares from my ION. I can't find any way of adjusting pinion mesh but it seems fine...

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2015 by jehosophat

[Tamiyacowboy]

Right 

 

you cannot use a 3s - 1a charger to charge up those 2s 1500mah lipos, thats why the charger is faulting out.

your best bet is to buy a multicharger like a imax b6 or the likes. these chargers will charge lipos and will know what is plugged in

and how it should be charged and how long for, they do cost a little extra but they charge lipo - nihm-nicad and lead acid batterys.

 

as for battery charging. 

 

the lipo battery has a mah reading ie the batterys your using are 1500mah and this shortened down is 1.5a (1.5 amps) 

 

so a 1200mah battery is charged at 1.2a

a 1500 @ 1.5a

a big 5000mah battery will be 5a

 

your pumping in 3a thats twice the battery needs so it will peak charge and shut down at around 25mins

it should shut down after 60mins. 

 

set the charger to 1.5a and make sure its selected to charge 2s lipos (7.4v).

a fully empty battery will take an hour to fill it up , your charger will sence a chemical change in the battery and shut down the charge current.

your battery is full and ready to use.

 

Tips: 

 

when using the mini quake  diffs, have a look and see if they did a mini quake CVD set these will beef up the front and rear drives no end.

 

if you think 6000kv is quick, find a CM2040 castle creation green mini mamba you want the 8000kv model can.

for a good esc you cannot beat the castle 25 ( now the castle sidewinder ), great esc and has lots of tuning to hand.

 

1/10th rims. dont be using rubbish, get good decent rims and GOOD DECENT tyres. if you want to race choose some nice carpet tyres

trust me the machine will become a differnet ball game it runs like its on a rail. BUT you need to tune the steering and shocks.

 

cooling : a few drilled holes in the chassis plate ( dont go stupid here just a handful) under the motor will allow for a suction effect allowing air to be drawn overthe holes

pulling it out of the chassis.  have a look at your body notice that nice lip just before the body slopes into the front window drill 4-5 holes along here. as the wind hits the shield its force up and over but also into the chassis

and its sucked back out through the rear n sides. it also helps parachuting when you jump air is able to escape from the body ( rc bodys act like parachutes sometimes ).

[jehosophat]

Thanks. The in-box charger had a 2S and a 3S socket, but it was clearly at fault as the new charger is doing the job - it took most of a day (on 1A) to do the first pack, a couple of hours for the second, after I had given each about 15 mins at 1A on the NIMH setting in case one cell had got so low it was not charging. 

 

All seems well now - even with that stock 3700KV motor the Spino buggy is pretty mental for my uses! I would not go beyond that on this model, I may upgrade to a brushless Carisma GTB at some stage when this is tired, for now it is great fun. It is chewing through tyres on the road...

[bosq]

 

 

So I got/made hardened steel pinion gear for it, here is more details i posted on that:

 

http://www.ultimaterc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157554&page=66&p=2260059

[jehosophat]

Looks good. Does that finned motor heatsink do much? Is it a standard part? Your motor looks a similar size to mine, which still gets quite hot, more than I'd like even still using my old Ion XB body with loads of holes cut in it, not the HPI Spinon one. My Brass OE pinion still looks like new but I only tend to run on clean surfaces (road and a bit of grass) and run teflon grease and ceramic bike chain lube on it without too much worry of dirt. 

 

After seeing how superior my daughter's Carisma GT14B sport was to the XB/Spinon off road, Just because its a bit bigger and can handle short grass, I looked for another cheap RTR brushless car for the "collection", this time 1/14th scale and something that would use the same batteries as the ION. I got an EMB-1H rather than the more obvious Losi, which seems excellent. As a result I have tried NIMH packs in the Spinon again and it seems to handle a lot better with the heavier packs, not flipping over nearly as easily, and the chassis can handle the power better too - plus the motor stays the acceptable side of warm. I may keep it this way and just use a decent new NIMH pack in it as a "holiday basher" - I don't especially like charging lipos in a holiday house, in mine on a concrete floor in a bag its fine. Sometimes its easier just to leave the pack in the car and charge it that way in a hurry on holiday, so NIMH wins. 

 

Weirdly, the4500 kv 4 pole motor in the much heavier and faster EMB-1H does not get nearly as hot was the stock brushless 3700kv one in the HPI Spinon, using the same 2S lipo packs. The ESC also gives much better throttle response. Probably should have got the EMB-1 to start with... Still, as with mountain bikes, you can never have too many... At least getting the EMB-1H finally prompted me to go to 3.5mm bullet connectors on everything and ditch the mini-tamiyas which the brushless Himoto RTR system still came with. I ordered one of those mini quake ball diffs as well to see if I can get more traction, its in the post...

Edited September 1, 2015 by jehosophat

[bosq]

Looks good. Does that finned motor heatsink do much? Is it a standard part? Your motor looks a similar size to mine, which still gets quite hot, more than I'd like even still using my old Ion XB body with loads of holes cut in it, not the HPI Spinon one. My Brass OE pinion still looks like new but I only tend to run on clean surfaces (road and a bit of grass) and run teflon grease and ceramic bike chain lube on it without too much worry of dirt.

 

Yep, I have hot motor all the time - but no sideeffects - maybe its just that model is. It was colder when I had 12t pinion and stock wheels. With 14 pinion and this upgraded wheels its hot, but nothing happens - so I wouldnt worry about temperature too much - heatsink does the job - it cools at least to the temperature I got no skinburns (like I got several times with stock brushed ).

 

It was fitted for brushed - I had to bend it a bit to fit better this 20mm brushless. Its not fitting too good - I put a lot of copper paste to imrove it. However there shall be some 20mm heatsinks - I've read someone installed them - dont remember where however.

 

The worst about pinion is that the pinion/spur gear chamber is not sealed - a lot of dirt and dust is coming all the time inside - I'd like to see if someone managed to seal it properly and how. If I would manage to put inside proper grease it would work perfectly - now dry friction + dust + dirt is killing for all brass/alu pinions.

Edited September 1, 2015 by bosq

[jehosophat]

Thanks Bosq, I might get something similar. 

 

I'm pleased with the results of using a 1600mAh NIMH overlander in my Spino. The extra weight vs lipos really helps the stability - it definitely jumps better without pointless cartwheels over even small drain covers at speed. And with my stock 3700KV  brushless setup you can barely notice a speed difference over my 1500mAh 25/40C lipos. In fact I turn the power down slightly with the lipos so its about the same, and its at the level where the motor stays acceptable hot through a run. I was bashing with this and my new EMB-1H this week outside the house, and with a 30m cul de sac of tarmac and some low kerbs and small grass patches I use (other people's fornt gardens...) the Spino will brake from speed and turn around in half the space of the EMB-1H, which is mighty quick but I really need to take it somewhere "proper". Just like using the Mini-Z buggy in a really small space, the 1/18th scale has its place for sure. The EMB is mighty up and down the kerbs however, and on grass. 

 

My Mini Quake diff arrived. Need some new tyres next, they are getting eaten by running on coarse tarmac. There's always something to buy...

[jehosophat]

Hi Bosq, did you feel you had to change to the steel gear (28500 I think you said it was, I'd like to know where from if possible) when you added the mini quake ball diff? I finally fitted mine, with the stock centre driveshaft and gears, the mesh looked OK but I don't know if the gear pitch is the same. The car seemed to run smoother and skips no teeth under acceleration, under braking on tarmac there is a clicking sound and the rears lock up a bit - not sure if this is the slipper clutch being given a harder time by more grip (in which case I'll just reprogram the ECU for less brake force) or the gears slipping. In the hand, the gears don't seem to slip if I try and turn the front and rear wheels different directions. 

Also is there a simple way of converting the wheels to a hex fit, since the stock wheels are so pricey? Being able to run the same wheel fit as the EMB-1H would make life easier, and cheaper. 

Thanks!

[jehosophat]

Leopard motor as previously recommended in this thread is now fitted (as are alloy dogbones since this pic was taken) - on impulse I bought the ESC as well, as it was so cheap, I'm glad I did as my Himoto Spino based car (with ION XB as spares mule) has no space for ESC on top - and with the Leopard motor longer than stock, the tiny Leopard 1/18 ESC fits perfectly with just a few mm between the motor, ESC, and servo (stock brushless ESC was much bigger and will go in the daughter's GT14B sport at some stage):

It also turned out the clicking noise was the motor spindle of the stock brushless motor, there is no issue with the stock centre driveshaft and plastic end gears. Yet. I have the alloy one and metal ends ready for when I can be bothered/find time. 

There is always a "gotcha" for someone as inexperienced as me, however, and this time it was pinions. It seems the OEM spino brushless motor, and some of the other Carisma pinions I had laying around, are 2mm  internal diameter. Leopard motor wants 2.3mm. I had some 14T Carisma ones with 2.3mm ID (themselves now useless as the upgrade motor I have for the GT14B is 3.2mm!) but they are .05 module not 0.6 as I understand the Himoto/Mavericks are. In the end I forced on the 13T plastic pinion from the brushed Maverick ION - being plastic, 0.3mm was not an issue... I need to find a decent 0.6 module 14T steel or brass pinion with 2.3mm ID. I now have a bunch of pinions bought for this car and the GT14B's which are unsuitable either in ID or pitch, including a few 2mm ones I'll never need again by the look of it...

For now it runs really, really nicely anyway. The transmission is really quiet on the plastic gear, the motor runs far cooler than the stock brushless and seems more efficient as it runs really well on NIMH, which is what I wanted from this car as a "basher" now my lipos live in the EMB-1H.  It's a bit twitchy and needs more grip so I need to address the wheel/tyre front next as I'm not paying the silly money people want for ION XB wheels/tyres, but I don't want to put on monster truck wheels and need a new servo.

The Leopard brushless motor and ESC are a great little upgrade, thanks for the links. 

 

Edited October 27, 2015 by jehosophat

[bosq]

Regarding brass pinions - just drill them through with 2.3mm -it's fully enough. But that's lost of time - this brass is weaker then stock plastic.

There are alu pinions 2.3 from vendetta, but even weaker than brass. Not recommended.

There is absolutely no 2,3mm steel pinion - I did my own with some adapter this one is indestructible indeed - but requires some work.

[J.Wren]

Hello, I know this thread has been dead for 2 ish years. But im about to build a brushless ion, anyone got any words of wisdom?

Cheers

[Fiend]

See if you can find an old Himoto 1/18 brushless (e.g. Mastadon) and use Maverick for parts (identical except for electrics).

 

Having said that, doing your own brushless conversion might be easier and quicker

[auzzi1]

Has anyone tried a gool rc motor in a maverick ion. 

[iongrandpa]

Does anyone know  if there is direct replacement differential for an ion from banggood or similar, I see someone has used mini quake above but not available where I am.  Do any wl toys ones fit?  I just degreased my badly worn rear diff and locked it up by pumping in hot glue which seems to not affect the turning circle too badly and now the car drives well again. but it would also be good to have the option of going back.

Will locking the rear diff affect the wear rate of other parts of the drive train when useing grippy  tires?

Edited September 4, 2020 by iongrandpa
better worded question

[bosq]

pity this minquake part is not more avasilable ,  I drive it almost 5 years (!) still, maybe it was too good :). Locked diff is terrible in steering, I'd suggest checkin some upgrades, let us know, this is always like searching of treasures :) !