MrPeaski

Same here with a simple pair of 3D printed axle stands

@everclear1984 mentioned 3D printed pistons, it was me that created the files. In essence, it made the hole/cut-out in the piston bigger giving more oil flow from the supplied stock oil which appears to be 30wt or around 300cst. The pistons were an improvement over the stock ones making the suspension more supple over stutter bumps etc at faster speeds. Unfortunately, I couldn't just leave them alone and tried to mod the top cap to imitate the G-Made Aeration shocks by drilling a hole in the top and fitting a screw to bleed any air out. It wasn't successful as the screw wouldn't seal and oil seeped out and let air back in. Hence my decision to replace with the real thing! Reading @Jack Reacherpost a bit earlier, it seems the RTR shocks have different pistons to the kit version. He mentions them as being white nylon/PTFE where the kit versions are black and have to be cut from a parts sprue. If Jack could post a picture, we maybe able to advise a mod to these, as I'm sure they'd be smoother running than kit version

@Jack Reacher Looking good👍 If you read through this thread, there are a couple of options mentioned for alternative shocks. I went a different route (previously posted) and fitted some G-Made Aeration shocks. They work fantastic as a trip to the beach a couple of weeks ago tested. Over wet sand ripples the body stayed level and the wheels tracked the bumps so much better than the stock items. Only thing is they are a hassle to fit as in all fairness they are a little too big diameter wise.

@whitecitadel Yes, I put a single thickness paper shim cut from a piece of 80gsm plain white printer paper, under the bearing carriers. It has basically spaced the gear wheels apart by 0.1mm and eliminated the slight binding mine had. It may over time, bed in and not need it, but I haven't had any problems with it and they're still in now. It could be just moulding tolerances are a little tight in either the carriers or diff case

Similarly to @Stormbringer the CA/Instant Cement 'glue' in my kit was blue. If you open it and give it a (careful) sniff, it smells like thread locker. I used it on all of the metal to metal parts that were screwed together. Nothing was used on any of the metal to plastic parts. When assembling any of the plastic rod ends, I used another matching kit screw/bolt to start the thread off, before screwing it in to the proper part. For things like the 4 link bar it makes things a lot easier. Enjoy the build 👍

The internal dimension of the battery tray is 140.6mm on mine. My original plan for the paint job was to replicate the yellow Mansory G-Class so the roof and bonnet/hood were supposed to be carbon, but my test paints looked nothing like carbon so its a metallic black instead. The side stripe didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped as most of it it hidden by the body side mouldings. Apart from that I'm happy with it and the yellow is really bright and deep.

For some of the window surrounds, there are external decals provided for the windscreen and rear window rubber and also side rear windows but they were a bit confusing as to how they went on as they didn't seem to fit that well. There are also smoked decals for the rear window and rear side windows (see my pic above) It was probably on page 2 of @everclear1984 where you saw the Absima hard case battery. That is a 3S lipo. 138 x 46 x 35 mm Mine is a Gens Ace Bashing 2S 5500mAh and has similar dimension of 139x47x25mm. From that my longest run so far has been for about an hour at the beach, on both soft dry sand, firm wet sand at both high and low speeds, along with rock crawling on the big stuff and bimbling through a boulder field. At the end of it I had around 40% left so used that as its storage charge.

@whitecitadel to answer you question about my motor...Yes liking the Reedy 16t 5 pole. on 2S it gets a decent turn of speed in the high gear, but a really slow steady crawl in low. However, I have no real comparison to anything else as the last time I was running any kind of brushed motor was over 20 years ago and my only dalliance with brushless was in a FTX Carnage (truggy) last year which I sold shortly after buying due to a lack of space and the local doggies trying to chase it! For paint, I used 1.5 cans of the yellow main colour, 1 can of the black and 1 can of silver to back everything. The DC-1 is a chunky beast and mine comes in (with a 5500mAh 2s hardcase LiPo) at just over or just under 3.4kg depending on what wheels are fitted.

@whitecitadel If you haven't already spotted, both of the Radiolink TX's I mentioned have a 10 model memory and also both purchase links come with 2 receivers. The link for the RC6 GS mentions at the 'whats in the box' part 1x R6FG Gyro Receiver 1x R6F Standard Receiver but mine actually came with 1 x R6F receiver and 1 x RC7FG, and the TX was the V2 version where the picture is the V1 (I got mine from the link above) The RC7FG receiver is a 7 channel RX, which has a built in gyro (if you need it, and is switched off by default), but also has telemetry capabilities. It comes with a cable (XT60 connectors) that sits in between the battery and ESC and when set up, sends the main battery voltage to the TX so you can see at a glance how much you have left. Only slight snag is with the RX and and all the cables going into a tiny box, things can be a bit snug and awkward to fit. Must admit I tried the telemetry feature (had to do a simple TX firmware update), before fully fitting everything in the RX box and while useful decided not to use it. It was a bit easier to get everything in the RX box, and as its in a crawler its not like the car will be miles away from me.

For the speed controller, I (and probably the other builders here) would recommend the Hobbywing Quicrun 1080. The 1060 you mention is a cheap (but as far as I'm aware) reliable 'do it all' ESC. The 1080 is specifically designed for crawlers and is very tuneable so you can set it up to suit how you prefer. It comes with the programming card to do so. A video of the various features and how to set it up can be found here (also mentioned a bit earlier in this thread)

Just a quick comment on Radios, Have a look at the Radiolink RC4GS for a 4 channel set up, so you have the 3 needed plus 1 'spare' for a light switch or winch, or as I am using the Radiolink RC6GS 6channel setup. At the moment I am only using 4 of the available channels, but may use the other 2 in the future. Purchase links here (no affiliation) 4 Channel https://wheelspinmodels.co.uk/i/315778/ 6 Channel https://wheelspinmodels.co.uk/i/315779/

Hi @whitecitadel, have a read of @everclear1984 build thread here and also @Stormbringer build thread here For pretty much the definitive guides on building the DC-1 I referenced both while building mine so was able to iron out any kinks they found during my build. Welcome to the club 👍

I got mine from Hobao direct in the US at $18.50, with a shipping fee of $10..00 Then a couple of days later an email saying that the shipping fee had been an estimate and was now $25.00, so in all ended up being $43.50 which was around £32 Still bought it though, but probably wouldn't do it again at that price

When I did this in March this year, I was doing it in my garage and it was quite cold. I set up a pasting table and made a 'booth' out of a couple of large cardboard boxes and set up a small fan heater (on low) to blow into the 'booth' from about 1.5 meters away. I guessed that overspray could go anywhere so I covered my bikes up with a couple of dust sheets. (it did get through a couple of gaps though) Before starting I put the shell into the booth, with the fan on and left everything to warm up. Each can of paint was left in a jug of hand hot water for about 5 mins and then shaken well before spraying. I did a few light coats, leaving each about 10 mins in the warmth of the booth before re-coating. Once all the painting was done, I brought the shell into the house, and left it in a warm room to dry for a couple of hours before fitting the body mouldings etc. Despite the room being 2 storeys up, the smell did permeate throughout the house, but it was only for a few hours.

It looks better in real life than the pictures. That's a fairly big shell so I used about 1 1/2 cans to get a good even coat and then 1 silver can to back it. As I wanted a black roof and a black stripe (which can hardly bee seen under the side mouldings 😐) I had to mask the whole thing off first, which took ages. There's the odd spot here and there where the masking wasn't quite tight, so a bit of faint black got under, but overall I'm happy. The black originally was going to be a carbon effect, but my practice pieces didn't turn out as I'd have liked so didn't risk ruining the shell

Here's my Hobao DC-1 Rattle cans Core RC Yellow Taxi (CR601) Backed with Core RC Metallic Silver (CR621) The black is Core RC Metallic Graphite (CR620

I found this the other day, thought it might help the kit builders with setting up the Hobbywing 1080 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMjtsGJlYVM

I've been a little busy with mine recently. Despite having made replacement shock pistons which have made an improvement, I thought it could still be better. So......I decided to try and mod the shock itself. I quite like the Gmade XD piggy back shocks as I mentioned earlier in this thread but reasoned that they wouldn't fit due to the way the shock are fitted to the DC-1 My attention turned to the Gmade Aeration shocks instead (http://www.gmade.net/xd-aeration-shock-93mm-2/ ) so set about modding the top cap of the stock shock. Basically I drilled a tiny hole in the top cap, overfilled the shock and then pushed the shaft to top and fitted a tiny screw. The first one seemed ok, so I did the rest. Unfortunately, the tiny screws didn't seal very well, so the oil wept past and air got pulled in. No amount of thread lock or superglue would stop it happening. Gave my self a slap and bit the bullet for new shocks. A couple had been recommended, like the Traxxas TRX4 GTS shocks or Element RC FT enduro shocks, but i decided to ignore that and get the Gmade Aerations instead. First things to notice is they are so smooth its unreal. Got them set up at low pressure so the shock shaft actually gets pulled in without a spring fitted! Secondly they are big! I got the 93mm version so lengthwise they are the same, but the body is 14mm in diameter compared to the 10mm of the kit body. And that's where things got.....interesting . The lower mount doesn't fit as the included ball joint is too big, swapping it for the stock one makes it loose in the 'eye' so changed the whole eye/ball joint for the stock ones. The top mount doesn't fit (I can feel another slap coming here) as the body is hitting the shock tower well before it meets the mounting point. After a bit (lot) of head scratching I came up with an alternative, that I designed and 3d printed. It took 10 iterations, but finally settled on something that works Here is one of the fronts. The white bit is one of the spare pistons, I'm using as a washer to hold it in place With a stock one (and failed mod) for comparison The only thing I have noticed is that the shocks are not completely vertical, and are further out at the top compared to the bottom (view from the back) I have yet to give them a proper run, but bashing around the garden, they are very smooth and the body now doesn't seem to lean to one side when it comes to rest. This is with very little preload on the springs, about 5 turn of the collar. Think I was using about 10-15 on the dual rates previously fitted

Anything I can help with?

Sorry dude. Not really my area of expertise. There are a few different things that can affect how the shocks work. Stronger springs/ more preload will generally make the car sit higher. Thicker oil, fewer or smaller holes in the piston will slow the shock down, the opposite speeds them up. Its all a bit of a balancing act. if its too soft you'll bottom either the car or shocks out potentially loosing control, but too firm and it won't react quick enough especially on small bumps ( not meaning jumps). Sorry, but this probably doesn't really help 🙁

Have a read of this article from way back. http://www.rcracer.com/2009/12/how-to-match-shocks/ Another trick if you have a shock that is 'long', open the top cap and dip an Allen key into the oil a little bit. Refit the cap. On a short shock it's surprising how much difference that makes.

Is that your first run with the 3d printed shock pistons. What did you think? Looks like you've got a really good handle on the 3d printing, those ladders look tidy

Great pictures there guys. At the mo, I'm just running around the wooded area around the playing field by the house, there's very little elevation, but can't wait to try something like this

🤣 I could have got more on, I covered about 3/4 of the space in between the inner beads, but just simply didn't have enough to do them all fully. Your solder was probably a wider diameter. Got the scales out (analogue kitchen!) 4 Alloy beadlocks with eBay tyres and supplied foams = 625g (156g each approx) 4 stock wheels with stock tyres and foams weighted with available solder = 550g (137g each approx) The body only with all the details, interior and lights is 600g DC-1 All up weight ready to run with a 5500mAh 2s hardcase LiPo = 3470g (beadlock wheels) As above with weighted stock wheels/tyres = 3395g (weighted stock wheels)

I haven't weighted the beadlocks (yet!) but they are a good bit heavier than the stock unweighted kit wheels. I only had a small amount of solder available to weight the wheels so I divided it into 4 pieces. I think I got about 12 full wraps on the (stock) wheel then put a bit of superglue on and then a wrap of electrical tape to make sure it doesn't move. You can definitely feel they're heavier, but still not quite as heavy as the beadlocks. I'll weight them later and post the difference