EdwarddR

Hi All I have an FTX Carnage 2.0 and my sons have an FTX Vantage each (the 1.0 and the 2.0, both stock, brushed vantages). We have been bashing around generally in the garden or front driveway or sometimes nearby park (also tried cricket club, and skate park). My main problem is that we all get a lot of gunk and small gravel (size of lentils) getting into the cars. They seem to be very suceptible to letting in dirt. The boys do like to drift in the gravel driveway or try to do power donuts. It gives me 2 problems: 1. The spur gears and pinion gears get stripped by the small gravel bits. I've replaced in the Vantages at least 5 times total (with RW hardened acetal) and in the Carnage I've junked those gears and put in 32 dp hardened steel gears instead. Problem is caused by an opening or gap under the gear housing, under the driveshaft. I try to put some modelling tape under the driveshaft gap, that 90% works but some stuff still gets in anyway. 2. The brushed motors over time get a lot of dirt inside. Don't get me wrong we brush and wash our 3 cars every Sunday after the 2 or 3 runs, so they are clean and dry on the garage shelf for a few weeks until the next runs. I put WD40 over the electrical parts including the motor. Because I got some smoking and excessive sparking, I took out a motor and 'washed' it and WD40 it (and dried and lubed it) and it was an eye-opener how much gunk there was inside. Glad I cleaned it, working smoother now. There is a rectangular opening in the chassis, where the brushed motors sit, and there are significant gaps around the motor, and plenty of vulnerability to pick up more gunk. I have also tried putting gaffer tape over that opening, but this just shifts the problem around: because now the upper surface of the gaffer tape has all the gunk, still getting into the engine, via the slots where the plastic propeller whirls (below the brushes), and said gunk doesn't fall out the chassis anymore. Is it me or are these 2 vulnerabilities design flaws? I mean I never intended to use these buggies in an indoor handball court on a carpet. They were bought for playing outside ... Any tips / advice / recommenations on how to minimize these 2 problems? (gravel in spur gear, and excessive gunk getting into motors). thanks! - Ed ------------------- Carnage 2.0. Stock + upgraded to 2S Lipo Vantage 1.0 Stock Vantage 2.0 Stock

Yeah sorry I was not clear I have stock FTX 550 motors (15T) What I meant is, I hobbled his Vantage by swapping the stock 23t pinion gear for a 17t pinion gear, with resulting -25% RPM (but increased torque). Thanks for the tips 😉

Hi So I measured one of the 2 FTX motors (the Vantage) using the 'drill press' method with my dremel (I can set from 3,000 to 30,000 RPM) directly coupled to the 550 motor, driving it as a generator. RPM are using a proper tachometer. And I consistently got: Kv = 2900 Please note these measures are to +/- 5% only. Range of RPM was 2,800 - 20,000 and range of V was 1.0v to 6.9v. Motor is a stock FTX 550 shipped with the Vantage (15 Turn), it has only been used about 2 months or 20 sorties. YMMV. I tried to measure the no-load current and the Stall torque but I need to find a better (safer, and more reliable) way to do that or I need an extra pair of hands. I might try to do that again on a rainy day in winter, we'll see (I have other 550 Motor: Carnage 2.0) ------- For the Steering Servo I opted for a CORE-RC 9016 MG from MS https://www.modelsport.co.uk/core-rc-9016mg-servo-9kg-16-sec/rc-car-products/388927 rationale: 9kg/cm, and metal gears. And in budget. cheers, - Ed

Broken Steering Servo (stripped) Anyway, learning the ropes here, earning some stripes, and D.S. is doing a (good) (bad) job at crash-testing the Vantage. Broke a lower rear suspension A-arm (and lost the dogbone) - fixed that then Bent the front shock absorber shaft - fixed that (whole shock absorber) also constantly getting gravel in spur / pinion gear housing (which I've taped up). Then I 'detuned' the Vantage from 23T to 17T (to go 25% slower for him). Not very fair since my Carnage 2.0 is quicker (but at least isn't as damaged from collisions). Built some ramps, got airborne Now he's broken the steering servo on the Vantage. It kind of got stucky or jammy or a bit jittery around center set point, didn't steer effectively in one direction. I tried the basic checks, calibration. After I removed the servo and took a good look in it, turns out one of the white spur gears is partially stripped in one section (the outermost spur gear, they are in a set). Ho - hum, I'm going to upgrade the steering servo. And teach him not to collide so much with things. Or supervise him better. Any good recommendations for steering servos from MS but under £15 ? I'm thinking a 4.5 to 6kg / cm servo is fine. I don't know if analogue or digital is needed. Oh - and is it necessary to go metal gear now, for steering servo? A bit sorry that the 'servo saver' didn't do it's job and absorb the impact. It had 1 job.... thanks, - Ed

I'm going to try to measure the stock FTX 550 (15T) brushed motor myself, on a test bench (we have 2 : Vantage and Carnage 2.0). I have a tachometer (ebay). I'll report back measured values when I've done that.

Hi Measured off my Carnage 2.0, rear dogbone: 100mm overall also 94mm c-c between the stick-out pins part no. FTX6323

Hi Can anyone point me in the direction of a datasheet for the stock FTX 550 brushed motor (15T)? like peak current draw & max torque (under stall), max efficiency RPM, current and torque., KV etc. I totally understand not all the FTX parts will be identical (sourced cheaply) so I'm just looking for a representative ballpark or the datasheet of a functionally equivalent, branded, swap-out motor. Because I like to do the maths on the electrics 😉 and I'll have a baseline when I upgrade my batt, ESC and to brushless. An internet search yielded - nothing, no datasheets. Loads of pages on sizing and gearing your brushless, and why my mamba is better than your castle/traxxas/etc, but no datasheets for the stock 15T 550 Brushed. thanks - Ed

Hi If you're looking at going down a couple of teeth on the Pinion gear, there are actually a lot of options. The key is to match the pinion and spur gear pitch : you need 0.6 mod that fits on your 3.2mm bore. Here is a listing from RW available from ModelSport: you can choose if you like 14t, 15t or 16t https://www.modelsport.co.uk/index.php?CategoryID=9920&SubCategoryID=992050&MSAttributeID[41]=647&MSAttributeID[110]=1246&ManufacturerID=48 However I have no idea if that will help solve your root cause, which might not be the gearing - could be something else. I'm just new here.

Hi 2 total n00bs here, Eddy & Son. I got my DS an FTX Vantage brushed and he's very happy. He's only 8 though. Because I wanted to do it together (and I never got one when I was a kid, I got Airfix, books, legos and such) I got an FTX Carnage 2.0 brushed. Also very happy 🙂 DONE: spur gear stuck (pea gravel). So - taped up the spur gear gap / hole on Vantage and also on Carnage. Also these cars too quick for 8 year-old. Basically whizz around on full throttle until smacks something, or cooks the battery. I couldn't find a good way to rate limit the throttle. So I taped a lego spacer onto the Transmitter handle to rate limit the trigger. So down to about 60% speed. Modified both sticks, to be fair to him. Still plenty fast enough for 8-year old D.S. I'm ordering some spares (pinion and spur gear, suspension parts) because I don't see this lasting until Christmas without accident, breakages and tears. So yeah, Hi, we're new here, I like the forum, thanks for this great thread.