Borked

Quite an eventful evening of RC. Met up with my mate with his Arrma Bigrock, his WL toys buggy and my Carnage. Started out poorly with me driving the Carnage into the back of his buggy, bending his rear hinge pin and popping his lower arm out 😔 That was before I even got down the road to say hello 🙄 Good start… Next was a raz around a gravel car park with a couple of islands in the middle. Almost immediately my mate hit a set bag of concrete that someone had fly tipped on the far side of one of the islands. Ripped off his front wheel off the Arrma! Snapped the hub! Nightmare. Been there 5 mins and both his cars were broken. He drove the Arrma around on 3 wheels for a while which was pretty funny and still rapid! Then we attempted to fix the WL toys buggy and do some speed runs. The Carnage did ok, better than I expected. 26mph on 2s and 41mph on 3s. The WL toys buggy was much faster. 40mph on 2s and 60mph on 3s. It could go faster, but it was all over the place because of the bent and poorly repaired suspension. Then the Carnage decided to be 2wd again… The dowel pin from the front of the prop shaft popped out. RWD carnage is super fun though, so just carried on with that for a bit. Then I was drifting around in some gravel on 3s and it just died. I think I’ve popped the ESC. The steering still works but nothing from the throttle. When I plug in the battery and switch it on it doesn’t do its 2s/3s beeps. So 3 broken cars in 2 hours. Bit of an expensive evening!

Or I should say they “can” be tight to push in. If you get decent quality terminals and blocks and crimp tool then they’ll often just pop in, but if you’re using the cheaper stuff I’ve got then there can be a bit of resistance pushing the crimp into the block

yep, what @BigGinge said. They're fiddly because of the size and you’ve never got enough fingers and the fingers you do have are too big 😂😂 Also they’re tight to push into the terminal block, you need a tiny pokey thing. My smallest screwdriver was only just small enough, but was still a bit “fat” - you have to push them all the way to the bottom so you need to fit your poker and the wire in a 2mm hole. It’s easier on thinner wires. Also, like all these things, practice helps a lot. I used to assemble electronics in a factory and did 100s of these types of crimps a week, and could smash through them no problem. Ten years later I’ve lost the knack for it, but did a serviceable job of it after a couple of practice crimps

They crimp very nicely! Terminals: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SPJBL9W Crimp tool: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0969PRT2F There’s definitely a knack to it. I used to crimp a lot of terminals like this when I was a teenager working in an electronics factory, but I forgot how fiddly it can be until I got the hang of it again. The crimp tools we used to use in the factory cost over £100, so these were a bargain for £15!

As you may have seen in the other thread, the postie brought me some receiver/servo terminals and a crimp tool, so I got busy using them! Got a wee little cable on the servo now: Also decided to shorten the motor wires - they were crazy long before, but I think I might've gone a bit short! I'm not very happy with my soldering there either, but at least it's hidden behind some heat shrink: I decided to move the receiver a bit too, as it gives better cable runs for the motor wires: Overall, I'm reasonably happy with it. I think I'll end up re-doing the motor wires at some point, but need a beefier soldering iron first. This is how much I ended up chopping out of the servo and ESC receiver cables, and the motor wires: Also added some "drift stitching" to the bodyshell. I've got a nicer shell, but haven't gotten around to reinforcing it yet, so I just keep this one going! Next job is probably securing the cap pack somewhere sensible.

Haha I remember that. I had an old Thunder Tiger nitro touring car when I was a kid, and when that went of range it just kept going and going and going until it crashed! Ranges weren’t as good back then either, so it was only like 50m away 😂

Some receiver terminals and a crimp tool so I can shorten/tidy my ESC and servo cable mess 😁

After seeing some tidy wiring on this thread the other day, I thought I’d try to tidy the Carnage’s wiring. The main aim was to move the receiver, power switch and capacitor pack off of the upper plate as I remove this quite often for maintenance, and also just make it look a bit tidier. Starting point: I put the servo cable in some heat shrink, gaffer taped it to the bottom of the servo and tucked it all behind. Moved the receiver down to the chassis. The ESC was a bit trickier. The power switch has a bit of an awkward length cable, and there’s not really anywhere for it. I’ve plonked it on top of the servo for now, but I’m not entirely happy with that location. Same goes for the cap pack… the wires are a bit too short for it to go anywhere. Hence it being currently being attached to the battery cable. The motor cables are also a bit too long so I think I’m going to shorten them. I think I’m probably going to find a place for the cap pack on the battery side of the chassis but I’ll need to make the wires longer first. I’ve also got some servo connectors coming so I can shorten the servo and esc receiver cables, rather than just wrapping them up and hiding them.

If you find a good alternative, let me know!

Hi Redback! That’s really interesting about the axial diffs… thanks for the info! I don’t mind spending twice as much is it lasts more than twice as long. I’ve been through at least 3 front diff spur gears, so am certainly interested in upgrades, even if they cost a few quid. I know precisely zero about RC crawlers, I just thought the one at the bottom looked really cool, like a real rock bouncer. Shame it’s not as good as it looks!

I felt exactly the same way, so when I reinforced my Carnage body I spent some time finding out what ShoeGoo actually was. I read somewhere that it’s a polyurethane adhesive sealant, so I looked up other PU adhesive sealants. I ended up using Carbond as it’s a product that I’ve used before (for sticking mounting hardware onto carbon fibre classic mini wheel arches) and it’s PU so it fit the bill. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353166282852 It worked great, but… I chose black and it ended up being VERY messy. The mess was difficult to clean up. I think I ended up having to rub petrol onto the mess on the outside of the body to clean it off. Black was also a bad choice because it makes the body colour darker. I should’ve used white really. In hind sight, I’m not sure if it was really cheaper than just using shoe goo. A tube of carbond is £9, and you get a lot more goo for your money, but what are you going to use the extra goo for? If you cap the end of the tube after then maybe you’ll be able to use it again in a month… if you’re lucky. Shoe goo’s £12 for a small tube, but you shouldn’t need more than that for a body. So actually the price difference is pretty minimal as you’re unlikely to use the rest of the carbond tube. The next issue with carbond (and any other gun tube goo) is the handling. Squeezing carbond out of a gun is perfect for its intended purpose - sticking on body kits and windscreens. But trying to smear it all over the inside of an RC car body with a gun is a massive pain. Shoe goo comes in a little hand held tube that you can easily squeeze out the amount you want exactly where you want it, and all one handed while the other hand holds the body. Next time I do a body reinforcement I’m either going to - look for a smaller tube of alternative PU adhesive sealant - squeeze a load of white carbond into a bowl or something that I can then spatula out into the body - just use shoe goo. It works and it’s not that expensive

Was a mechanical engineer making one off machinery for manufacturing, assembling and testing heavy duty diesel injectors. The type of machines with robotic arms and conveyor belts 😂 Then a few years ago I retrained as a software developer during my free time in the evenings so I could move back to the south east to be closer to family (there’s not many mechanical engineering jobs south east, but doing software you can work from anywhere). I miss the engineering sometimes, but writing software’s pretty interesting and there’s always new and different things to do. Mainly write software for vehicle leasing companies as well as some local government stuff.

That crawler at the bottom is cool as ****! What is it?

I have 4WD again now! Rebuilt the front diff with a new spur gear and pinion bearing, and added an extra shim to the pinion shaft to take the slop out of it. Shimmed all the wheel bearings to reduce the wheel wobbliness. Massive difference… it’s much more predictable now and drives much straighter. Also got an ESC programming card, so I’ve reduced the braking force to try to extend the life of the front diff. I’m pretty sure most of the spur gear damage is from heavy and poorly timed braking 😅 Also I reduced the neutral zone on the trigger to it’s minimum value and added a touch of drag brake. I’m not sure if I like the drag brake or not, but it’s nice to be able to have a play with it. Looking at @.AJ.s photos, I need to do something about my wiring next! I know the Carnage isn’t the coolest RC, but I flipping love this thing 😁😁😁

Cheers mate, that’s pretty cool, although I’m not sure how much use I’d find all that data at the moment. I didn’t realise you needed to press the button for the lap timer, I’d assumed it would run off the transponder, but that’s just my lack of understanding!

Agreed - sounds like the diff. They make a pretty nasty noise once you’ve stripped a few teeth off the gears.

Cheers for the detail @windz1000r I had no idea a transmitter could have all that functionality. I can certainly see the benefit of quite a few of those features, particularly the braking adjustments and the trigger/steering weight/tension. I guess a lap timer/countdown is kinda useful for racing, but not sure I’d have the time to look at it while zooming around the track! Good point about it being the only thing that connects you to the car. I guess it’s one of those things that I’ll upgrade in future, once I have an “expensive race car” 😁 👍🏻

Also @windz1000r, when is your next race? I’d be interested to know how you got on and whether you think your fancy Tx helped! 👍🏻 I’m meeting the local club on Aug 7th to see how they run and get advice on what to get to be (potentially) competitive at their club. Aug 7th seems a long way away… I’m too impatient 😄

Oh, throttle response curves sound interesting. Can you set your own curves? That would be pretty cool. I guess because I’m not racing yet I’m not appreciating the finer details of what’s important. Totally understand the “feeling in the hand” thing. It goes along with the Tesco value feel of the dumbo. I’ve been considering adding weight to it just to make it feel less 💩 in the hand 😅 I’m interested in the actual functional differences, beyond feel, and throttle curves was something I didn’t know about. Cheers @windz1000r… every day’s a school day (especially for me 🤣🤣)

Forgive my ignorance… I’ve got a DumboRC radio, which gives me a nice range extension over what came in the box and a decent response time for sod all money. What does a super posh Tx like a noble give above and beyond a Dumbo? Is it just a build quality thing, or are there any tangible benefits to spending 5x as much money? I totally get the “it looks like it’s Tesco value” thing, but what are the actual differences?

Hi Andi, I have an old etronix charger that sounds similar. I don’t really use it anymore since it’s sloooooow. The lights indicate which cells are charging. If the lights are red then those cells are charging. If the lights are green then the cells are not charging, so either fully charged or disconnected. From the sounds of it yours is working correctly. If nothing’s plugged in then the three lights should be green. If you plug in a 2s battery then the first two lights should go red until the battery is charged, then they’ll go green. I’ve attached some photos of my charger unplugged, charging a 2s and charging a 3s.

You should see if you can get some turbofans for it 🤤

Jeez, that's a serious bit of kit!

LMT as in the gravedigger style monster trucks? Those things look awesome!

Wow, that's just really annoying.