Cool!!! Can't wait to see the chassis installed!!

tyres?
mashers!!:yipi::lol:

GERBE in French means JET :lol:

Mashers look like they would give good traction on a lot of surfaces and that they would last a long time but they make the truck look like farm equipment :lol: I prefer the look of Moabs or something similar.

Kershaw Design Chassis
 

The Kershaw Design Chassis came in this morning so I had the pleasure of opening the box and inspect the components.

FIRST OBSERVATIONS:
- The top plate is made of heat treated 3.08 mm thick aluminum. The machining cuts are nice and clean. The plate seems to have been finished by giving it a light sanding on a belt sander.
- The two vertical towers are made of ABS plastic.
- The bottom plate is made of 2.2 mm thick heat treated aluminum with nice machining cuts and seems to have the same belt sander finishing as the top plate.
- The whole chassis with all the hardware weights around 520 grams. I will have to weight it again once it's all assembled, weigh the stock Nylon composite chassis for comparison and also compare the weights of the ERBE RTR with stock chassis and with Kershaw chassis.

POSITIVES:
- Fast shipping to Canada and good communication with Dan. I dealt with him in the past and Dan has always been helpful and professional.
- Everything is there, no missing parts and it was nicely packaged.
- All the hardware is packaged in individual numbered bags corresponding to the different steps of the assembly.
- Once the ERBE is all put back together, I suspect that this chassis will be very stiff and durable. There will be lots of room to use different dimension Lithium Polymer and Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. The batteries are placed much lower than the stock Nylon composite chassis so the CG will be much lower.

NEGATIVES:
- It would ad a considerable amount to the sale price but this chassis would look so much better if it was anodized.
- I hate to complain about this as I have tried myself to make and sell parts before but the price is a little high. $125 to $140 range would be more reasonable. The present price should include anodizing.
- No designated spot to mount the receiver box, although it can be mounted on one of the servo spots if only one steering servo is used, or it's a very easy mod to fabricate a small plate to mount the receiver box where it should be.
- Dan if you are reading this, go buy a new counter sinking bit. The one you used on my chassis is dull and the counter sinks are grungy looking and off center a bit.
- The ABS side towers were a little rough looking but a light sanding of the edges cleaned them up nicely. I might dye them black as they are a dark gray in color.

Looking at the different parts on my work table, there is one thing that just screamed CARBON FIBER at me. That lower plate is a flat piece of aluminum that will be easily duplicated in carbon fiber. So I ordered a 3 mm thick sheet of carbon fiber and will make myself a bottom plate.

More to come as I slowly start to make the swap.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...w_chassis2.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...w_chassis1.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...w_chassis3.jpg

Great review !

Dan is a nice guy but his custom chassis look a tad too "rustic" IMO :mdr:
It's a pity because they are rather well-designed !
He needs better tools :whistle:

But I'm sure your Revo will look great as usual :yipi:

Hmm, I was thinking of getting one of these chassis, now I'm unsure....I'll have to see whhat you have to say about it MC....

mrcrash...
we were just beginning to assemble my friends KD chassis yesterday.

everything you said is 100% the same, even the grungy countersunks!!

because we run our motors on top of the tranny rather than on the E-revo mount, we wanna flip the tranny 180* so we are gonna need to mod it to work:slap:

A few more observations about the Kershaw chassis. It is heavier than the stock Nylon composite chassis. I compared the completely assembled Kershaw chassis (battery straps and all) with my complete stock chassis (battery doors and all). The Kershaw chassis is around 80 grams heavier. But when the swap is completed and I compare a stock ERBE with a Kershaw ERBE, the Kershaw ERBE is only 30 grams heavier. This is due to the fact that you don't use the stock middle skid plate and the Steering servo skid plate. 30 grams is no big deal and should not be noticeable. By placing the receiver box in the second steering servo spot, that 30 grams is up front so I find this very good. I like to have as much weight up front as possible on my Revos.

I weighed the two different versions of the ERBEs using two digital scales, one beneath the front wheels and the second beneath the rear wheels. Both versions had a rear weight of 1714 grams. The stock ERBE had a front weight of 1599 grams and the Kershaw ERBE had a front weight of 1629 grams. I weighed the ERBEs without wheels, body or batteries.

A COUPLE PROBLEMS WHILE BUILDING

- My ACE 1015 servo did not fit in the opening so I had to use a file to enlarge it by 1 mm. Not a big problem and easily fixed.
- The two vertical towers made of ABS plastic have some flex to them and you have to watch out how much torque you put on the long screws that secure the towers to the top and bottom chassis plates. Anything more than ''snug'' squishes the towers and distorts the top plate. I seriously think the towers need more meat to them or maybe a different material should be used. I’m seriously thinking of making new ones myself to make them stronger. Below is a drawing of what the Kershaw towers look like and beside it is what I would intend to make.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...w_towers_1.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...w_towers_2.jpg

- My rear diff did not stay in place, it pivots and the front end of the diff goes upwards making the joint of the output shaft hit the top chassis plate. I had to make something to keep the diff from pivoting.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...hold_down1.jpg

- There are two big holes in the back of the bottom plate that accept two long M4 screws that go in the rear bulkhead. These are to stiffen up the rear. The holes are mis aligned so I had to make two new ones in the correct place. I also had to make spacers to go in between the bulkheads and the bottom plate to keep the correct spacing when the screws are tightened down. You can see in the pic where the two holes are, just behind the ‘’KD’’ in the back of the bottom plate, and where I drilled new holes where the M4 screws are.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...wer_plate2.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...ar_spacer1.jpg

I still did not have the chance to go to a suitable bashing site and beat the truck. But just by fooling around in front of my house on the street and grass and making small jumps, I can tell this chassis performs better than the stock one. The stock chassis is very good and I like it a lot but the lower CG of the Kershaw chassis makes a very noticeable difference. More room for bigger lipos or LiFe packs is very cool. I have been shopping around for batteries I never used to look at before. The chassis is stiff, once everything is put together, it feels really solid and with a few tweaks, it could be even better. I will have to tinker with it this winter.

I don’t regret buying this chassis because it delivers what it says it will. It is stiff, it is easy to make the swap for an experienced RCer, the CG is much lower than the stock chassis, it gives a lot more options for batteries. The following is just my opinion and I’m allowed to speak my mind so here goes. I like the chassis but the price left a ‘’bitter taste in my mouth’’. For that price, I would expect a better finish, anodizing and better chassis towers. If these can’t be achieved then, the price should be a little lower. But it really does make the ERBE look like a high end Monster Truck rather than a big and expensive plastic toy.

I will end with some pics of the finished truck (is it really finished :lol:)

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...assis_rear.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...ssis_rear2.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...sis_front1.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...sis_front2.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...is_tranny1.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...is_tranny2.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...ectronics2.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...ectronics1.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...w_chassis4.jpg

Looks sweet!!

I was thinking of getting the "nitro" revo KD chassis for my conversion.

It doesn't look as sweet as a Gorilla chassis but it does look good. I will be doing some things to it to bring the sweetness level up a bit.

On a side note, I received my Turnigy 4500mAh 2S2P 30C LiFePo4 Pack and tried them in my ERBE. I charged them up at 3C, they were balanced and ran really well. A lot less top speed of course but still very strong batteries that I ran with no LVC on the MMM. Really cool to not have to worry about your batteries, charge 'em up, run them 'till the truck looses power, recharge and repeat. These will be absolutely perfect for my son's ''GERBE''. I ordered another pair of these. The price just can't be beat.

(1) Are you telling me that this is the way the chassis comes machined?
(2) Are you telling me that this is the way the counter-sunk holes come?

http://pics.offroadextremes.com/rc/kd_crap.jpg

If so, wow! I mean, Dan is an awesome guy, and usually has great products, but if this is the way this chassis comes, there is no way I would buy it.

Just my thoughts on this.

Oh, wow.....hmm.... not very good machining work there.......makes me not want to buy one, especially for the price...... I may just pass....unless another option becomes available

Sweet man!! Please report runtimes!

Great review! Much better than the work Jetlag does!

The truck overall looks great with the chassis! Improvement over stock for sure!

A 1518 would never fit would it? Unless you made a custom motor plate that mounted the motor higher.

Chad its good to see you!!

The chassis did not come machined like that. Talking about what's circled in blue. I enlarged the hole because my big LST2 diff needed some clearance. The cuts of the chassis plates are very well done. What you circled in red is just some quick hacking on my part with a file. :lol:

What is circled in red is another hack job on my part. I used a cordless drill to counter sink that hole which is not the best way of doing it. The bad counter sinks I mentioned before are on the lower chassis plate, Dan needs a new counter sink bit. The one he used on my chassis is dull. Or maybe he did the same thing I did and used a cordless drill :mdr:
It's disappointing to pay that price and have ugly counter sinks on the chassis. But they will be hidden underneath the screw heads. So I don't think I will lie awake at night thinking about the ugly counter sinks of my chassis underneath the screw heads.

interesting


i guess i have to wait for the gorilla max chassis

DIDDO here.....I hope they come out with one

I am glad the chassis doesn't come that way...it makes me, as well as many others i'm sure, feel a lot better!

I hope you don't have to wait too long. While you wait I'll be enjoying this Kershaw one :na: :mdr:

What are you talking about? Gmaxx has an electric Revo.

Anything GorillaMax does is either for the TMaxx or the Slash. They don't do the Revo thing anymore. :cry:

It was too short for my liking anyway. It was a fine piece tho.

It was for converting the nitro Revo into electric, using the E-Maxx transmission...I am pretty sure they are wanting a chassis made specifically for the E-Revo (which will never happen because Gorilla was all about converting nitro to electric, and the E-Revo is already electric, so there is no need to make a conversion chassis).

What about the slash, that was already electric, and the 3905 too (G4 chassis)?... :whistle:

I know what you mean though- only real reason to make a specific Gorillamaxx Erevo chassis would be for the same reason Kershaw did; low CoG & maybe a bit longer/ bigger battery trays. Dont hold your breath guys... :(

Chassis towers and bottom plate
 

Who needs GMaxx anyway, after I'm done with this Kershaw chassis, Dan will start making it the same way. But he'll probably sell it for $350 :lol:

I started working on the new chassis towers I want to make the Kershaw chassis even stiffer and stronger. I decided to use carbon fiber since I already had this 4.5 mm sheet lying around. I cut 20 strips 10 mm wide then I stacked them up using epoxy to glue them together which makes two stiff solid carbon fiber blocks. After the epoxy cured, I trimmed the blocks and sanded them square. The end result is two solid carbon fiber blocks, 42 mm high by 8.9 mm thick. Once these chassis towers are done and installed on the Kershaw chassis, there will be a picture of it beside the definition of ‘’rigid’’ in the dictionary. It's going to be a PITA to cut, drill and machine these blocks but I'll git er done.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...th_towers1.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...th_towers2.jpg

I think I mentioned before that a sheet of carbon fiber 3 mm thick is coming my way to make a new lower chassis plate. This chassis is going to be sweet. The more I look at it, the more I like it. I like the simplicity of it. Other than the hardware, there’s only 4 pieces to it, the top and bottom plates and the two chassis towers. More to come as I will start to disassemble the ERBE again to make those towers and the new bottom plate. I will probably wait ‘till the snow comes since I am still bashing my ERBE and having fun with it.

Looking sweet!

There’s a few things that people find annoying about me. First of all, I speak with a French accent. Better not joke about this, only I can joke about it :lol: Another thing is when I have an idea in my head, I have to act on it right now. So here goes, the chassis towers are done :lol: It went much better than I thought it would. I guess it helps to have sharp tools. Lemme tell ya! That chassis is as stiff as it can get. I derived a little bit from the drawing I made before and a little trimming was needed to clear the servo horn. The CF towers are 30 grams heavier than the stock ABS ones for a total of 60 grams more but I don’t mind it as I really thought it was needed to have stronger, stiffer towers. I like it, I’m happy, I can sleep tonight.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...th_towers3.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...th_towers4.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...th_towers5.jpg

Very nice!

If for any reason you have any trouble out of those CF braces, I have a sheet of 7.6mm CF that is finished and glossy on both sides that you could use, but I don't think yours will have any problems.

Everything looks great, MC, just like everything else you do...well done!

im just going to have to keep running my vantage/tekno set for next year

I love my Vantage chassis, RC-Monster motor-mount, and custom carbon-fiber battery tray (and other parts)!

I have been screwing around
 

Not much to report, just that I replaced the stock screws that came with my Kershaw chassis. There are six screws that hold the top chassis plate, the two chassis towers and the bottom chassis plate together. The stock screws are not the best and they have a phillips drive which I didn't like. And they were too short as they only caught the lock nut by a few threads, not even reaching the nylon insert of the lock nut. I needed flathead screws that are 55 mm long with a hex drive. I didn't find any. The only ones I found were 70 mm long so I just made more threads on them and cut them to the right length.
On the left is the stock screw (the tip is stripped already)
In the middle is the 70 mm screw
On the right is the modified screw with new threads and cut to 55 mm long.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...th_screws1.jpg

Now I can really put some torque on those screws and have the chassis parts sandwiched tightly against each other.

How do you think the KD chassis would hold up the way it comes? I mostly jump and do tricks like backflips and frontflips while in the air. Do you think the chasers would hold up to jumping about 12-15 feet in the air? I would like a stronger chassis mine is cracked at the rear bolt holes where the wing attaches

The way it comes from Kershaw Design? I don't really know actually :mdr: I didn't run it for very long like that because of the two chassis braces (I called them towers earlier). I just thought that they were much too flexible and didn't give much structural support to the chassis. They are so flexible that if you tighten the six screws and nuts too much, they squish and make the top plate arc down. (or up?)

Look here

I bought this chassis after months of thinking about it. I was curious. It is a simple design so I thought if there are flaws then I can fix it easily. So I just went for it and bought it. With some work, this chassis turned out to be a really really good one. Really tough for bashers and very stiff which racers will appreciate. But it did need some work. It doesn't look as good and sweet as the Gorilla chassis but right now it's the only option.

Looking back on it, I'm glad I have the chassis but I could've made this chassis myself for a fraction of the price. It is really simple to make, only 4 major parts made out of flat stock. The top plate has 2 bends in it.
There's one word that pops back in my head when someone asks me what are my final thoughts on this chassis, no matter how good it is right now on my ERBE. ''overpriced''.

It's your call, $30 for a stock one that flexes too much or $180 for one that needs some work on your part to make it bullet proof.

The ESC wire coming out from the back was fine on the stock ERBE chassis with the receiver box on the other side of the motor but now my box is in the front on the same side of the chassis as the ESC so I re routed the wire so it comes out the front of the ESC to go to the receiver box. It just looks a bit cleaner that way. The excess on/off switch wire is placed in a piece of heat shrink and tucked away.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._esc_wire1.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._esc_wire2.jpg

When I finally get my CF sheet to make a new bottom plate, the front battery strap will be placed 10 mm more to the front so the total space I will have for batteries will be 175 mm long by 52 mm wide by 43 mm high.

I'm back with graphs again. I analyzed the 4 Turnigy 4500 mah 6.6 volt LiFePO4 batteries I got and here is an overlay of the 4 results. I bought the packs in pairs and named the first pair A1 and A2. The second pair B1 and B2. From the results, I matched A1 with B1 and A2 with B2.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...4_overlay1.jpg

LiFePO4 A1 (in black):
Discharge rate: 10 A
Starting voltage: 6.92 V
Ending voltage: 4.50 V
Total time: 27 minutes 9 seconds
Tested capacity: 4520 mah

LiFePO4 A1 (in red):
Discharge rate: 10 A
Starting voltage: 6.85 V
Ending voltage: 4.50 V
Total time: 26 minutes 20 seconds
Tested capacity: 4384 mah

LiFePO4 A1 (in green):
Discharge rate: 10 A
Starting voltage: 6.82 V
Ending voltage: 4.50 V
Total time: 27 minutes 15 seconds
Tested capacity: 4537 mah

LiFePO4 A1 (in blue):
Discharge rate: 10 A
Starting voltage: 6.77 V
Ending voltage: 4.50 V
Total time: 26 minutes 3 seconds
Tested capacity: 4337 mah

Project GERBE
 

Remember GERBE? Gabriel's ERBE? It is pretty much done right now. I'm at the last stage of the build. It is ready to run right now with a Futaba 2PL 2.4GHz FHSS Radio. I am waiting on the body that will need to be painted and I need to get some sticky vynil sheets to print the decals for the wheels. I built this GERBE with all the same little mods and subtleties that my own ERBE has. That kid is spoiled rotten :mdr:

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w.../th_gerbe5.jpg

Gotta treat em well whilst they're young, that way they will take care of you when you get old & decrepit... :lol:

Carbon Fiber bottom plate
 

The carbon fiber plate came in yesterday morning so I started working on duplicating the Kershaw Design bottom chassis plate. I finished this morning and here's the result. I made some changes from the Kershaw bottom plate. A bit more material here and there especially where holes are drilled and counter sunk for screws, I moved the front battery strap 8 mm forward to allow for slightly longer batteries and I didn't make holes for Nimh cells. Even though it has a whole lot more material and is thicker than the stock aluminum plate (3 mm versus 2.2 mm), it is only 10 grams heavier. Something I never mentioned about the placement of the batteries, the stock ERBE chassis has the bottom of the battery around 32 mm below the top surface of the chassis with them tilting up a bit towards the battery doors. The Kershaw chassis places the batteries 45 mm below the top surface of the chassis and they lye flat. That is a very big change in the center of gravity right there.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...tom_plate6.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...tom_plate2.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...tom_plate3.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...tom_plate4.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...tom_plate5.jpg

Wow mistercrash!! The quality of your work is awesome! How are you making the parts? CNC or all by hand?