Machine shop quoted $35 for the work and I can pick it up at 11:00 AM tomorrow. I will have to call them back and tell them 6mm deep and to countersink the screw holes on the non milled side.

I am having machine shop drill & tap the pinion also. My last attempt at tapping didn't go well...although I think that the piece was already hardned and that is why it didn't work.

He also agreed that I should harden at least the pinion. I will probably do both though. He recomended oil instead of water to quench in.

Got my gears back this morning and they look good.

I also got my Peltier coolers in the mail today. This isn't going to be the best way to cool. It is going to take too much to heat sink the hot side to get the gool side cool. Hot side got to 400 degrees in 20 seconds or so. Glad I didn't pay a lot for them...

I will use fans instead.

That's what I was talking about with the Peltiers. The cold side gets really cold and the hot side gets really hot. If you don't keep the hot side properly cooled the whole unit will burn itself out. I've seen people using them before on computer CPUs and they had a rockin' watercooling setup to keep the hot side from overheating.

sweet! post pics if you got them. just got hit up by another guy on the HBF saying he is going to convert his rampage. before long there should about a dozen of these out there. it would be cool to see everyone posting here what they are doing but i know most of the 1/5 guys to make it to this forum.

It ended up being $42 for the machine shop work. Seems reasonable to me considering they got it done in a day.

I'm going to my mechanic tomorrow morning to have him help me harden the gears.

thats great. i found a new machine shop i am gonna try working with. this last one had a $100 min and usually took weeks to do anything cuz they are always so busy. the good thing is they were stones throw from my house. the new one is miles away but sound very low key, do small jobs, and are ready for work.

did everyone see the newly posted 10s brushless baja on yt?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L73aNJ-wlIk

that is with the Neu 2215 600kv on 10s. all temps are cool and running sweet. hope that is a good indicator for me. that thing is awesome huh!

I got some clear LED lights to use as headlights...thought that might be interesting. I could mount them on some alum in back of the bumper.

I have a 3S 2500 mah LiPo to power the fans and RX. I'm going to run the fans through a switch that I can control from the RX. I will also have a BEC to power the RX / servos.

thats a great idea. hadnt thought of doing it that way. i just got my fans today. got some big 60mm ones. one is made out of aluminum. they are the perfect size to mount on my motor mount but the 40mm i think will be more effective looking at it now cuz the entire fan fits inside the square hole on top of motor mount and i think will provide better cooling. the aluminum fan looks cool though. oh, plus it has 4 blue led's on it so it would look pretty cool having blue lights all around my motor with that shiny fan spinning.

i have a question though. it came with a weird connector. it is a 3 pin connector but not like a typical servo wire connector. can anyone tell me how i can convert this to a connector that would plug into my rx? i will post some pics in a bit.

Maybe the motor is brushless?

i think youre right. i remeber seeing something that said "brushless fan"

is the other wire white? if so just cut it, its a tach wire to tell the speed of the fan or something, regular bl fans still only run on 2 leads

Indeed, 99% of PC cooling fansd like this are BL- the white/yellow wire is the signal wire, so that when plugged into a fan controller or the PC's motherboard, the speed can be controlled to increase cooling when needed, or to decrease cooling & noise when not needed. The actual controller is built into the fan, you just vary the volts the vary the speed.

I got my gear cooked today and they are no longer nice and shiny. I'm soaking them in degreaser to the gunk off. A minute or 2 with a wire wheel and I am starting to see silver again. Burned boiling oil smells horrible.

:lol:

did you do it yourself or somewhere else do it for you? exactly how was it done, do you know?

I bent a hook on the end of a straightened coat hanger and hung the gear on it. My mechanic heated it up with the torch to cherry and I dropped it into the oil.

just used motor oil? or new? 10w30? lol.

It was a misture of new Wal-Mart brand 10-30 and Valvoline 10-30. Thats what I had laying around. :lol:

I had to do some dremel sanding to get the hub to fit into the milled out area after the hardening? Wonder if the gear would have changed size slightly ? Or maybe it was a buildup of oil bakes on gunk ?

i bet it was due to buildup of the hardened coating.

my machinist made a mistake on my motor mount plates so he is making new ones today. i hope to get my motor mounted up tonight.

hey kaz,
after you heated the gear and dropped in oil did you then heat again and drop in water? didnt someone here on the forum say to do it that way? or is that necessary?

The machine shop I went to said to use oil only.

Supposedly using the used oil will add carbon to the heat treated part.

True but there is carbon in any patroleum product.

so i had some time tonight and was able to make a little progress. the stock rampage rx box was perfect size to fit both my reciever and hydra esc. i mounted a 40mm fan on each side of the box blowing on the aluminum pipes of the esc. i think this will cool it sufficiently. the large hole where the motor leads exit should provide escape for warm air as the fans cool the esc. if it doesnt work, back to the drawing board. the esc is mounted securely inside and i could even waterproof the box with a little more work. also put 8mm bullets on esc wires.

next i am going to build a large top plate that combines the front and center top plates into one plate. this will help reduce chassis flex and will be the mounting place for this rx box. the brake and steering servo wires will just run in through one of the holes in the box. i like this configuration as it will look nice and clean when all is said and done.

just a question - why does the hydra esc not have a power switch? it only has the connector for the rx but that is it. there is no switch at all. is it supposed to be like this?

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I really like that design! cool idea.
a center top plate will help a lot, my first one was made of carbon, but too thin and broke after a crash. I have now installed a kind of "bar" made of epoxy/gfk (as seen in my thread), that allows a little torsion but still stabilizes the car.

I've tried different positions for the esc in my buggy, try to find a place as low and front as possible, as it weights quite a bit. I've placed mine on the steering servo, w. is the best place I think.

can't wait to see your truck rollin!

It doesn't have a switch...it just turns on with the RX gets it's power. What are you doing to RX power?

I did a little work yesterday also. I'm going to run a 3S LiPo into a 3 way parallel split: BEC, fans, and lights.

I've also been tinkering around with a computer power supply. They can easily be converted to provide 3 / 5 / 12 volts to power a battery charger. You can even series 2 different ones together for any combination of the above.

fans
 

I think that fan is a great idea but it would not be enough to cool down the aluminum plates as when the esc heats up, it heats up real fast. It really needs a watercooling to have the 240 amp rating capability or you'll ending up with a burnt esc or a bad fire.

The CC HV boat controllers are pretty rugged even without cooling. I ran a 180HV in a Baja on 8s and 10s with no fan or cooling measures at all and it never got hotter than 120F or so. I would expect a 4wd like this to heat things up a bit more, but the controllers are pretty rugged. People abuse the crap out of these ESCs in big boats with silly voltage and huge amp spikes. High end boat racing is as hard or likely harder on electronics than land use (these 4ft plus boats going 100+ MPH through the water is way more load than this 1/5 at 50mph).

I was always under the impression that boating was less on the electronics 'cause it was a slightly more constant throttle than land use. So they could run higher revs for longer ( with water cooling ) and less amp spikes. Obviously, I was wrong.

Can't wait to see the final product.:yipi:

When a big boat running high power hits a wave at 50+ mph and comes out of the water, the prop revs out. When the prop re-enters the water, you have a tremendous amp spike - huge load. And while the boat is in the water, the load is much more constant - as well as constantly higher load (water is constantly around the prop - boats don't coast or roll like cars, so there is always a substantial load on the system). Ever try to run in the pool? Tough to go fast due to all the drag. :)

i am gonna harden these gears tomorrow. do i use normal or synthetic oil? or does it matter?

(metallurgy) Animal, vegetable, or mineral oil, such as fish oil, cottonseed oil, or lard, used in quenching baths for carbon and alloy steels; removes heat from the steel more slowly and uniformly than water.

As long as it has a high flashpoint, I don't know how much it matters. I think normally it's between 40 and 90 weight standard oil. But they do sell dedicated products if you want to be particular.

It is critical that you shove the part into the oil in one quick motion, or else you may end up with one side harder than the other.

Looking great man!

thanks for the tips Redshift.

so this morn i went to Jiffylube and they gave me some used conventional motor oil. it was pure black. went to cnc shop, fired up the torch, got the gears cherry red, and quenched them. it was sweet!! smoke and bubbling like crazy. they turned out great. my gears look just like the ones from RCM now. black instead of the pretty silver like they were. but like Kaz my drive shaft doesnt fit in the reamed area of the gear now. need to dremel out a bit and it will be fine.

also, today i left all my aluminum hubs and the integy disc brakes with my CNC. i am having the hubs customized so that the disc brakes mount up with a "factory like" fit. after the hubs are done, everything thats left to do on the kit i can do in my garage.

i am going to try to get everything else done on the truck while the hubs are at the CNC. should have some pics of mounted motor, esc, and servos soon.

I've never actually quenched anything, just seen it done many times (I'm not a blacksmith but I play one on RCM) but I have a bit of exp with air-hardening steel.

"today i left all my aluminum hubs and the integy disc brakes with my CNC"

I sure hope someone told the machine what to do with them. :lol:

Not long now!

hey kaz, or anyone else with a rampage,
no matter how much i try to keep my diffs sealed tight they continue to leak diff fluid. and i am not even driving this thing yet!! if the diffs leak when its just sitting around whats gonna happend when they are spinning at 10,000rpm?? i have tried new diff cases and it still happens. it seems it must be a rampage thing. i am just wondering if anyone else has had this issues and if anyone knows what would fix it? thanks.

What you can try to do is get like 800 grit sand paper. tape it down to a solid table and run the diff case across it to deck the top and ensure a good seal.. Im not sure how the rampage diffs are but you might want to try making your own gaskets. Auto parts stores sell gasket material but the compressed paperboard of your average cereal box is enough to hold in silicone oil.


just a thought :)

Yeah, that's a weakness for the rampage... there is an upgrade kit somewhere.. ..

I've never had problems with my diffs leaking. Do you have the little rubber o-rings arounds the output shafts? Is it leaking from the output shafts or around the ring gear? The upgrade kit has thicker output shafts...they were breaking around the pin.

I'll get my motor mounts tomorow!

I think I will clean up my hobby room tomorrow morning so I have a nice place to start the Rampage build.

nice dude. i started working on getting my motor mounted last night. might finish tonight or tomorrow.

anyway, i have the upgrade kit. besides my ramp is the v2 which is supposed to already have the upgrades in place. and my diffs do have the little rubber gasket around the outdrives but it doenst fit right. nor is there a metal washer to go over the o ring like 1/8 diffs do. it just has the o ring and then the cross pin that goes through the outdrive shaft. i tried putting a washer over it but then i cant get the cross pin thru. anyway, i will figure somethign out. just wondered if there was a surefire trick that had already been used by other ramp owners.

be sure to post pics of your build when you start. i got my hardened gears all mounted up now. they turned out great.

what are you going to do for gear mesh on your setup? just put elongated holes in the chassis so you can slide the mount side to side? or make a set of plates? or just use one gear so you dont need to adjust mesh?

I'd ask on the RedCat Rampage Forum about the diffs. You've got to be missing something for them to leak like that.

I will probably slot the chassis if / when I need to re=gear. Jim Williams included "two sets of slots one for vertical adjustments and the other for horizontal" I can't picture exactly what this means but we will see.

What did you man by make a set of plates?

I'm still thinking about how and in what way to mount my batteries.