mistercrash: You want to try the EC5s, and not the EC3's.

The EC3's are smaller than the EC5's, thus why they couldn't handle the amount of amps, and that.

I've read nothing bad about the Hobbycity deans,but you can't go wrong with the real stuff I guess. :yes:
Why did you opt for the Deans vs. TRX connectors? :)

Hey MC, I ran the erevo an my Cd today for the first time, and I have my truck pretty well setup for the track I will be practicing at, you were right the Cd made a world of difference, but i have more plans for it as well, but will have to this fall, for now im gonna enjoy the diff right now.

I ran Deans connectors way back when I was racing on road, and they always were very good and they always stayed connected even after months, if not years of use. Of course that was when 1500 mah matched nicads were the hot ticket. I was never dealing with the amount of current that is used with lipos and the MMM. But Deans Ultra Plugs have proven for a while now that they can deal with the tremendous amount of current of today's brushless systems. When I left the on road scene when the 3800 mah nimh were becoming the hot ticket, I was still running the same Deans that were used for my first batteries. Deans are tough and stay connected and are reusable. So I decided to go with what has proven to be extremely reliable to me from past experience.

sjcrss,
I knew you would love it, who wouldn't. A good, strong , smooth and reliable CD in the Revo makes a world of difference. And you won't have to rebuild it after every race day :mdr:
I can't wait to see what you have in store next. Keep us updated.

IIRC, the EC5's are reusable as well.

I agree that they can be reused, but let me ask you, how often do you think you can pop out the gold plated connector out of the plastic holder and pop it back in? I would say that it wouldn't take long that the plastic holder would not hold that gold plated connector very securely. And at almost $7 a pair, not including shipping and custom fees, I will get as much satisfaction if not more with the Deans for half the price. I don't have a money tree, and even if I did, it would be CDN money so Deans it is for me. :yes:

Touche, that's exactly what I thought.

The price is definitely turning me off, but for some reason I'm growing tired of Deans...
The wire seems to be heating up, which is starting to worry me. (The wires from my Battery to ESC.. May be something else though)

I've never reused Deans before... Wouldn't like to either, seems like.. i don't know, just doesn't seem likely me to do.

Are TRX connectors reusable, can de contact plate be disconnected from the plastic?
Or will the same problem occur as MC just stated?

Pretty sure the same thing.
Will be really hard to take em out of the plastic housings.

Rear body mount brace
 

Running a rear wing puts a lot of strain on the rear body mount. Many have made all sorts of braces to strengthen that body mount. Here's my take on it. Very light weight and much stronger than it looks.

The parts

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...unt_brace1.jpg

A small piece of 3 mm thick carbon fiber to fit over the rear shock tower, some nuts and screws, a brass insert for the rear body mount and a rod with ball ends glued at each end. The rod is a carbon fiber rod, I drilled the ball ends so that they would fit snug on the rod with CA glue.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...unt_brace2.jpg

If anyone wonders if the ball ends will stay on the rod, stop wondering. On my nitro Revo, I replaced the sway bar turnbuckles with the same kind of CF rod and it hasn't failed after using them since 2006.

DEANS FTW!!!!!:lol:
never failed me yet.

i chose to use summit axles over the CVD's cause CVD's have a doggie bone at one end...and this always pops out on me :neutral::diablo:

where as the summit shafts are technicaly a CVD at both ends.

we'll see how strong they are :whip::whistle:
trying to scrounge myself a hyper 7 diff too :P..casue the traxxas one with 500k oil is not thick enuff methinks (but i never re-build it :rofl:)
shaun

Looks very pro MC. :)
Question,
do you compensate for the CF plate on top, and the one underneath you placed earlier, by using longer screws for the rear shock mount?

absoloobly :mdr: I use M3X.5X45 mm cap head screws 12.9, they stick out the bottom like I showed in post #32 and I lock them up with M3 nylok nuts from underneath the chassis.

Ahh right, I remember that. Man that thing is going to be bullet proof, what I like most is that it just looks so professional. :intello:


I copied your idea of the rear skid plate made out of cheap sheet metal a while ago, works great.
Today I was looking to make one for the front to, as it is needed most there.
It ended up nice, and without any drilling into original parts. (I wanted to keep stock parts undamaged so it'd be easier to sell later. I have an E revo, and want to go BL later... money you know:rules:)

Deans deans deans deans
 

I'm dizzy from the soldering fumes :lol:

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w.../th_deans1.jpg

A little thing I do when I solder Deans plugs. Although I am very careful and plan ahead, on occasion, I have to keep the soldering iron tip longer than I should on the Deans' metal tab making the plastic start to melt and the tab moves and becomes crooked. This results in a bad connection or no connection at all. You know, you suddenly have a little twitch and the iron tip moves with the wire and you try to reposition it, it only takes a couple seconds but that is enough to over heat the plug's metal tab.
Some say to connect a male plug into the female plug you want to solder wires to and vice versa. That extra plug absorbs a lot of the heat and often makes for a poor soldering job, cold solder.
So here's my trick, I stuff tiny pieces of hard wood in the female plug I want to work on. Those pieces of wood have been sanded down carefully so that they fit snug but not tight. The wood does not absorb heat and it holds the plug's metal tab in place in case something happens and the plastic starts to melt. For a male plug, I took a scrap female plug and yanked the metal tabs out oh it and replaced them with the wood pieces. This holds the metal tabs of a male plug in place in case the plastic starts to melt. Easy and effective, it made the job much easier.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w.../th_deans2.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w.../th_deans3.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w.../th_deans4.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w.../th_deans5.jpg

And that my friend, is another reason I switched everything over to 5.5mm bullet connectors....

...Anderson PowerPoles...no soldering necessary!

Thanks for the suggestions. 5.5 bullets, Deans, Traxxas, Anderson PowerPoles, EC5s... :oh: I like how everyone agrees on one good connector :mdr:

I know right?
I thought about PowerPoles and Deans when I first started RC.
Then, just a few eeks ago, I started thinking about EC5s.
Then, a few days ago, I'm thinking about TRX connectors.

I think I'm just gonna stick to Deans, but just gotta switch over all my HobbyCity plugs to some real Ultra plugs.

You should try a more powerful iron, or a soldering gun. I use my 230W gun to solder Deans and 5.5mm bullets. I let it heat up for a bit so when I put it on the Deans' solder tab it heats/solders so fast that the other end barely gets hot. It also helps to tin the wire/tab just before soldering it so they're still warm and the solder re-melts more easily.

:yes:

230W...
What the...

Link?

I only have a puny 60-80W iron..
Hmph.

I use this and I also have this for big jobs.

I would give you a link but Sears is updating their website again... :/ It's the Craftsman 150/230W soldering gun. #54046

Have you noticed any difference between them?

I have a very similar gun that has the same wattage as the Craftsman but by a different company. It has been sitting in it's box somewhere ever since I bought my Hakko. I find my Hakko and Weller soldering stations much more efficient and easier to use than a gun. This is my preference, yours is the gun and that's fine too.

Rebelgium:
As I haven't bought the Ultra plugs yet, no, but Mike (evonuI <- I think?) has told me that they will melt at high amps, so, I don't want to risk my packs and ESC. :neutral:

Here you go:
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1...54046&sLevel=0

Zippy decals
 

Some of my Zippy lipos did not have decals on them like the Flightmax series so I made my own. I just printed them on regular paper and stuck them with packing tape. If you want some for yourself, here's what I've made for my 3S and 4S zippys and a blank decal that you can put the mah, # of cells and C rating with a sharpie. It helps identify the lipo when the small writing on it starts to wear off.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...py_decals1.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...s_3500_30c.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...s_5000_20c.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...ippy_blank.jpg

Hehe MC looks like you're going to need to replace those labels with Turnigy labels! ;)

The zippy's will be discontinued soon.
http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/show...298#post292298

Yes I read the thread about it. And just when I finished doing nice Flightmax decals :oh:

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...P_5000_30c.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...tmax_blank.jpg

A little update on how my ERBE is doing. I'm very happy with my Dean's up to now, they are doing very good, this weekend is the second race in the championship so they will be put to the ultimate test. The diff blocks are awsome, my front and rear diffs actually feel like they are more efficient since they absolutely don't move inside the bulkheads. The rear body mount brace is holding up very well.

I ordered 4 of the new Turnigy lipos from Hobby King to try out. On the Hobby King forum, there is a thread about a mistake that was made in the first run of Turnigys. Apparently, they are mislabeled as 15C/20C when in fact they are really 20C/30C cells inside. First thing I will do when I get them is to take the shrink off to see the printing on the cells, the C rating is usually printed on them.

Good to hear your upgrades are doing well.
Does all your work succeed in the first try? ;) :LOL:
I know you use fairly standard tools to machine your CF, but I'd love to know more details about it, because customizing my RC with homemade parts is the most fun in the whole of RC imo...:p

e.g. how do you go about making a CF motor plate?


btw:
I'm looking forward to hearing your opinion about the Turnigy cells, be it here or in the topic about them in the general forum...

I too would like to know about those Turnigy lipos, been looking at them as well.

Hi MisterCrash, can you write a mini tutorial on how to split the lipo batteries to make a 4s into 2x 2s? I got a 3s but one of the cell is puffed so I want to make it into 2s but doesn't know where to start. Also, where do you get the 2s balancing connectors?

I would never try messing with soldering lipos, but I might have to try NiMH's.

Anyways, I think you basically eliminate the solder wires, and just solder the wires onto the other cell..

I know, I'm bad at explaining, if you want someone else to do it for you, pretty much professionally, take a look at LincPimp's work.

Very good quality.

thanks for telling about LincPimp thread, great info there. The cells on my pack is glue together. Is it safe to just rip them apart? What do you do with the balancing tab after you resolder the wire?

I'm not an expert on working with lipos, maybe Linc can chime in here and give pointers. The 4S packs I split were my first experience and it turned out good. First thing I thought about was my own safety and the safety of my family. I cleared my work table of anything flammable, just keeping the tools I would use for the job, I worked in my garage, close to the opened garage door. If something happened, I was ready to just swat whatever was on fire out the door and it would've fallen on the driveway. I previously cleared the driveway by parking the cars in the street. I had an ABC fire extinguisher at arm's reach, I used ''SureGrip'' gloves to protect my hands and goggles for my eyes.

The shrink wrap is easy to take off, hobby knife, scissors can be used to cut it. You just have to be very careful not to damage the wrapping of the cells, don't cut it, puncture it or anything. To split the cells I used a scrap piece of Lexan, a thick piece that is left when you trim a new body. I just made a rectangle and I sanded one edge I would use to round it out with no sharp edges and I used that to split the cells. I just worked it in slowly to break the adhesive and it worked very well.

The balancing tabs I used were these from Hobby King. I just cut off the female part and used the male.
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...idProduct=8873

I was thinking of splitting my 3S packs as I only run 2S now so maybe I can take some picks while I'm doing it and I'll try to show how I make a CF part. I just have to find some time as I have been kind of busy lately.

Aluminum slipper pad update
 

I forgot I wanted to give an update on the aluminum slipper pad with the Belleville springs. It works awsome! The Belleville springs make the thing very adjustable and it keeps the setting much better than the stock spring. That aluminum slipper pad gives very good, consistent and controlled ''slippage''. It eliminates wheelies running 4S. It still will get the nose up to the point of having the rear wing scrape the surface you're running on, running on 5 and 6S. But the truck will not flip. And finally, that aluminum slipper pad lasts a long long time, I'm still running the very first one I made.

Splitting lipos
 

I took 2 of my 3S Zippy lipos and split them today. The cells on them took a hit at one time and they are a little rippled at the ends. Other than those ripples, the packs are good and don't cause any problems so I decided to split them and make 3 2S1P packs. I took some picks of how I did it. I hope it can help someone else do the same if they need to. If you are careful, prepared and think about safety, it can be done fairly easily and safely. Lots of pics here so this will extend to the next two or three posts.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._2s_split1.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._2s_split2.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._2s_split3.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._2s_split4.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._2s_split5.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._2s_split6.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._2s_split7.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._2s_split8.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._2s_split9.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split10.jpg

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split11.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split12.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split13.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split14.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split15.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split16.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split17.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split18.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split19.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...2s_split20.jpg