Since vader was the only one interested in the video, the rest of you please do not watch it!:lol:
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Hm, no one interested any more?

I'll post it anyways...
Last time I was out to drive, I crashed quite badly. First I thought it only destroyed the link between left and right steering post, but now I startet cleaning the car.
The lower hingepin was bent (AGAIN!, but no problem) and the upper a-arm was bent as well!
http://home.arcor.de/tsjmnordgerling/verbogen.jpg

Now I went to check the Flextec website on terms of waranty and find this:
That's just great :sarcastic:
Hope they still have an upper arm for me...

But even if I get one, what's to do in the future? No longer drive this truck because I might get no spare parts not only for the G3-chassis but now for the suspension as well?

You said not to watch the video, so how could I/we comment on it? :lol:

Runs fine, but no wheelies? I wish we had snow so I could go drifting...

As for the Flextek issue = aw crap, not another company going down the pan. The arm doesnt look too baddly bent, may be able to straight it if you have a blow torch and anvil handy...

As for the future, I can only say to try another brand of arms & sell the Flexteks as spares (sure to make a pretty penny), or try not to crash :whistle:

I hope you aren't serious...:whistle:

No, slippery ground and centerdiff worked against wheelys.

I will see what flextec has to say, but if they can't or don't want to give me a replacementpart, I'll try my best on bending it back.

Surely not as pretty as the one I paid in the first place...

Good one!:rofl:



Anyways, goldenhorizons alu-steering is on it's way.
I'm looking for a stronger servo, because the steering feels slow and unprecise. Hitec HS 5955 TG any good? I could get one of those cheap, that's why I'm asking.
And I think I'm going to swap the Schulze 18.97KW for a mamba monster (never thought that day would come, but the long time it takes the ESC to switch to reverse is really annoying...), switch to a lower kv motor (any suggestions?) and up the cells to 6S.

And I have to change something in terms of the centerdiff, it prevents the truck from flipping on the roof under accelerating and breaking, which is fine.
But still, if I accelerate hard, the rear wheels start to drift left or right until the car spins in tiny circles. Something totally unlogical to me because I think if there is too much power going to the back, the front should lift, the power should go to the front, go wasted and the rear should stay straight...
Thinking about a gyro:neutral:

edit: One of these any good?
Neu-Castle 1518 1Y 1800kv
Neu-Castle 1520 1Y 1600kv
Castle Creations 1717 1580kv

Hitec HS 5955 TG is a brilliant servo, widely used- 333in/oz of torque which is beastly.

CastleNeu 1518 1Y on 5 or 6s would be epic, or the 1515 1Y on 4 or 5s- both would be powerful and fast setups.

As for the centerdiff, perhaps some lighter fluid is all I can suggest really- squirrely handling is probably due to lack of traction more than anything- bit slippery on the ground by the looks of that last video. Maybe look at your front & rear diffs too- I run 7k front & 5k rear and no problems spinning out as such.

OK, then I'll try lighter oil in the centerdiff.
I got 7k in the front just like you but 3K in the rear.

Then I will get the 5955TG.
As for the motor: I don't want another 2200kv, so no 1515 1Y for me.
Question is, on 6S: 1800kv or 1600kv?
I'm asking for these two specificly because they are on black friday sale on castles site.

edit: since I didn't know how long the black-friday-deals would be on, I just ordered a Neu Castle 1518 1Y 1800kv with fan...
Still have to order the Mamba Max...
But spending so much money in such a short time always leave me with a not so good feeling:neutral:

Its christmas- consider it a gift to yourself :mdr:

The 1518 will be fine on 5 or 6s , obviously a bit faster on 6s but you will find it runs nice and cool I bet- gear it for 40mph roughly like I do and it'll get across a football pitch in seconds, with its nose in the air the whole time... :yipi:

Quite a lot of christmas gifts to myself lately...:lol:

My Hitec HS-5955TG arrived today, looking forward to see if it brings an improvement to the g-maxx' steering.
The upper a-arm form flextec started it's journey on thursday. The GH alu steering should arrive on monday, the Mamba Monster was shipped on wednesday and should arrive within the next two weeks.
And I'm thinking of getting a pair of 5000mAh 3S 30/40C Turnigys from the german warehouse. The actual batteries might be more expensive, but shipping will be faster, no taxes and lower shipping costs. So in the end it'll be cheaper.
That brings me to the last item, the new motor...
Ordered last sunday, just yesterday I got a mail that they accepted my order and told me that it will ship within the next 2 weeks seriously!? sorry but what the hell? I thought they allready shipped it and just didn't notice me.
Tower needs 3 days to get sth. shipped, Castle needs 3 weeks? (adding 2 weeks for actuall shipping)

Well, I have to wait for Flextec anyways, so it's not that "tragic". But not great either...
Regarding Flextec, anyone have an idea where I can still get a set of spare arms? One upper and one lower arm or sth. like that would be nice!

Yeah, all us guys that placed orders for the new Castle motors (1518, 1520, 1717 etc) got updates saying they will be shipped out within 2 weeks. I think its because they are still on their way over from china on a barge probably, so very limited stock- there was probably alot of pre-orders from all the big shops like tower etc to fulfil before they could let us normal guys get ours. Its always a waiting game with this hobby, especially for us guys in Europe due to the longer shipping times; patience is a virtue as I always say.. :P

But I want my toys now!:rofl:
Think I'm going to order 2 pairs of turnigys today, hopefully the mamba monster gets here any time soon. So I can see where it fits on the rear upper chassis plate.
I don't understand why they allways say "shipping will take 7-14 days", it allways takes 14 days, never less :whip:

As for flextec: no one here who knows a shop that still has flextec spare parts?



P.S.: Thinking about getting a slipperential:oh:

No where that I've looked has any flextek instock, havent for a long time by the looks of things due to the price- very expensive parts so only carry a very limited amount, ordered as needed pretty much.

Slipperential is nice, but it seems almost like the normal center diff does its job so well I wonder how much of a difference it would make really?

I wouldnt mind a CD myself, though that will require a complete redesign of my chassis rails, though given the GorillaMaxx stuff is more of less extinct too, that isnt such a bad thing really...

Well with the CD-mount from Mike the Slipperential should fit with minimum modifications if any. And there is a shop in Germany which still has some x-braces in stock, which would be the only part needing modifications for Slipperential. And the CD-mount doesn't need any modifications on the G3 chassis at all. So no problems with the G3-extinction here!

The difference I hope for is that I don't have to land my jumps with finger off the accelerator, which would make the car flip forwards due to the brake momentum of the motor. hope you know what I mean there, if not, just get a bigmaxximum (or any 4 pole motor as far as I know) and try to turn the shaft with your fingers...

Have you tried it? I bet its not as bad as you think. Neus are very hard to turn by hand as well.

I actually did, have you seen the picture of the bent upper a-arm on page 6?
That was part of the result:lol:
Together with the broken steering link and the badly bent lower left hinge pin and a destroyed bushing for the lower a-arm.

Ordered the 4 Turnigys today...
There are a lot of packages coming my way right now:yipi:
And I made the first set of CF hinge pins for the front of my truck.
The other lower front hinge pin was bent as well (pain in the a** to get a bent hinge pin out of the FLM hybrid bulks), really hope the CF stuff is NOT going to bend but just break.
It's easy to replace and cheap to get, so better the CF hinge pins then, let's say... the flextec a-arms!

Yeah, the CF pins will just shatter/ snap into several small pieces that are easily removed- cheap insurance against broken/bent suspension parts indeed, though be sure to carry several spares :yes:

To say it with the words of the great philosopher Jeremy Clarkson:
POWEEEEEEEER:lol:
http://home.arcor.de/tsjmnordgerling/turnigy.jpg



Still waiting for the motor from Castle and the MMM V3 and the GH steering (16 days now for the steering) from tower though...


edit: Just received a mail from Castle! The motor is on it's way:yipi:

Stupid unnecessarily fat battery cables!
Hate them!
Why?
They're 8AWG, too fat for my traxxas high current connectors, and takes ages to get the solder liquid on them even with a 100W soldering iron.

10AWG would fit into the traxxas connectors without any problems, doesn't take as long to get soldered.

The difference?
With 6S the difference in wasted power with a current of 100A would be ~13W...

That's just not worth it, now I can see where I can get 10AWG cables, where I can get shrink wrap that fits and the right solder for that kind of soldering job.
Really am pi**ed off by this, all of a sudden those batteries aren't THAT cheap anymore.

Anyone got a source for all the needed parts? Especially cable and shrinkwrap? And a hint on what kind of solder to use?
As well: somebody got advice on how to change the battery cables? Never done that before...

The wire and heat shrink is of good qaulity at HC
OR
Buy the wire direct from Castle and get the shrink at Radio Shack or Home Depot

Ok, found the wire.
And what size of shrinks would I need to get it properly reshrinked after the soldering?
I would say 50mm for the long side but what for the narrow sides 100mm?
Apart from that: HC is out of shrinks, that's just great...

But I just got a better idea since I don't want to wait another 2-3 weeks.
I will see if it works out the way I planned.

I would still apreciate every help on what solder to use and on how to do this.:yes:

Silver solder/flux core. One of the best is Deans Brand. I buy the larger spools that can be found at HomeDepot or Shitshack.

MaxipadAmps has the a line of Lipo pack heat shrink also. Hate to say this but it's of excellent qaulity and I buy it myself. I have to have friends order it for me tho because somebody hates me over there and have canceled my orders refunded me and couldn't guess why ?:angel:

I didn't realize you needed the shrink for the exterior of the pack,I thought you were refering to the wire, sorry.
FYI, 24mm = 1 inch

Great!
Got my battery cables and the shrink today! For free, only shipping costs to pay:yipi:
And my 1800kV castle-neu arrived today, together with the CC fan shroud for the motor (for 13$ I just took it, maybe I will use it or maybe not...).
Customs wanted 25€ but still a good price! And since there is no invoice on/in the package, I assume someone allready paid it, just found the packet lying on the stairs to my room:lol:

Now I need a bigger spur (thinking about slipperential again) gear/pinion, because the motor is to large in diameter and collides with two of the screw heads that hold the CD/motor mount together...


Still:
ESC has not arrived yet, new SR3100 receiver neither, and no alu steering as well...
Maybe I should just order hundreds of packages so that customs has no other choice than to process my deliveries:sarcastic:
But i fear as long as I don't get any information on the flextek front, nothing else RC related really matters...


edit: now the new SR3100 arrived!
Such a fragile part shipped in a polstered envelope from USA to Germany, let's call it "brave". Not necessarily intelligent but brave...

edit2: It seems it really IS christmas today...
After just 25 days my MMM V3 from tower arrived! Another 20€ for the snails at customs though, and still no word on the GH steering (31 days and still counting...)

Well that's just great!
45 days waiting time for the GH steering link delivery are over, I contact towerhobbies, and what do they tell me? Refund or an extra 34$ for shipping via UPS. That's more than the GH steering was worth in the first place!
And now they will no longer give me the possibility to order with USPS, only if I let them ship to a US-address, which is BS since I don't know anyone in the US whom I could ask to receive the package and then send it to me...

I know several of the guys here will happily help you with that last issue, but the cost of shipping it to them & then to you will make it not worth while really. I know it isnt ideal, but check this out:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Golden-Horizon...item33585ad7f4

$20 + ~$10 shipping from ebay. Otherwise, you could use the GPM 3906 alloy bellcranks same as I have, then just use a normal servo saver on the actual servo ( 'Kimbrough large gas truck' model works well ). Heres the GPM:

silver, blue

Not quite as sexy as the GH, but if you give the silver one a bit of a polish it'll look pretty nice I reckon?

I got a set of the GPM as a part of a lot buy. Though I've never used them, I don't think I trust them. The alloy feels extremely cheap and they're not very thick anywhere. It looks dinky next to the plastic on the proline bellcranks.

Neil, are the 3905 GH bellcranks compatible with the gorilla/3906 style trucks? I wonder if I could get a set of those, use an old or modify/fabricate a centre link and continue using my lunsford turnbuckles?

.dk

Yep, at the very most you may need to trim the little spacer tube/post that goes on the the non-saver side of the bellcrank unit- all the other holes will line up perfectly.

The GPM stuff does feel and look cheap for sure, I had my doubts too back when I first built the Gmaxx, but they have held up just fine- no bends or stress fractures despite my wonderful driving and several cartwheels :yes:

Thank's for the ebay link!
Have to think about it though, because it's blue :whip:
And I definately will get one of the GH 3905 servo savers.
I really don't like the "on servo"-servo savers.

By the way, forgott this:
Flextec answered, they recieved my bent upper a-arm last week and promised to send a new one on it's way in that same week:yipi:
Great service, still sad though that they stopped production...

Thanks Neil, I shall give the GH a try this summer. I still don't trust the GPM =P

JoFreak, you could always strip off the blue anodizing. Glad to hear flextek took care of you also. Always such a relief when companies do the right thing!

.dk

Yeah I know that I could strip the anodizing from any part, but I don't like doing that kind of work:lol:
Regardles of that, guess what arrived today after just 48 days "on the road"?
Yeeeeees exactly, the GH steering from tower:rofl:
I'm slightly puzzled though, not only didn't I have to pay any customs fees, but customs didn't even look at it:neutral:

Better late than never :lol:

That's what I use to say.
But I really would like to know where it has been all that time.

As for the g3, I'm thinking about designing some specialized parts for the chassis.
Thinking about a diffrent upper rear plate, so that I can go lower with the motor and have a nice spot to put the MMM on.
I'm also planning a ne lower plate, that for one has a sealed underbody, to keep the dirt away. And furthermore for the lower plate: an integrated mounting plate to put the CD mount on, so I can get an even lower CoG. A possibility to mount some buggy or truggy dirt guards at the sides of the chassis. And the possibility to integrate custom battery trays, so that the batteries stop flying arround after a crash like they used to until now.
Maybe even a mutation of the shock towers and mounts as found with the gorilla suspension.
Aditional I'm thinking about a possibility to suport the rear of the motor against the chassis, but no real idea on that until now.
I'll see what my brain has in store for me when exams are over. Then I wil have the time to sit in front of my CAD program for hours and think of something... Apart from the times when I have to work to earn money to spend on RC parts :lol:

Little update, I got a new flextek a-arm this week!
But they didn't put a set of new bushings in it, so now I'm 1 bushing short, to mount the a-arm. Now I have to order a spare package of bushings from flextek and have to wait approximately another 2 weeks minimum :neutral:

And now a short story of what happened to me today...
Doesn't really have to do with the g-maxx, but who cares:
I ordered a MMM/2650 set from tower in December, shipping per UPS.
I got that package about in the middle of December, paid 54,23€ taxes and so on.
Today I got a letter in the mail, with an invoice that there still was money to pay.

0,01€ (one euro cent) thats what it said:rofl:

Good old Customs & excise eh? :mdr:

They've had my MMM & pinions for a week now, still 'awaiting customs charging'... ¬_¬

Hows your build going? I was looking forward to a bash vid!

I tried a vid on page 6, didn't seem like too many of you were interested:whistle:

Apart from that, the build is doing nicely.
I'm makin major changes at the moment, ditched the schulze 18.97kw and the bigmaxximum for a castle 1518 1Y and a mamba monster.
Also swapped the 2x2S hardcases against 2x3S turnigys.
Upgraded the servo and the steering, but I'm pretty shure I mentioned all of that somewhere in this thread...

As of this moment I wait for mike to answer my e-mail (disturbingly for sever about the custom battery trays I designed with CAD. Those should be a perfect fit to the G3 lower chassis plate and prevent the LiPos from flying around after crashes.
Up till now nothing happened, but up till now those were hardcase LiPos flying arround...

Furthermore I have to see when I find the time to bring the motor/CD mount to a friend of mine, to modify it so the slipperential (46T mod1) will fit into the mount and all together into the chassis.
And more importantly, modify it in a way that the motor will not collide with the heads of the screws that hold the top plate of the mount so I can use pinions in a size that won't make my truck hit warp 10 and travel through time :yipi:

Could need some suggestions on how to support the rear end of the motor against the chassis though.:neutral:

Hmm, to support the rear of the motor I'd go with a simple bar underneath the rear, with a concave curve to the upper surface- just like the revo motor mount conversion Mike sells. You could make the height adjustable with simple shims/ washers underneath it either end where it screws to the chassis, or something allong those lines.

That's what I had in mind.
Maybe get one of the Lehner motor clamps and use that together with some shims.
But it seems Lehner decided to improve the website and erase all the dimensions from their motors...
There is not much I hate more on the internet then unnecessarry site relaunches that make everything worse:whip:

So right now I have no idea what clamp would fit the castle 1518, if any.

Hey Jo, was wondering if you can tell me how the GH steering is working out for you... I was thinking of getting one... the Stock 3905 steering gets very sloppy quite quickly. even with the dual saver mod...

I want to try one of these out but dont want to blow my money on some crappy cast alu. that will get sloppy just as quick. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you Sir. :yes:

I'm sorry. I didn't get a chance to drive it with the GH steering yet.
It definately feels high quality, not crappy at all and has less play in it than the traxxas stock steering.
As of now, I would buy it again and/but can't wait to try it out!

I'M BACK!
sort of...

It's update-time:
Since I never made a picture of the truck with body and wheels, here is one:
http://home.arcor.de/tsjmnordgerling...axxupdate1.jpg
The body looks like that because I can't paint and because I drove it for about 5mins without tapeing it, so a lot of paint got blasted off by stones.

Without the body:
http://home.arcor.de/tsjmnordgerling...axxupdate2.jpg

Now there is more space between the motor and the rear diff drive cup:
http://home.arcor.de/tsjmnordgerling...axxupdate3.jpg
Also in this picture: my ingenious cable routing...

There's one of the 3 modifications that were necessary to get the castle motor and a mod1 46T spur in there. Mike was right (of course), countersunk holes wouldn't look right in that spot. But then it's form follows funktion and not the other way round:
http://home.arcor.de/tsjmnordgerling...axxupdate4.jpg
Other modifications were: 3/10th mm deep pocket in the mountingplate to clear the 46T spur. And 3/10th mm removed by milling where the mountingplate touches the x-braces, so the diff sits higher and the spur clears the x-braces.

New servo, Hitec 5955TG held in place with full force servo clamps:
http://home.arcor.de/tsjmnordgerling...axxupdate5.jpg

And that's about it...
http://home.arcor.de/tsjmnordgerling...axxupdate6.jpg

Hope you guys like it, looking forward to your comments and suggestions on what could be done better:yes:

I love it, now as I did then! You build a truck quite well sir. Do you now wish that you would have painted the inside of the body? lol