The Nerd's new rig

Just a few pictures of the latest additions.



Just got to get some bigger heatshrink and shorten the RX and battery wires, then the micro's should be finished.



Kieren

Electronics are about 90% done. Pictures should be fairly self explanatory, but if there not please ask away. Also just a tip to those who might try something similar DON'T solder a micro deans on your bec and then realise that $%@& I forgot to change it to 7.4v You do have to solder the servo connector back on and reprogram, then put the deans back on. Also apart from trying to get away from my normal birds nest of wiring I tried a few new things I don't normally do. The main one was micro deans on the battery instead of my normal full size deans. I wanted something a bit smaller, and 3.5mm bullets were going to be roughly the same size as a deans plug. So I decided to try the micro's for a couple reason's, the first being that the wires are tiny on the battery so a small plug can't hurt to much and the other BundyCrawler's new rig has micro's and it will be easier if we share plugs to swap and compare battery's if need's be.







It's getting there, hoping to get the rest of the Ti links done, but measuring things up I think I might be about 100mm short, so off to order some more I go.

Kieren

Wasn't 100% happy with the way it was before. It would have had no affect on performance, but as I'm sure you worked out by now that's not the only thing that matters to me Front's not done yet, but it will be done in due time also. It also went for it's first drive the other night. By drive I mean turned on and moved under it's own power about 10m. So far I'm happy with it all electronics wise. The pullers are just as smooth if not smoother than a normal 540 3 pole so I'm happy. From what I could tell in the short drive they might have a bit less power, but that's to be expected given the small size.

Kieren

A little more done. You might also see the start of some colour coming through, once a few orders get here and I get rid of these horrid purple and green links it should pop. Going to have to do something to the gearboxes also to get rid of the grey. Might just hit them with a black rattle can for now or something.









Kieren

Got it running "properly" for the first time tonight, I can't wait to get it on the rocks now. Still waiting on the Super 300s and finishing the Ti links before it's a real runner, but those little motors definitely have some sting. The way I have them geared makes them feel like there is a whole lot of expo dialed in. The are really slow and smooth on the low end, but once you get them wound up they really get going. I think it should work well, but if not I have the option to play around with the curves, on either the esc's or the radio. The only problem so far with the electronics has been the bec was a bit iffy tonight. Couple times I plugged the battery in and the bec wouldn't power up, only the escs. I think it might be my solder joint where the bec is connected to the ESC, as once it got fired up it was fine. Got to love lead free solder on CC escs

Kieren

Seems like its like it's fairly light. This is without any knuckle weight, BC's and Eritex Charlotte's and completely RTR.





Kieren

Only the rear lowers left, and I'm waiting on my next lot of Ti to come in before I can finish them. There's also a sneak peek of some knuckle weights. I heated the revo ends slightly and bent them with pliers to get the bend in the front link ends. Doesn't seem to have affected them at all, but I suppose testing will soon see about that. With the bend in the front lowers I can get every single degree the super 300s allow. Shouldn't need dig really.















Kieren

[The Dude]

nice work really !!

Thank you! I am very much looking forward to driving it now, and hopefully will have some pictures up shortly.

Kieren

Went out for a crawl on Saturday with a couple mates for it's first test drive. It wasn't 100% finished yet, but almost there. I decided to run the BCs and eritex wheels simply because I made my weights to the absolute maximum size possible and they no longer fit VP wheels. I had my old faithful firm inner, soft outer CI foams from my rovers, but I believe they are a bit firm. The other problem I had was the Charlotte's and the BCs would not play nice and I ended up pulling 3 beads (and this is after about 4 goes at mounting the things properly). The slot in the eritex wheels is simply to small to hold any bead properly IMO. So they will be getting lathed shortly.

Now for the good news. Everything pretty well performed faultlessly minus a couple loose bolts and nuts. The mini pullers and wheelspeed to boot and seem to be able to power the rig around most things with no drama's or temperature problems. They will stall in hard digs or binds, but I guess that is to be expected. The shrunk mamba micro's had no problems handling the pullers, and most of the time they barely felt warm. And finally the futaba servo is simply awesome, I was running it on 7.8v and it was only warm, but had enough power to swing the rear end of the rig around no worries. I think I only managed to stall it once, and it was really wedged in.

Onto the chassis. The rollover, as expected, was excellent. Thanks to my "brilliant" driving and a bit two much wheelspeed with the pullers I tested this quite thoroughly The handling was quite good also, for everything from precise slow speed crawling to going flat out up rocks and doing backflips. This chassis will definitely be staying put with very little changes. Hopefully CrawlerX should have them released shortly for everyone to get their hands on them.

Pictures, well unfortunately I was having to much fun 'testing' to take any pictures or video. So I'll just have to end with a couple I took at the end of the session. You can also see the final design for my knuckle weights.





Kieren

Done minus panels







Kieren

Went for a crawl today at the old faithful spot. I didn't have a chance to make any panels yet. It seemed to crawl quite well, apart from a few minor things that I need to fix. The chassis held up excellently to some decent abuse, along with everything else. Video should be up shortly also.





















Kieren

Tubes are finished





Also got some shiny power plants, however these might not go in this rig though. 30t Type S in Kr cans with a few other little extras.







Kieren

Got the upper link mount done







Kieren

Here's a few pictures of the rig from the social on the weekend. Thanks Steve for the pictures :thumbsup:







Very happy with the rig so far, and am proud to say that my Crawler X chassis'd rig was the only rig to make the climb at 1:04 (thanks Jakesy for the video) It might not look like much but it proved to be quite a challenge, no matter what rig you were driving.

I'm hoping for a repeat performance now at the state titles if I can make it!

Cheers
Kieren