minicooper

iTrader: (5)

Yeah, I use anywhere from 80-100+ weight oil in the front and 15 weight in the rear. Hey works for me

fatdoggy

jkljkl6

Just made my beautiful mini last night to match daddy (above)!

Anyone got any ideas about this? (may not be mini specific)...

When I drive forward the car travels in a forward (good) and right (bad) line. When I reverse it travels in a backward (great) and right (terrible) line.
If I continue driving forward and back a dozen times my car ends up a foot to the right of where it stared off.

Comments suggestions? (be easy on me it's my first self made car).

sosidge

First thing to check is your steering trim.

If the car is "crabbing" - i.e. it points forward, but moves to the side it's probably one of two things...

Are you testing it out on the carpet at home? If so, the weave in the carpet makes the car move to the side. It should run straight on smooth tarmac.

Otherwise, one of the suspension geometry settings is different on one side of the car to the other. It's hard to build a Mini wrong, since there is so little to adjust, one possible problem is uneven steering links and an off-centre servo saver. The other possibility is that something in the suspension is binding or misaligned.

utieh

iTrader: (3)

here are some pics of my mini (rs4 )
http://community.webshots.com/album/49870884xZCxBe

jkljkl6

Cheers Sosidge.

It was the carpet....

Just got back from a trial run in the local Tesco car park and all I can say is WOW!!!

These things don't 'arf go some!

Looking forward to a little try out in the car park o/s my block now that I've finally finished ALL the decals. (where did it mention that the decals took almost as long as making the car?)

Will post a piccy of my baby soon!

jkljkl6

I'm loving this car...

How the ???? did I slide the back wheels out cornering with a front wheel drive car???
(i'm not complaining mind, just wish I could do it again )

sosidge

Lifting off or braking from speed and turning at the same time should kick the tail out.

Mini's are a lot of fun, very lively handling. Even better with an ESC and some bearings in the transmission.

jkljkl6

I'm fully ball raced and esc'ed up already.

Deciding factors for that...Bearings are much easier to put in now than later & why have convert something electrical to mechanical and back again when you can do that in one hit?

Now for something more difficult.

My batteries...

I've charged 2 up run them till they're nearly dead, gone to recharge and the charger dies (as in kaput!).

One to my third charger now.

jkljkl6

Looks like I just had a bad run of chargers...

Now have an Ansmann ACX1 and so far so good!

dirk

first you must discharge the battery. to discharge the batteries you can just pick up the car, push the throttle until the wheels stop spinning and then STOP! otherwise you can over discharge your batteries, and that's as bad as over charging.
and when charging your batts, they must not heat up.
that's just what I know, I hope I'm right, anybody disagree?

looks like jkljkl6 has the "new" Mini, pretty nice!

fatdoggy

Batt's heating up is all a part of charging, but if you batt's are blazing hot, take them off the charger, let them cool and then continue charging.

dirk

what would be normal temperature? 100 degrees F?

fatdoggy

Sorry I have no idea what the normal temp would be. It's just how it feels to me. But I also run nicd's so temp isn't as much of an issue like it is with nimh's.

dirk

I run nicads too. do you know this guy called Schumacher on this forum, his real name is Sanj and he used to have the best rc website. he wrote an article that said tere are two dfifferent ways to charge, peak charging and thermo. and I think he mentioned when a battery is peak carged it will be at a certain temperature...Sanj said this was a more accurate way of charging packs because batteries tend to false peak once in a while. this hot summer is doing a number on my memory but maybe we can lure him here so we can extract some information.