Crashmaster

Are we talking within the UK?

Dan Chambers

TXR2Racer

Thanks Tsquare for the advice... If I decide to go that route, I'll most likely just keep the spares... It think they should still work with the MR Edition....

Smoking motor..

I'd keep the current car and run it as a ms for carpet racing as the chassis is much stiffer than the msx.

Tek Nickal

Did you make that out of brass tubing?

over gear

iTrader: (18)

I found a brass tude at my local hobby shop. the outter diameter of the tube is 7/16 inch. the diameter of the delrin outdrive is 10mm. it fits with a tiny bit of slop, which is what i want. I suggest that you bring a spare outdrive to you local hobby shop and test fit them. the thickness of the tube might be different.

i use a copper tube cutter from a local hardware store. cut the tube like it's tou fu.

cut 10mm to 11mm in length. round out the edge with a dremel and u r set.

TryHard

iTrader: (4)

Hey Guys, Quick favour.
Can someone measure the distance (in mm) from the screw holes of the Front Rear suspension block to the new steering post holes on the MRE chassis (go from centre to centre), or failing that the distance between the old and new post holes.
I have 37mm on my diagram.... and I can't find my (broken) MRE chassis anywhere to re-check the measurement.

Cheers
Ed

Randy Caster

iTrader: (47)

37mm looks right Ed.

TryHard

iTrader: (4)

cheers Randy...

Hope to make up the plates this week or next.. plenty to try
Going to make the plates able to accept the Yokomo battery trays too.

DOTMAN

iTrader: (5)

Wow..are you going to be making some to sell? I'd like one or two

TryHard

iTrader: (4)

Maybe is the simple answer.

I want to see how good I can make them myself first, before I potentially start offering them. As stated previously, I'm going to play with lay-up's and see how much varience in stiffness this will give. Won't be for a while yet.

Randy Caster

iTrader: (47)

I didnt realize you were going to be making chassis' for the car, what is the difference going to be?

TryHard

iTrader: (4)

Well.... The main reason is, I can't get hold of an MRE plate.

The differences will be in the lay-ups. Currently (and this is only from stripping down some old tamiya carbon bits), I believe the chassis are made purely from longitudinal (0 direction) and transverse (90 direction) fibres. Also these are mainly Uni Directional (UD) fibres. The two outer plys are woven though... they are tougher (UD's can be easily split), but more expensive.

Now having a chassis made up from UD's in the 0/90 directions means that it will be very strong in thoose directions, try bending the chassis plate in only the longitudinal direction, pretty strong. Now twist it, and it's less stiff... as there are no diagonal (45/-45 direction) fibres....

My intention is to just play around with the lay-ups of the fibres, utilising some material we use at work that goes into the big wind turbine blades. It's pretty heavyweight (actually a bit heavier than I'd like... but gives enough plys to play with) UD fibre mainly in the 0, and 45/-45 directions. Also, where in the laminate the fibres go affects how much they affect the laminate.

For example, if I was to make a plate with purely 45/-45 fibres, it would be very stiff when twisted (good for foams?)... and still pretty stiff longitudinally (although probably not as good as the current chassis).

So by experimenting with all these factors, I should be able to make a chassis plate that is the same thickness, but stiffer, or thinner and the same stiffness, or just simply exactly the same as the current one.

So thats the intention... just need to get some woven fibre for the outer plys.... and get hold of the CNC maching company for cutting costs.

Randy Caster

iTrader: (47)

Ah, so just mainly to test with 45/-45 plates. You should be able to make a 3mm chassis about the same stiffness of a 4mm chassis. One source you might want to try is in Santee, CA called DA graphite. He has "black magic" carbon material that you could probably get in a 2mm thickness and have the same flex as the 4mm chassis, pretty amazing stuff.

Honestly though, unless you wanted to play with battery positions, the stock chassis' are pretty much awesome for what they were designed for, when you change the stiffness, you are going to completely change how the car will handle...

JAY_UK

Hey Ed, not spoken for a while on MSN. Just one question, how the chuff did you manage to break your MRE chassis?

TryHard

iTrader: (4)

Yup.. true, but I got a fair amount of indoor stuff coming up, so I a little stiffer won't be a bad thing. I will make one up as per the std layup anyway, need to have a control plate to compare too anyway
I'm gonna keep the thickness as close to 2.5mm so as not to alter the roll centres though. Batt's are gonna stay in the same place, just use the yokomo trays. Can't really shift them anymore forwards due to the steering, might be able to get them towards the centreline a little more though.

I'll be using stuff we produce at my work (see last link in sig), have a fair amount of material each week that just gets chucked (and it's good material.. I know, I've helped qualify the bloody stuff for customers), might as well make use of it It's all pre-pregged material, so will be a piece-o-p to lay-up... and it's good training for my job too.

Oh and Jay... it's called a hard left turn (glitch not driver)when taking the right hand sweeper off the straight at West London. Well not that bit, more the ridiciously large contact with the metal barrier...
Also sheared the two servo mount screws, and bent the brush tube on my CP$19. The chassis plate is simply now junk, it's split down one edge, and tweaked like no tomorrow. MRE is now in pieces in it's box awaiting a new plate... I would seriously like to use it for mod at the Carpet Wars two day in feb, so want to get some running in before hand. On that point, Randy do you have a good carpet setup for an MRE (given you just got back from vegas)