Ya the serpent car has gobs more steering, the back end just slides around but the track was very dry. I'm currently transitioning to porkchop's setup sheet. I ordered the pistons, webbed bladders, and springs today. It should be much wetter tomorrow, I'm really hoping the car hooks up better.

I search the thread didnt see has anyone performed a four scale weight test. Im asking after reading Teknos comments on Neo buggy.

Ya, read that too. Probably some truth to it, but as centered up the 811Be's motor is and how far the esc and servo are moved to the right side I bet it balances out. And whose to say you cant add an ounce or 2 on the right side to even things out. I think the Low center of gravity of the heaviest part of the car far out weighs a little side to side imbalance. Notice no company brags about how high up the batteries sit or how tall the body has to be to cover up all that vertical stuff... lol

Agreed. I'll do it on Monday. Let you guys know then..... with pics!

Thanks guys I would say the serpent buggy is very well balanced was looking at the kit after reading and as Mayor stated serpent arranged everything as close as possible to the center line. If the serpent balance comes out close I will post on the tekno site as a response to their comments

I have 4 scales gimme me a min

Ok o here are the pics maybe an oval guy can explain it to me but if I add the left front and back it's very close to the right front and back. 56g difference. So if I chose a different motor and esc as per tekno I would be completely balanced.

-----------------Serpent--------------------------------tekno
RIGHT SIDE: *1858g ---------------------------------1679.5g
LEFT SIDE: * 1914g ----------------------------------1659.2g
DIFFERENCE: *56g------------------------------------- 20.3g

FRONT: * 1852g----------------------------------------1609.3g
REAR: * 1920g-----------------------------------------1729.4g
DIFFERENCE: * 68g------------------------------------ 120.1g

So the serpent is more balanced front to rear as the difference is 1/2 of the tekno and 36g greater difference left to right. I don't see any validity to their statement on neobuggy. I'm sure I could also swap out motors, esc's and batterys as they did to get the values even closer. (my values above are also with the body on, if you looks at the pic with the body off the totals are much closer to the tekno car)

Here are the pics






And a pic of the killer CF batt straps. Nice product
There was another serpent at the track yesterday that was running them too and he was very pleased as well. Chris managed to beat me again by 2sec

Just for a heads up, If you want to check balance of a car on scales, Take the shocks off of the car, Rig up some solid turnbuckles that are all equal in length, and use solid setup wheels in place of the rims and tires. Otherwise all you will be doing is checking the tweak on the car. when you have the shocks on , crank one collar and your weight on that wheel changes. Its not as cut and dry as it seems. Even though the Serpent car has heavier components on one side(Motor), the distance from center highly manipulates the difference of weight. Just think, You take a see saw, place a fat kid towards the center and a thin kid on the seat on the other side. The fat kid wont have the leverage to push the thin kid in the air. Same deal here. The speedo and servo are placed further out from center than the motor. This will counterbalance the motor very well. I Havent checked it but the shock collars are pretty close to even when my ride height is set so that is more than good enough.

Frank,

That C/F body is sick!



I just got my car all ready to go. I cant wait to run this thing. I am going to be trying out some Delrin shock pistons i made. The suspension feels great with them. We shall see though. It could feel great on the table but the track is the test.

indeed, the cf battery straps are great! I will prob sand them a bit, and put ca around the edges.. also thinking about getting a 2nd set, so their worth it!!

that Amain was soo interesting.. almost every other lap was good then bad. I got 3, 29 sec laps in and I also got both my qualifiers in at 11 laps in 6:10, what are the odds?!

So, I found out later that the reason why the nitro was in our race is because the nitro Amain was full :P

Curtis is fast, so is Steve who got second. When each of them came around to lap me, I fought them off like hell, Steve "bumped" me twice to get me "outta the way".. lol.. I kept taking the inside corner away from him, so I'll have to repay him one of these days..

thanks for the setup tips and letting me drive your car

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I would assume this would be more of a problem on the Durango and the Caster where the ESC is not on the right side of the car. I noticed as well that they ignored the distance from the center line (moment arm) in their line of reasoning. In the Durango's case, it really doesn't matter because the motor is WAY off the center line (it is next to the diff case) and the ESC is in the middle where it can't help balance the car. To do the math correctly, you need to measure the mass of each component along with the distance from the center line to the center of mass of the component( centroid). You could then compile a list someting like this:

I don't own the car so I don't have real numbers for the moment arm distance.

Left:
motor = 341g*30mm = 10571 g-mm
Total Left = 10571 g-mm

Right:
Servo = 56g*32mm = 1792 g-mm
ESC= 80g*45mm = 3600 g-mm
Total Right = 5392 g-mm

The receiver and the two battery packs are balanced about the center. If you want the units to work out to Newtons you have to use kilograms, meters and you have to multiply by 9.8 m/s^2 for gravity. For left to right comparison sake, this is not needed. The distances need to be measured to the center of mass for each part. The motor is easy, it is the middle. The servo and the ESC may not be the center, but it will be close. As it turns out, it probably doesn't matter since the motor appears (from my guessed numbers) to apply much more force on the left side.

Actually, no, the the centerline of the motor is much closer to the centerline of the car than the central weight from the ESC and Servo. The heaviest end of the servo faces out but lands at about the same distance off center as the motor. The speedo however, mounted with the wire leads facing the back of the car , it pushes the bulk of the weight of the speedo close to 3/4 of an inch further away from the centerline of the car than the centerline of the motor. It actually balances out pretty close to dead on when i put it on balance pins. Its not perfect but damn close.

No added weight. The car is sitting on .500 radius 1/2 balls.

^ Wow! isnt there an RC event in the Olympics coming up? j/k.. yah, the balance is great on this car, no doubt there... its one of the first things people say when they hold the car... "wow, it feels really low", and I say, "yah.. like a Serpent!"

oh and I saw another speed control lite up into a flaming ball of death on the track! gawd I hope my RX8 doesnt take the car with it, or the lipo's for that matter... now that I have the graphite braces I will remove them while charging too heh.

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Thanks. I'm constantly changing my bodies and that skin had a snakeskin up the center so I thought it was befitting of the serpent