wakeboardfusion

iTrader: (3)

nice, have fun with it!

St. George

iTrader: (7)

Hey Krogoth,

Are you in the military? If so thank you for your service. Do you know Adam Orlowski? He was over there too, we used to chat on a different RC forum. Did you get the new Bandit with the waterproofing? I have a very old Rustler that I want to change into a Bandit, I just like the looks better. Regarding your heat concerns, A smaller pinion and bigger spur equals more run-time and less heat but I'm sure you knew that. By the way, Total Annihilation is pretty much the best game ever eh? A college buddy introduced me to it in 2002 and I still enjoy playing it. Good luck.

Ben

KROGOTH

Alright, internet in my room didnt work last night so I couldnt post how the first run went. Already encountered my first problem, and its probably a problem on the Rustler I would imagine as well.

The left tire (I think) wont stay one for too long. The nut unscrews itself and falls off. Lost a peice last night cause of it but luckily I was able to fabricate a replacement. (epic mechanic skillz :P) but it kept coming off after that. Im going to try and find a small enough lockwasher and see if that helps. Failing that I may try some loc-tite, but Id rather save that as a last resort.

My 3600mah Ni-HM battery had to have lasted me well over 25 minutes of run time, and that wasnt even fully charged. It was heating up on the charger so I figured Id cycle it or whatever. Got it back on the charger this morning and Ill see how it goes this time around.

Tomorrow I am going to take it out to the R/C track that is on Liberty. Ill try and charge my camera up tonight as well so I can get some pics of the track. I saw it close up this morning and its nice. Ill prolly post it in the track finding forum for other servicemembers in the area to inform them.

St. George - Nah that name doesnt ring any bells. That being said there are a ton of people here and in the Army in general, so yeah. And yeah mine is a new Bandit with the "waterproofing". After my run last night, granted it was during dusk, there really wasnt any heat issues at all. The motor started warming up towards the tail end of the run but that was mostly cause I started changing speed and doing alot of fishtails and whatnot. Heat may not be as big a problem as I had originally imagined.

paco62

iTrader: (1)

I love Traxxas stuff and the Bandit is cool. The one thing I've seen from the guys that race them here is they can be tricky to jump. You might look at getting some weights to help balance. The chassis is long and narrow and maybe balancing the load would help. Hope that helps. Keep rolling!

KROGOTH

Eh not really jumped it too much, but it seems fine so far, I havent noticed any awkwardness about its jumps. Sounds like it lands a little hard but that may just be because Im running it on gravel.

Speaking of, Im curious now. Would any of the adjustments you folks made about running the Bandit in sand apply to gravel?

I love driving it in gravel though. lol. Alot of the trucks that are driven in my motor pool leave pretty deep ruts in the areas with "deep" gravel and it looks like my bandit is surfing waves, if that makes any sense. Also the few paved/concrete areas in my motor pool are covered with a fine layer of dirt which makes for great donuts and fishtails. lol.

DARKWAV

Fasteners on R/C cars tend to come loose, particularly ones into metal parts, spinning parts, and links. Wheel nuts tend to come loose quickest, often in the period of a single run. You should periodically check your wheel nuts throughout the run, line every 10 minutes or so. You may find you can go longer than that on your car. I've also found that screws in the steering linkakges tend to work their way loose over several runs. Fasteners that attach static chassis parts together tend to stay tight, though some may come loose over a longer period of time if they are in a high stress area. Thread lock, the blue variety, is recommended for screws that go right into metal. If you decide not to use threadlock on those parts, I would be sure to check them every run

Just remember check wheel nuts during the run, also preflight and postflight your r/c. Intitially that should include screw checks each time. After awhile you'll have a sense for what items tend to come loose more frequently, and learn which fasteners you will need to recheck everytime, and which things you can check only occaisionally.

KROGOTH

Alrighty, I have roughly $400-500 to spend on upgrades for my bandit. Ive already planned on buying an alum body, shock towers, front bulkhead and transmission case. Im going to keep the stock suspension parts (minus the towers of course) until they break and Ill have RPM parts on hand to replace any of that, or in the case of the shocks, aluminum shocks.

So out of the $400, 200 some dollars is taken up buy the alum parts I plan to buy. My question is, what else should I look into for early upgrades? I was thinking maybe a new controller/receiver but Im unsure. I do plan to upgrade later to LiPo/Mamba Max/Mamba Brushless, but for now Im good with the XL-5/Titan 12T. I was considering getting a Futaba 2PL FM transmitter, but Im unsure if I want to start playing with wiring and unwiring stuff just yet. lol.

Does anyone know of a better spur gear? Ive already nearly stripped one out on my bandit and that is one part im interested in finding something more durable than stock. And I keep it adjusted right, but my motor manages to come loose during paritcularly hard runs, thus leading to the stripping of the spur gear. (Hopefully Im refering to the right gear, the large plastic one that the spinner clutch is on.)

Chimer

iTrader: (26)

Put some blue loctite on the motor screws to keep the motor from loosening up so easily. Be sure your gear mesh is "just right". The mesh between the small gear on the motor(pinion gear) and the spur gear. You want a little bit of "play" between the two. The easiest way to accomplish this is by inserting a piece of paper between the gears, mesh the gears together with the paper between them, and tighten the motor mount screws. If the gear mesh is not correct it can damage the gears, cause the motor/ESC to run hotter, lower your run times, and run slow.
I would upgrade to a Spektrum/2.4ghz radio system so you don't have to worry about interference from other radio's. An upgraded radio would also have many more features that would be very useful for future motor/ESC combos and racing. If you are getting into racing at some point you may want to upgrade the steering servo. A faster responding steering servo makes a big difference, especially after you upgrade the motor/ESC and the car drives much faster.
If your wheel nuts keep coming off you could put blue loctite on the axle threads.
Thank you for serving in Iraq for us. My buddy learned how to play guitar when he was over there. I am glad to hear you are staying entertained with r/c cars.

KROGOTH

Meh, I may have to Loc-tite the motor screws but I dont look forward to that at all. Right now, all I have is threadlock from my motor pool anyhow, no "blue loc-tite" itself. Same difference though. Already put threadlock on that mischevious wheel nut and its held there just fine. Just waiting on replacement washers to get here.

I knew about the paper method and thats how I fixed it the first time, no problem. Today before I race it I may double check it becuase I had to fix it at the track yesterday and free-handed it. -shrug-

Im looking into probably getting a Spektrum DX3.0 radio. Cheaper, still good features and more affordable than the more top end models I saw on their website. That and the alum. upgrades will take up just about all of my budget for now, so the servo will have to wait :P Fine by me though, gives me a chance to try and redo everything on my new chassis without having to worry about messing up a nice new pricey servo.

Dont know if I will get into racing or anything, but driving around on a track is fun, slightly more so than just racing around my motor pool. Need to spend more time learning to control my car as is anyhow. I have trouble controlling the power of my Titan 12T, cant imagine how much Id peel out and the donuts Id do with a brushless motor. lol. Probably need different tires -shrug-

Thanks, sometimes you do get alot of downtime here. Gotta find something to do with it or die of boredom. Last time I was here I learned to hack my iPod, my PSP, and spent the rest of my time modding a few games. lol. So this year Im doing R/C cars and prolly not alot else. Just wish it was easier to get stuff out here.

...Ive kinda sorta turned this thread into my own personal Bandit thread. -shrug- oh well.

pyro18t

iTrader: (1)

The DX3.0 will be a good radio for you. Instead of buying all the aluminium parts I would buy more batteries. It's always nice to look cool, but it's even better when your driving IMO.

Oh yeah if you need help getting stuff, I can always send things MPO to you, plus it's free. I'm just not sure what the turn around is on that.

Jay

KROGOTH

Already got a Reedy Wolfpack 3600mah stick pack that gives me around 30 minutes of run time and got two Venom 5000mah stick packs on the way, should be here by Friday-ish. :P

Gonna start digging up a track in my motor pool, and trying to convince another soldier to join me in my R/C ways. Maybe have someone to race soon. Going to start going to the track on Liberty as well and see if I can get to know the racers that go there on Sunday's.

KROGOTH

Man, you want to talk about some unpredictable handling, driving on gravel is ridiculous sometimes. Anyways though...

Alright, a question about the slipper clutch. How do I go about adjusting it properly? And in addition to that, what are the consequences of not having it adjusted right?

And last, Im pretty sure the tons of extra resistance made by the makeshift washer I have on my left tire cant be good for my transmission. When the motor is still able to freely spin the right tire (has all the right parts), the other tire (with my makeshift washer) will have trouble spinning or wont move at all. Im talking about when the battery is low, but it goes to show how much extra effort its taking to turn that tire. Should I shelve the car until I have the correct and proper replacement parts?

pyro18t

iTrader: (1)

The purpose of the slipper is to "give" a little when you land off of jumps so you don't strip any gears. You should run it pretty darn tight.

As far as the washer goes, you should get/make the right part. If there are any AF aircraft guys there see if there's a "metals tech" shop and see if they'll make you some washers to spec, even a sheet metal shop should be able to do this for you. With the wrong washer being so tight, your putting an extra load on your batteries hurting your run time, and even worse your putting an extra load on the motor which WILL cause it to fail much sooner.

J

KROGOTH

Yeah, I will probably shelve it until later this week until I get the parts I ordered in. If youre right about the run-time thing, that may explain why Ive lost like ten minutes off my run time over the past day.

Tbh, its not even a metal washer thats being used atm, its a small o-ring that I cut in half to make it fit. So yeah, definitely not the right part for the job.

The slipper clutch only affects your drivetrain performance after jumps then? I was under the impression that is also affected the traction of your tires as well, at least from a dead stop or when accelerating at least.

pyro18t

iTrader: (1)

It's true that the slipper can slip a bit under acceleration, but you don't want to set it too loose, if you do most of the time it will get even looser while your driving... then you aren't going to go anywhere and your going to have to tighten it back down. I usually run my slipper nut down tight, then back it off a quarter of a turn leaving it snug.

Jay