Chances are Monday may be the release date of something interesting.
Friday, November 26, 2010
New Apple Mini IPad picture??
Chances are Monday may be the release date of something interesting.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Castle Black Friday Deals + Garage Sale Additions
November 24, 2010
Black Friday Sale Starts NOW.
Check out our Black Friday 2010 sale. We are offering 20% off our web page prices on all Castle gear (except ICE and ICE HV, we just don't have enough of those in stock). That includes everything on the Garage Sale page, plus all of our Mamba, Sidewinder, Hydra and Thunderbird controllers as well as our complete line of car motors. (Neu motors are NOT part of this sale, sorry.)
Garage Sale Expanded
We've added our 1/8th scale buggy conversion kits to the garage sale. Pick them up for $25.00 each, plus take the 20% discount if you order by Sunday 11:59 pm!
We've still got quite an outstanding selection of aircraft & heli outrunners at outrageous prices, now 20% lower.
Take a look - we're sure there's something for everybody.
Sidewinder 1/10 Rebate
Don't forget about the $30.00 rebate program for Sidewinder 1/10 ESC and ESC / motor combos. This offer allows retail consumers who have purchased a Sidewinder between October 1, 2010, and January 31, 2011, to apply directly to Castle for their rebate.
The Sidewinder 1/10 system offers great performance in 1/10 vehicles at an incredible price. With the $30.00 rebate, it's an offer that will be hard to pass up.
Stop by your favorite hobby retailer to take advantage of this rare offer from Castle.
Complete details and application form are on the Castle website, please click here to jump to them.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Castle Marketing Dept.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Modifying a perfectly good Traxxas StampedeVXL
1. Lower the body by 1/2"
2. Add a new body
3. Add the Stampede Project easy pull battery holder modification and grind the ribs from the body tray to square lipos will fully seat.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Traxxas Stampede VXL with Upgraded Bug Body
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Dyeing to Look Cool
Dyeing to Look Cool
by Tony Arnold StampedeProject.com
As published in RC Car Magazine August 2007
Successful Dyeing:Assure all parts are spotlessly clean and have been washed down with soap to remove any oil, otherwise spotting may occur.Liquid dye works best.Use at least 1/4 bottle of dye per ½ gallon of simmering water.Keep the water simmering, stirred, and parts submerged through the process.Allow plenty of time for the dye to work into the pieces.Increasing dye amount and/or soak time will increase depth of color.Reuse the dye - my wife ended up with a couple scarlet red t-shirts after I was done with my parts. |
I think we all can agree that basic black chassis parts and dyeable white wheels will forever rule as top part colors, but what if we want to turn some heads? In this case, our house Traxxas Rustler with new dyeable gray Traxxas parts were just begging for some highly durable custom colored cool. A couple key how-to's from RC Car will add a that same custom touch to your ride without a three day clean up process and having your hands look like you just escaped from a freshman initiation prank. To walk through the process, we are going to dye our trusty Rusty with readily available Rit clothing dye. Of course we also have a few little upgrades planned to turn our Rustler into a real head turner and performer.
About Rit Dye
Rit fabric dyes are available in almost every grocery, craft, and superstore around the country and normally cost less than $4 per bottle. This is a pretty cheap and easy upgrade as one bottle will easily dye over 5lbs of parts. Rit fabric dye is first and foremost non-toxic, so the only disposal and handling concerns are where to pour out the dye bath after you are done - I pour mine outside in the dirt. I prefer the liquid dye from a results and mess perspective, as I find the powder dye tends to be messier and needs to be dissolved first.
Getting Started
There are a couple dyeing methods, but the old "stovetop" method consistently delivers the best results because heat can be regulated throughout the dyeing process whether the parts needs five minutes or an hour. Following this method, I grabbed my 4 gallon thrift store pot, dumped in all the disassembled and clean dyeable parts and covered them with an extra 2"-3" of water. Large parts such as a chassis can be flipped in the pot several times during the process, so you don’t necessarily need everything completely submerged. All the parts were pulled out, the pot placed on my grill burner and then the water was brought to a slow boil. Do as many parts as you can at once, however only use as much water and dye as is needed – no since using 3 gallons of water and a bottle of dye for a set of wheels.
Dyeing TipsDye stains stuff - wear old clothes and rubber gloves.An yard sale pot and cooking tongs is a good investment for use in dyeing and ongoing cleaning.Having an extra bottle of dye is handy when doing dark, vivid colors and/or lots of parts, just in case a little extra color is needed.Only use as much dye as needed, keep a tight lid on un-used dye for later use.Any typical RC nylon or polyester based parts will take dye, Lexan will not.Simmer, don’t boil. Boiling may misshape some plastics.Cover your workspace with a plastic drop cloth or work outside. FYI - Dye will stain tiles, countertops, concrete and decks.Be sure to have wet sponges and paper towels on hand to wipe up spills.Clean containers and sinks immediately after dyeing by cleaning with foaming bathroom cleaner, hot water and powdered bleach cleanser if necessary.Need a custom color? See “Dyeing Techniques” on Rit’s site. |
Helpful Suggestions
My furry helper inspected and assured all the parts were clean and grouped together. Thinking about parts retrieval in the beginning is a plus, one of my tricks is to loosely attach a zip tie or wire to groups of parts. My dog thought this was to make them easier for him carry around. This is the point you really want to assure your plastic drop cloth is place and your gloves and tongs are handy, because it's about to get messy.
Getting Your Color On
Once the water started boiling, I dropped the heat to a high simmer or about medium low, slipped on some latex gloves, and then added about a ¼ bottle of Rit dye per ½ gallon. In my case that was two bottles of dye, noting that’s stronger than what is recommended for fabric. Stir, add back in all your parts, and stir again. Occasionally, give the entire brew a careful stir to assure uniform color. No matter how careful you are at his point, you are going to get dye on your hands and your clothes so be prepared.
Cooking Time
So how long do we cook our RC parts? That depends how dark or vivid you want them. Keep checking and pull them out when the color looks good. For lighter colors 5-10 minutes is all that is required. Deep dark colors such as the intensely dark red wine color took an hour. The three keys to getting deep rich colors are using more dye, maintaining simmering water temperatures, and allowing adequate time in the dye bath. Typically I get the color almost where I want it and then just turn off the heat and let things cool down for 15 minutes.
Finishing & Cleaning Up
When the desired color is reached remove the parts using your kitchen tongs or by using the wires and place the parts into a bucket and let completely cool and drain. Keep in mind even though most of the dye has absorbed into the plastic, excess dye from the bath will still stain, so be careful. If you have planned to do custom colors by combining dyes, now is the time to add the next color for the next round of dyeing - as an example I could have added some yellow for an orange dye bath, or blue for a purple dye bath - add in the next set of parts and repeat soaking process.
Once the parts have cooled, rinse them well either in a utility sink or outside to prevent staining. Clean up on most sinks and dishes can be done with foaming bathroom cleaner and abrasive powder bleach cleaner.
Custom Tweaks
Dye and paint are just cosmetic upgrades, but they add individuality and a custom component to your ride that makes everyone take a second look. As you can see the Rustler’s chassis, shocks, steering linkage and drive yokes came out great, but we couldn’t stop there.
Along with an aluminum Idler gear upgrade, we upgraded the power with a Novak GTB 4.5R brushless motor/ESC system and A123 Lithium Ion 2S pack to make the Rustler a lighter and faster runner. RPM set us up with pretty much the entire accessory line up of their tougher and lighter bolt on Rustler upgrades. RPM parts included front and rear arms, shock cups, 2-stage shock pistons (which I am a huge fan of), gear cover, 5x11 bearing carriers plus Boca Green Seal bearings, caster blocks, bumper, and Talon wheels with Losi Red Edge and Step-Pin tires.
To up the tune-ability of the Rustler we upgraded to the mind-blowingly beautiful FLM - Fast Lane Machine $15 front and $24 rear billet machined aluminum shock towers - yeah we know that's a smoking deal. These very reasonably priced parts provided drooling amounts of tuning adjustments that we have always wanted on the Rustler. Adjustable camber links will come on the next round of upgrades, however since a stock link was already in need of replacement, we are giving RPM's indestructible fixed camber links a bashing workout while we fiddle with all the new FLM shock tower adjustments and tune all that power.
Our trusty Rusty now screams custom, looks better than new, and with the upgrades in durability, performance, and adjustability it should surprise more than a few. Amazing what a bottle of Rit dye and a bag full of tricks can do - very cool.
SOURCES: Traxxas www.RitDye.com, FLM Fast Lane Machine www.FastLaneMachine.com, RPM Products www.RPMRCProducts.com, Novak Electronics www.TeamNovak.com, A123 Racingwww.a123racing.com, Traxxas www.Traxxas.com, Losi www.TeamLosi.com
Monday, November 1, 2010
How many RCs has StampedeProject.com Owned
- My original Ultra-Pede for sentimental reasons
- Hot Bodies Stadium Pro 2 Pro converted to brushless - This was just a premo truck with the best that Hot Bodies offered from top to bottom.
- All my Traxxas Revos - I had the old 3.3 metal chassis and they just ran so beautifully and rarely broke.
- My polished aluminum DNA crawler chassis - not that I needed it, but it was just pretty.
The Stampede Project Squirt-Pede (Practice use - flower watering)
Pretty simple project and recipe for fun.
1 - TQ3 Three channel Transmitter and Receiver
1- Squirt gun of your choice small enough that your RC can carry it
1- Spare servo of your choice (I used a old 2018)
1 - Short servo horn
1 - Package of "Industrial Velcro"
2-4 - Zip Ties
Install receiver on vehicle as usual. Velcro servo to squirt gun, fashion servo horn to a zip tie and that zip tie to another one going around the trigger. Velcro the squirt gun assembly to the body and plug in servo. Typically nets 5-6 foot range. NOTE if you have a smart dog as mine is, he will run in fear as soon as it squirts just once.
Let it be known that all manner of devices will don the Ultra-Pede. Now where is my air horn and paintball gun...
This of course lead to the RWDP build
The Old Capacitor Trick - and some background on why and when to use it.
The problem
Bought a Novak GTB 4.5R Brushless "Current sucking hog" and had tons of glitching.
So I slapped that brushless system in the Ultra-Pede yesterday and glitching problems galore. Geared 13/87 - which from the online threads seems to be a little under-geared. Da..da..da..da..daaaaaaaaaaaa.. Like it's attempting to send Morris code.
I get zero glitching and non-existent cogging (as advertised) when running with the wheels off the ground, however the moment the Pede hit the ground I get glitching when attempting a full throttle take off. If I do a slow start no glitching then I can punch it full throttle without glitching. I also get some glitching at extended 20+ foot ranges. I also seem to only get a feel of the full power and speed when the wheels are off the ground otherwise when on ground it only seems to only have about twice the power of the old Titanite.
Batteries are standard PowerMax Pros, GP3300s and similar style stick/shotgun packs with Deans Wet Noodle and plugs added. Even after resolving the glitching issue, to get the full power of the brushless system and I had to do a high current battery pack conversion - see this.
Attempting to move the antenna around to see if it was a antenna/power wire related issue, but did nothing. Tranny is packed with plenty of Lithium Grease to minimize radio interference. Dropped a new battery in and thought for a second that cured the issue but started glitching just as before. The ESC was set at factory default, with the exception of running Drive Profile 2 (100% F/R mode). But have tired other profiles with the some glitching results. Drive frequency is fixed in brush-less mode on the GTB.
The esc is mounted in standard placement with the power wire side of the ESC on the left (antenna side of the Pede) and the receiver and wire harness bundle is on the right. This points the blinky ESC lights forward and allows the two separate groups of wires to go around each side of the rear shock tower. I also twisted each group of wires to shorten them and hopefully cancel out any potential other interference problems. That process in itself did not relieve the major glitching issue but may reduce any other issue that may have occurred - i.e., still needed a capacitor. Just covering all the bases in advance.
The Solution from the conversation with Novak
Talked with Novak tech support. Their recommendation was two fold.
A. Separate the power and signal wires, currently my are all zip tied together in a 1/2" bundle. That did nothing.
B. Purchase a capacitor to plug into the battery pack slot on the receiver or use a battery pack. That should provide enough juice to the receiver to get through the initial current hit on the battery during hard acceleration.
What they say occasionally happens is that there is such a huge initial current draw that the receiver current drops low enough (a brown out of sorts) that you momentarily loose signal because there is not enough power to run the receiver, then of course everything rebounds and the process starts over again and then the voltage pogos until you let off the trigger. To you it looks like glitching.
Novak was correct in diagnosing my issue. Moving the cable did nothing, although I left them separated as it seemed like a good idea.
The receiver was in fact experiencing a "brown out" during full acceleration and with the addition of a simple 1000uf (1000mf) 35V polarized capacitor from Radio Shack the glitching issue was resolved although everything worked even better after going to the Novak 5700mF Cap.
The glitching issue was history after this very minor "The Old Capacitor Trick" upgrade and will take longer to explain than do.
What Capacitors do for your RC car
Caps store energy, like a battery, so think of a capacitor as very short term battery backup for your receiver or ESC. They can be used on the ESC or the Receiver whichever needs it. I found one article which indicated that your should have a cap on both your ESC and receiver as a standard piece of equipment to prolong the life of each which is typically shortened from continuous voltage fluctuations. Think of it also as a power conditioner for your electronics.
What to Buy
If you can go buy the Novak 5700mF cap ($5), you will be most happy with it when used in connection with a high current brushless system. That said I initially used a 1000uf 35V Axial-Lead (polarized) Electrolytic Capacitor from Radio Shack that worked and killed the big glitching issues. The key when looking for a cap at Radio Shack is that it needs to have arrows on the label of the cap (a polarized capacitor), be of decent quality, 10+ volts (35V is the norm and is overkill since you BEC and receiver or only 6V max) and be at least 1000uf (same as 1000mf), but preferably 4000-6000mF. The bigger the number the more current it stores, but keep in mind there is a point where bigger is just bigger.
The 5700mF is all you need up to doing timed high speed runs where the motor is pulling so much current continuously that the cap doesn't have a chance to recharge. In that situation you really are better going to a receiver battery pack and disconnecting the BEC. Although I originally thought a 4700uf (4700mf) was plenty, the 5700mF makes every setup run with no glitching, so my recommendation to everyone is to use the Novak 5700mF capacitor.
The Radio Shack ones are rated for 35V whereas the Novak are for 10V and are therefore about 1/2-1/3 the size and are more easily mounted and still deliver the same power. Your BEC and receiver only kick out 5-6V so, anything over 10V really is overkill and adding weight.
How do I make one of these things: It took some digging on how to hook it up.
The arrow on the cap. points in the direction of current flow (from + to -) so the tip of the arrow is - and the back of the arrow is +.
Scrounge a spare receiver jack and solder the red (+) lead to the + end of the capacitor and the Black (-) lead to the - end of the capacitor. Remove the third lead. I also picked up the variety grab bag of Radio Shack shrink wraps and shrink wrapped everything up so no sparking could occur. I also put a nice big shrink wrap over the whole cap for protection - gee looks just like the Novak on the ESC. Then plug it into the spare battery slot on receiver, the same one you would use if you were using a battery pack on your receiver and tucked the cap around the front of the receiver. That's it - super simple. The capacitor will charge from the power supplied from the ESC as needed and will discharge when current drops suddenly.
Crude picture but you get the idea of how to solder it together. Make sure you shrink wrap everything well. Capacitors can spark. Capacitors generally can last a very long time but don't last forever, so if you get a year or two with heavy use you are doing great.
I also want to re-stress that even after resolving the glitching issue, the potential of your brushless system is almost solely dependant on the quality and build of the battery pack. 3000Mh batteries are an absolute minimum, GP3300 are better, and 4200Mh are preferred. You spent the cash on the brushless system, don't get all cheap on the power source. To get the full power of the brushless system either buy your packs already set up in a side-by-side configuration or do a high current battery pack conversion yourself - see this. As a brushless system will melt stock Tamiya connectors and overheat stock power wire, I am assuming you already know that you should be using either PowerPoles or deans as connectors and something like Deans Wet Noodle power wires.
Wet Mop & Swiffer Stampede
This morning I was stressing over having to Swifer and wet mop the floor tonight and started thinking, hey why not. Pulled out the Stampede threw in some low gearing so I wouldn't shoot the Pede through a wall, drilled a couple holes in my Project Stampede Skid Plate, and a couple holes in my floor pad mop head, zip tied it together using some leather shoe laces as the drag chains. Drop the damp rag under the floor mop head as usually and start driving. Funny thing is it works surprisingly well for the main open areas. Of course the corners and harder to reach areas need to be done by hand, but still actually a semi-useful idea.
Later in the morning I started thinking that I could probably attach a standard Swiffer head to the front of the Project Stampede using available spar parts. 2 each - front and rear bearing carriers, two front stock turnbuckles and some shoulder screws. Screwed the front bearing carrier to the Swiffer, and the rear bearing carriers to the RPM bumper. Roomba Smumba... Works great, and I can use the wet pads also. System has plenty of give in case of low speed accidents.
Snow-Pede - Snow Skis on the Stampede (Part 1)
The process of putting skis on the Stampede has been a something I have been trying to figure our for a while. My big design point was it had to be simple bolt on mounting, anyone can build a new from end and I have always subscribed to the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid). Design criteria were; the need for flex (don't want to tear up the servo), the ability to collapse during hard impact (don't want/like broken pieces and packed snow is hard). What I came up with was to simply pass a properly sized bolt through the stock front bearing carriers and lock it down by using a nut, then lock down the plastic ski support with another nut. I used my old stock bearing carriers instead of risking damage to my new RPM bearing carriers and bearings - your did keep the stock bearing carriers didn't you? This setup will in theory stay put unless you hit something hard.
Going back to my ABS plastic stash, I formed a couple of 7" Dubro style skis with side ribs and pop riveted on some homemade pivots. I used a couple of stainless-steel bolts and nuts to secure the mount to the pivots and used two safety-pins to provide the spring to keep the tips pointed up and avoid the skis digging in.
Snow-Pede - Pro Version (Part 2)
After a lot of testing, I came to the conclusion that my initial design had some short comings. The collapsing design did exactly what is was supposed to do, however it also seemed to collapse when it shouldn't have. The front stance needed to be a little wider on the skis so that the turning radius could be tightened down to something drivable.
Part I - Max Ski throw - about 20 degrees | Part II - Max Ski throw - about 45 degrees + about 15 degrees of chamber when turned. |
Although my ABS skis worked great, ABS plastic is not the best choice for points of stress or load bearing situations, and my bolt on mounts broke because of this. So we were back to re-engineering the front end for a durable solution. Another problem was flotation and propulsion. The front stock tires mounted on the rear with zip tires worked pretty well and was super cheap, but there is a reason why someone designed sand/snow paws, so I picked up a set of Proline SandPaws.
Snow Terrain Reality - Due to the reality of the size of most drifts and my dog's mission to create as may (what I have termed) "Sink holes of death" in any clear patch of snow, my dreams of high speed drift jumps and snow speed racing on an un-tainted snow covered golf course, just were not going to happen. As a result, expect that you are going to use your skis in 1"-2" of snow mainly in a road, frozen lake, or golf course, forget about the deep snow unless it has a really really hard crust on it. Also expect that you will only be able to traverse objects up to that same 2-3" range. I might as well have shot the Stampede into the ground when encountering deep "Sink hole of Death" created by my nutty dog out-running the Snow-Pede. He also thinks its his buddy that he should tackle...yeah, lots of fun for him. Bottom line - just as most RC snowmobiles, the perfect Snow-Pede conditions are 1/2"-2" of wetter snow or very hard flat crusty snow.
Ski Mounting – What seems to be almost bulletproof are some custom Polyethylene “Y” wishbones - Ski-Carriers that replace the bearing carriers and attach to the skis via Polyethylene half circles. By the way Polyethylene or HDPE (high density Polyethylene) is the same stuff as a white NSF plastic cutting board. I used an $8 3M .5x18x20 cutting board. Polyethylene is very strong stuff that can be cut and drilled just like wood. Polyethylene is also once of the toughest commercially available plastic products for load bearing situation, aside from Acetyl/Acetyl and some custom blended nylons. I basically duplicated the bearing carrier height, and attachment, the set-up allows you to just e-clip them in place of the stock bearing-carriers and all the stock camber links attach as usual. To make the connection to the servo, I used some steel 106mm or 116mm Maxx turnbuckles, a worm gear screwed into the ski-carrier topped off with a rod end. I used something different in the pictures, but I ended up using some Traxxas shouldered screws passing up into the ski-carrier steering rod end in the Maxx turnbuckle ball. If anyone is interested, I made about 10 extra the ski-carriers and half moon ski mounts, some fit better than others and need finishing/trimming and don't include any of the turnbuckles, screws, or other hardware. Although the spares are not plug and play ready, I'll be happy to send them out FedEx ground for $10.00. You will have to do some trimming and spend about $20 on the stock hardware and Dubro skis, but you should be able to screw Dubro Skis directly to the half moon ski mounts.
The Skis – The Dubro Snowbird Skis work great and are an easy solution. The 9inchers are probably the best choice (measure first), however the 8” ABS skis I made work great but are a little wider than the Dubro models. Now that I corrected the mounting, I can turn a very tight 1-1.5 ft circle. The skis do a great job of steering the vehicle (with the new mounts) and keeping on top of the snow, even the really light stuff. If the propulsion and floatation part was worked out these would be great.
The Tires - The Proline SandPaws are outstanding quality. The fit and finish of the tires was first rate. I was a little disappointed that the tires had a smaller diameter and were quite a bit narrower than the stock tires. In trying to achieve more flotation, these tires were a little counter productive, but it did provide the traction for forward motion in up to 2" or so of snow. I would recommend using front rims on the rear. This will give you a little wider more stable stance. I also moved the shock mount up two holes on each arm to add a little more clearance.
The Look - I was more anxious to get out an test the set-up so I haven't completed the finish work and dying of the ski-carriers. Once dyed in black, I think the Ski-carriers will look very cool and will last a very long time.
Supplemental Floatation - After some testing in 4" snow, I devised a contoured 8"x8" ski that bolted to the under rear side of the transmission support. Yeah, it was a good idea that kind of worked, but the tires really had a hard time moving the vehicle forward in that depth of snow. The set-up did easily float the entire truck in 12" of fresh snow powder, but wouldn't move. Don't bother on this idea. The only thing that will work in deeper snow is a track system with huge paddles. I ended up pulling it off and making a smaller 2" wide version that wrapped up around the motor which prevent junk/snow from packing in front of the transmission box and also prevent the transmission housing from being ground away. After snow season was over I liked it so much I left it on as extra armor. A side benefit it that it prevents junk from catching on the x-brace and acts as a wheelie bar and rear bumper.
OK, the Skis look Trick, but so they work?
Omaha was blanketed with over 30 inches of snow in Feb 2004 when I developed and tested this project. The snow has been deep and ranged from light and fluffy to wet to frozen to crusty. So say the least I did a lot of testing.
The new "Pro version" ski's I engineered with a wider stance do work much better turn the truck great. The whole set-up also looks really cool zipping around in the snow. Bottom line is that although this is a really fun project, the Stampede is far to heavy to "float" on top of soft fluffy snow even with dual tires at the rear. When this happens, you will become very frustrated very quickly. Even sand/snow paw tires will drill straight down on the soft stuff. That relegates you to only running on harder packed or crusty surfaces or in snow less than 2"-3" deep and at this point skis have a very narrowly focused terrain use and is also tough or impossible to back up. The in-efficiency of basically running the motor wide open to keep the truck moving in even 1"-2" snow will make shorter 10 minute or less runs common, even with good quality 3000mh batteries. On harder snow surfaces, studded, zip-tied (which work the best that I've found), or chained tires provide the grip the front wheels need to turn the truck. Yes, the skis work and do a great job with keeping the front end up, and tracking in the right direction, but again this is a moot point until a track system can be engineered to support the weight of the truck.
From my experience, I'm glad I did this project. I now have skis if I need them and a solution to a narrowly focused terrain problem. I think I have perfected the snow Ski part of the equation but the bottom line is you will become frustrated at attempting to use a ski based machine in conditions other than 1/2"-2" of wetter snow or very hard flat crusty snow.
My recommendation is you will have probably have a lot more fun running in the street with front tires and rear sand paws jumping all the snow drifts and snow banks...and being able to back up.
Tires are fine up to about 2-3” of hard crusty, wet or powdered snow. I have found that snow/sand paddles work best, even on the packed snow. The contact area of even dual tires or Maxx tires on the back just did not provide the floatation and forward motion that is required to keep the tires from just sinking in during acceleration on deeper or powdery snow. Soft powdery show has a surface tension of about 1oz./square inch. There is a reason they have specialize vehicles call snowmobiles that will outperform any other vehicle on snow. As a result a track system is required for snow deeper than 2-3 inches. The good news is that it can be done, and a couple of people already have, however you can expect to spend between $200-$400 for all the parts to make it work right at full speed. Although I have found all the appropriate materials, and have developed a solution in my CAD program with all commercially available materials, which will simply bolt on to the Stampede and E-Maxx, I think I would rather spend the money on something else. After all we only have decent snow about a month out of every year.
The Yusa 1/8 Scale Buggy
The idea was simple; beg, borrow or steal three identical 1/8 scale buggies for the ultimate test - The Yusa Project.
Need Buggies
Since no manufacturer on earth would sign up for this and pitch in chassis's, there I sat for wellover three weeks, loosing one eBay auction after another for every 1/8th scale buggy roller chassis I bid on. Losi, Ofna, Mugen, Kyosho, Hotbodies, ProTech, RD Logics, ...etc. One right after another I was out bid by some fellow RC'er. Sure, I could have won a few, but I didn't really want to drop $200 on a used chassis no matter how good of condition because after all I needed three. $100 was my limit. Then it happened, one of my go-to eBay sellers had what is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity. They had a number of new overstock Yusa 1/8th scale buggy chassis for $100 each including shipping. This allows an almost perfect control environment for the Yusa Project experiments and plenty of spare parts for a while after the all the testing is done.
What the...?
First off, what the heck is a Yusa and where did I dig this up, and why should you be interested in my nitro to brushless conversion for your Losi, Ofna, Mugen-Seki, Hot Bodies, Associated, DuraTrax, SportWerks....etc? Ahh, you should read on.
I found these gems on Ebay of course. The "what" is more complex. Talking to a few international contacts and a bit of research turned up that there are only a couple oversees manufacturers that build hobby level buggies. In fact the vast majority of buggies and buggy parts now all roll out of two factories. I have more than a couple reliable sources that confirm that Yusa was the primary manufacturer of the majority of the buggies - but then they went out of business sometime in 2006. These generic units were then private branded or upgraded per other manufacturers specs. Most of them roll out the door simply with a sticker, body, and tire change others get different anodizing or upgraded parts for a "pro" version. Ever wonder why most buggy parts are completely interchangeable? Now you know.
Two different US RC manufactures confirmed off the record that the generic Yusa was the same exact unit as theircurrent offering and then proceeded to tell me everyone else that was or had used the same basic chassis. I was shocked and I am sure you are also. For the record though those manufactures retail a Yusa like buggy for about $250-$400 with motor. My trip to the 2007 iHobby showed no less than four manufactures with a exact copy of my Yusa although wheels, body and electrics, and a machined shock tower here and there were slightly different, so apparently the molds are still out there.
Yusa Buggy Resources
Check out how familiar my Yusa buggies are to a couple Ofna buggies.
http://www.ofna.com/pdf/95-violator.pdf
http://www.ofna.com/pdf/ultra-lx-comp.pdf
These are pretty close and and should be a direct fit, however the Yusa is a RD Logics, is a Power Racing Katana, and is a ProTech T59/T56 check this out as a Yusa Manual
http://www.protech.be/Manuals/T59manual%20web.pdf
http://www.protech.be/Manuals/T56manual%20web.pdf
I'll save your some time searching for parts in the even you also picked one of these up.
http://www.powerracingrc.com/katana.shtml
http://www.larrysperformancercs.com/...ABX&type=store
http://www.larrysperformancercs.com/...gi?category=43
http://search.stores.ebay.com/RCBoyz...saselZ16028217
Quality
The quality of the Yusa rollers were every bit as good as most entry level buggies $300-400 range (stressing entry level) and so good that instead of the three Yusa Buggies I bought, I would have bought four if "the wife" wasn't on to me...
To be fair here to the "real" manufacturers, let's compare the Yusa to my Losi 8 Race Roller. There is a VERY distinct quality difference between the two, the Yusa arrive unboxed wrapped in bubble wrap with no documentation what-so-ever. The Losi of course includes everything under the sun from marketing, documentation,service, support, decals, tools, and every screw you will need to attach the electrics alone with quality of every part in a completely different league. I am not kidding myself, the Yusa is no Losi 8, but it's a pretty darn good copy of a Mugen MBX4 - sorry Mugen.
Everything has a price. Apparently some well intentioned but retarded individual set up the buggy because every oil and fluid needs swapping and a ton of tuning was required for a decent ride. The reality is the Losi 8 is worlds better in every way, however for $100 including shipping, the Yusa buggy was a smoking entry level buggy deal to mess around with for this experiment so I bought three.
Ongoing Yusa Quality Assessment
Again is isn't a Losi 8, however I am very impressed so far with the overall quality of the buggy. I did freak out about a week ago when I though I blew the rear diff. Turns out the CV grub screw had come loose. FYI, LockTite every metal to metal screw on the chassis before run #1 whatever they used as LockTite doesn't work. I even hit the wheel hubs with LockTite otherwise the wheels kept coming off.