Tamiya FF02 Alfa Romeo 156 Racing

A few weeks ago we bought a cheap second hand TT-01 because LANE Boys Snr. wanted to have a 10th scale touring car for relaxing in the local park. Along with the TT-01 came another box: A semi-vintage FF02 Alfa Romeo 156. The body shell had been used quite a bit and was heavily damaged. The chassis was incomplete, but in excellent condition. The front uprights were stripped where the king pin screws go in; turn buckles, servo mounts and a drive shaft were missing, but the rest of the vehicle looked like the car was never run before.

So we've set out to rebuild the car to its former glory.

Make your own RC Winch Controller

Want to control you 1/10 scale winch from your 3-channel RC system? Below you can find instructions to build the necessary controller!

DIY RC Light Controller update

It has been a while since be blogged about our Light controller. In the meantime we have equipped more than ten cars with our custom electronics.

In this post we describe the changes we did along the way to the electronics and the firmware.

Tamiya TEU-104BK mod for LiPo cut-off

Many Tamiya kits available on sale today still come with the TEU-104BK ESC. This ESC is perfectly fine for running brushed motors, but does not contain a BEC and its low voltage cut-off is too low for LiPo batteries.

The missing BEC is easily dealt with: either use "high voltage" compatible servo and receiver, or a cheap external BEC.

Fortunately it is also easy to modify the ESC to have a LiPo compatible voltage cut-off -- assuming you are able to solder a tiny surface-mount resistor.

Tamiya Hummer restoration Part 4 - Detailing

It took a while as other projects were interrupting, but now our Tamiya M1025 Hummer is finished and ready for the trail.

Tamiya Hummer restoration Part 3 - Chassis

With the body in good shape it was time to rebuild the chassis of our Tamiya M1025 Hummer. Like all Tamiya kits one begins with the differentials.

Tamiya Hummer restoration Part 2 - Body work

With all parts stripped and cleaned, it is now time to build the vehicle up again. First we were dealing with the body.

Tamiya Hummer restoration Part 1 - Dismantling and cleaning

Having finished our XR311, it is now time to get its brother, the Tamiya M1025 Hummer, back on the trail.

Custom jumpsuit for a scale RC driver figure

Our Tamiya XR311 is getting close to being finished. One of the last remaining jobs is painting the driver figure that comes with the kit.

Since I made the steering wheel in the XR311 movable I need the arms of the driver to follow the steering wheel. I first thought of adding hinges to the plastic, but abandoned the idea. I made hinges before for our Dingo and I am not pleased with how it turned out.

Studying how others solved the issue I found that real cloth provides the flexibility to keep the hands on the steering wheel. So I needed to make a suit for my driver.

RC electronics Part 5 - Drift car power consumption

In part 5 we look at the electric power consumption of a 1/10 scale 4WD drift car.

The test subject is our Tamiya TT01D. We obtained the car second hand quite a while ago. It was originally an Expert Built set but has been substantially modified by the previous owner. It has the obligatory aluminium propeller shaft, a carbon fiber upper deck, a front one-way differential, sway bars, and a HobbyWing EZRun 60A brushless system with a 5.5T motor. The tires are well-worn HPI T-Drift. A 4600mAh 2S 30C LiPo provided energy for the car.

RC electronics Part 4 - Full metal scale Land Rover

The LANE Boys residence currently hosts a very special scale truck for light installation: a custom built full metal Land Rover Series 2 SWB. A good opportunity to see how much energy is needed to run such a RC car.

RC electronics Part 3 - Tamiya CC01 power consumption

In this blog post we look at the power consumption of the Tamiya CC01 Unimog.

RC electronics Part 2 - Battery charging

The popular four-button-chargers support charging of different battery types. This article examines the different charging strategies applied for NiMH and LiPo batteries.

RC electronics Part 1 - Tenth scale 4WD Buggy power consumption

When it comes to RC electronics there is not a lot of technical information available. Not many RC enthusiasts are experts in electronics and the manufacturers only provide very few data-points for their products.

Recently I got the opportunity to acquire a second-hand Eagle Tree Systems eLogger. This device can measure battery voltage, current draw, motor RPM, temperature and throttle input while you are driving your vehicle.

My first target was our 1/10 scale buggy. A Tamiya DB01 Durga: belt driven 4WD, running a sensored 10.5T Turnigy TrackStar motor with a 60A Hobbyking X-Car ESC. The buggy is geared with a 23T pinion on the 97T spur, giving a final drive ratio (FDR) of 8.13. Power was supplied by a LPR 2S LiPo rated 4600mAh 30C.

2.4 GHz receiver antenna repair

Notice something missing?

Yes, the antenna has been cleanly ripped out of this poor receiver. Time to get out the soldering iron...

HobbyKing HK-310 throttle return mechanism repair

Can you spot the problem with the throttle trigger in the following picture?

If you look carefully, you can see that the throttle trigger on the right transmitter is slightly depressed towards the grip. This is due to a fault in the mechanism that returns the throttle trigger to the centre when you release it.

Fortunately it is not difficult to fix this issue.

DIY RC Light controller pre-processor miniaturization

This blog post is a follow-up on "Pre-processor for the DIY RC Light controller"

It did not take long until it became necessary to shrink down the pre-processor for my DIY light controller.

The HobbyKing HK-GT2R receiver is significantly smaller than the HKR3000 the LANE Boys are using, especially in height. No way an old-fashioned micro-controller in a DIP (Dual Inline Plastic) package can fit in there!

We need to solve this...