R/C Cars and Projects

This is a Losi Tenacity buggy body on a 1/8 JQ Grey Edition buggy. I think it looks better than the standard buggy body, which isn't drealistic at all.

This is a quick, easy, and cheap way to get decent power for charging your R/C batteries. It's just an Xbox 360 supply with the wires gathered into +12V, GND, and jumping the sense/5V wires together (to turn on the supply). Best of all Xbox 360 (or laptop or monitor) supplies are all over the place for cheap after the main units die! I just shot and uploaded this in one take just after hacking the wires together. In review, I notice that the PS voltage was going under 12V, from the rated 12.3V, so I wonder if that made it limit it's power output. It's still a very useful PS for this application. I plan on cleaning up the connector end to prevent shorting and such too.

TNL Invite Race Sunday May 5th

We held a cool multiplayer race on VRC with a 15 minute semi final and 20 minute final. I ended up winning my semi and the main!

Replacing the normal AA batteries in my hobby radio transmitter with Li-Ion 18650 batteries.

Repairing some broken internal mechanical parts in a hobby radio transmitter.

E-Buggy racing at the Treasure Valley R/C track at the Eagle Sports Complex. #winning

This is a gear chart that I made with research into manuals and setups from the different manufacturers and team drivers. It was mainly intended to help JQ drivers get a range of gear ratios to refer to and compare. I keep this handy to post up whenever questions about "What gearing should I run?" come up on Facebook and other forums.

2018 VRC WORLDS 1:10 SHORT COURSE TRUCKS

Over the past 10 days I attended the 2018 VRC WORLDS 1:10 SHORT COURSE TRUCKS. With the worlds schedule apocalypse of 2018 and the holiday season, only 90 racers attended, but with 21 in the Pro ranks there was still a fast field with close competition for the top spot. The VRC organizers set the race up at the Messina X short course, essentially the rally version of the Messina track in Sicily. ZERO jumps, with a layout you could call a Roval (running most of an oval on the outside), with a wavy infield that made timing the throttle and braking point super important. Beginning on the 19th, we had ten qualifying rounds to set the TQ and seed our position in the semis. It was perfect weather for all ten qualifying rounds to be completed through Christmas Eve.

My 4wd SC setup was working great on the track, and some racers picked it up and liked it as well. With the top 3 finishing in only the space of 0.3 of a second, I was surprised to come out the qualifying round with the overall TQ! Sandro Cabreira picked up 2nd with Martin Wollanka in 3rd. Steady handed Arturas Svoba was 4th and VRC YouTube champion Jukka-Pekka Hutala was 5th. The semi-finals kicked off Christmas morning, with the weather changing a little in humidity and pressure changing, and the track grip came up a little too. I took advantage of the schedule to practice a bit more and try some set up changes, like lowering the truck a few mm, and check in with other drivers to see what ideas they had to cut some time. My car was feeling really strong from the night before and I was hoping take a little time off each lap and finish strong in the semis. With the extra minute added to the race time and the stakes being higher, the field did get faster, but a little more spread out. Martin Wollanka took the semi and would start on pole for the mains. I finished 2nd frustrated that there was some time left on the table but happy about finishing 4 of the 6 runs with only 0.6 sec variation from run to run. Olivier Meunier put on a burst of speed from the B group to finish ahead of JPH and Robert Hillman. Instead of the top 10 being able to be on the lead lap, the semis had only five that could make a 20 lap run. Friday arrived and the same great warm weather held for the finals days. In practice, I tweaked the setup a little more and my truck felt great, I had all the confidence going into the A final. I got off to a fantastic start and led the field for a few laps until getting too deep into the final corner and letting Meunier, Hillman, and Wollanka through. With JPH we made a 5 car battle for the first couple minutes that was cool to see. Martin took the lead on the next lap and Olivier took it back on the next! Olivier’s bid for the win ended when he got out of shape in the infield though. At the halfway mark Robert Hillman took the lead but lost control at the same spot Olivier did and came back in to line in 3rd behind Gary Crowell (me). The very next lap he took 2nd back and started reeling in Wollanka for a few laps, but then the top 5 spread out a bit and had very even spacing for the last 2 minutes. Martin Wollanka took the win, with Robert Hillman 2nd and Gary Crowell 3rd, being the only other drivers finishing with 23 laps. Congratulations to Martin on his second Worlds victory of the weekend, and all the other drivers that competed.