BL Conversion - Traxxas Villain
 

I've posted this up on a few other locations, figured I should put it up on the home of the BL Conversion :intello:

I bought a used 7.2V Villain about a year back and it was just too slow for me. The ducks at the local ponds don't even run from the thing it's so slow. It's relaxing to drive, but very boring. There is a lot of talk about how they cannot handle BL power but I cannot find a brushed motor that fits the bill, so I am modifying mine to BL power. I'm starting off with these Turnigy 60A Marine ESCs and some 30mm 3200KV motors with Graupner U-Joints, Traxxas 3/16th shafts, and OSE 51mm CF props.

Here it is as I got it, note the damaged prop in the last pic (hadn't figured out the macro mode on my camera at the time of these pics).
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1633.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1637.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1636.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1634.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1638.jpg

Those nylon drive gears had me concerned, so they were the first thing to go. I checked the diameter of the driveshafts with a digital caliper and they came out to 3.93mm. I ordered 2 28T 32P 5mm bore hardened steel pinion gears from Kershaw Designs and 2 14T 32p 5mm bore hardened steel pinions gears and 5mm -> 4mm bore reducers from RC-Monster to handle the power better. I will run stock gearing (14/28) for now, until I figure out how to gear my motors and probably replace them with higher-grade motors (I'm hoping to get the new ~3,000KV CM36 motors from Castle Creations). I'm waiting on the OSE Turn Fins to come back in stock, as I'm sure this thing will chine walk horribly.

The powerplant:
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1649.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1642.jpg

Size comparison of the ESC and motor against a TRX 2.5 engine:
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1650.jpg

I'm trying to keep it mostly Villain, no direct drive or single motor/single prop configurations.

I hooked up one of the motors (don't have the bottom gear yet, so I dry tested it with the nylon gear) and it works well so far.

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1656.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1657.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1658.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1659.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1660.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...y/DSCN1661.jpg

You are running a twin (two turnigy) esc? Will be waiting for the video of this one. I just sold villian IV toward the end of summer. This will make if more exciting to drive for sure. Nice project.

Yep, two separate ESCs. I need to find the servo Y-harness off my Revo, hopefully I don't need to buy another one.

Is it OK to run both BECs? I'd rather run them both rather than have a slightly uneven battery drain but I don't want to fry ~$120 in ESCs or a $80 Rx.

EDIT: The Turnigy parts are all temporary. The motors are basically just there to see if it works and if I want to spend more money on it (cut losses if things don't work out) and the ESCs will probably be replaced with CC Hydra 120s sooner or later, I just don't like the price tag on the Hydras.

I don't know about the BECs never ran a twin setup before. Somebody should chime in with that one. Do get a video of your first run. Keep the sound on too so we can hear your first impression of it. If you decide to cut your losses it should be a great ebay sale. Even with the turnigy stuff. It's a brushless villian, they'll bid it up.

I was thinking the same thing. Somebody will want it regardless of the parts (I'll link to the video in my eBay auction if it gets sold, that usually helps to sell stuff). The initial impression will probably be something like my SV27, "hmm, it's kinda slow *prop stops cavitating and bites properly* HOLY !@#$"

cannot run two bec's, pull the red wire from one. wire your two battery packs in parallel (making it one pack) then power both esc's off your one paralleled pack, and both batteries will draw the same

For the 5 minutes at-a-time and miniscule power draw of a single cheapo (TRX 2055) servo is it really necessary to make a parallel discharge harness? In a few hours of use it'll draw a noticeable amount of power, but I can't see it causing issues in 5 minutes. One pack will simply have 50 mAH or so less in it. I'll probably be using my MA packs at first anyway and one of them seems to discharge slower than the other anyway.

I never run my lipos very low, they're usually resting at 3.8v/cell when I put them back on the charger. This is in a truck though, it takes extra power to get a boat back to shore.

Looks like a cool project. The gear eduction is not really necessay with brushless, but it is there so it is easyier to use it than ditch it. The nylon gears will be fine, just run some grease on them. Boats have no real load until they are wide open, so drivetrain shock is no really and issue. Sikeson did a villian like this a while back, he may have info for you. Straight drive with a rudder is more effecient, but you have 2 motors and plenty of power. The villian hull is said to be very stable, even though it is plastic. have fun with it and keep us updated.

You mention having a supervee 27. Get an octura x642 prop and a prop balancer. Teach yourself how to balance a prop, and give it a light polish with 1000 git sand paper. Sand the rear 1/3 of the hul bottom with 600 grit wet/dry paper, front to back motion. Then get some decent lipos, a pair of 2s packs good for 100 amp discharge. Then watch the boat do 42+ mph on calm water. My boat did a best of 44mph, and i was only running 3600mah 12c lipos, so good for 45amps cont... I have a feeling i could get close to 50 with a few tweaks... I need to get the new aquacft bl esc that has the lipo cutoff.

I have a few boats, and have played with quite a few. I will keep an eye on this thread as it is intersting to see different approaches to boat setup!

that looks great so far, i cant wait to see how it turns out

Cool. Keep us updated!

Thanks guys!
I've got the optional Grimracer prop for it, 3x42 I think, and I think I'll keep that for a while. I'll try your hull mods (was planning on going through the "Supertune your SuperVee" thread on RCU). My only time running it the thing cut out on me and sank so I've gotta seal it up before doing anything else. The ponds around here are always smooth as glass when I get to them, so I have some room to open up the throttle a bit without getting too badly out of shape. There are also some calm spots in the local rivers that would be fun to boat in once I am sure the electronics will be reliable. I ran it on 12 cells NiMH and it was easily doing 30+, quite the rush compared to the stock 7.2v Villain! :lol:

Yep it is a fun boat. Another thing to ditch is the stock radio, just replace it with a fm setup, and wrap the rx in a balloon, even though it is in the box it is not really all that well sealed.

I was planning on picking up some SR3000s for my boats, that should help the radio system. I have no idea what happened to my SV, it just died and would not re-arm and it sank :(

I have never been into boats but this looks like its going to be pretty cool, and fast.

you said that the drivetrain is not very strong, but can you help a boat noob out, and tell me what exactly is it that breaks on a boat drivetrain? I see it has rusty style joints.

I was told by someone else that went brushless with his that he had a problem with stripping his bottom drive gear (only a problem for the Villain, most boats use direct drive which is a ton better). Those Rusty style U-Joints are also a weak point, the Graupner U-Joints are much tougher than the stock ones but I will still need to replace them occassionally. I'm not a big fan of the boat having bushings and they need to be replaced sometimes as well.

The project was on hold for the winter since I couldn't really run it anyway and there was a shipping problem but it's mostly together right now. I've been having a hard time with the pushrod boots and tore my old ones and I had to get a new Y harness but I'm hoping to be able to tub test it either later tonight or tomorrow sometime.

Forgot to post back with the results. I ran it shortly and it seems to work very well, once it warms up a bit more I'll take it out for some more extensive testing. So far so good, but I'm still running both BECs enabled so hopefully that won't be a problem (they are parallelled, shouldn't cause any trouble) but I'm still keeping it close to shore until I feel more comfortable with it.

I was in a bit of a rush out the door today so I forgot my camera and didn't adjust my trim but the Villain performed beyond my expectations. On 2s lipo with those props and stock gearing I'm beyond the handling limits of the hull as far as turning. For straight-line performance I've still got some room to go but when I get some turn fins on there it will help a ton with handling.

Honestly I went out today expecting something to go wrong, since that often happens when you use cheap components, but my BL setup performed like an absolute champ. The only problem I had is the steering servo got stuck at full lock and I was stuck doing circles in the middle of the pond until the wind blew it back. I replaced the stock 2055 servo with a Futaba S3003 and in the process of rescuing my buddy's boat it happened again so I'm going to swap out receivers and try it again. Overall I'm blown away by this boat, it is about as fast as I want it to be (3s lipo will fix this without touching gearing, new motors will definitely bring me up to where I want to be) and overall it drives great. I'm bummed that I couldn't get any video of it, but for those of you looking to go BL with your Villain I'd say give it the green light. It really is a simple upgrade and the performance is well worth it. I hope Traxxas looks into updating the Villain in the future with BL power.

Nice writeup. I've also got a villain I got bored with on the stock system. I really like it though because they run great on choppy water compared to my supervee that needs crystal clear water to run everytime. Seems like the supervee only has one speed(fast) where the villain lets you play around a bit more, run at some slower speeds and jump some waves.

Thanks. I definitely like the stability of the stock hull, I have run mine through some fairly bad chop and it has come back every time. My SuperVee has a totally different problem, it cuts out and sinks every time I use it.

Right now the Villain runs great, but the motors have no cooling (the heatsinks let me run 5-10 minutes before having to stop) so I need to get bigger motors for it that can actually accomodate a cooling jacket. I've been bidding on Traxxas Velineon motors on eBay recently, I'm trying to snag a pair of them for about $100. They're a Feigao 10S (or maybe 11S) which is what I'm looking for but they're rebuildable and a little cheaper.

Vid:
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EDIT: With the new motors, I plan to do something about the wiring, it's a total mess right now! With the new motors, I'm going to step up to 15T pinions and eventually 3s lipos. The video was taken on 2s lipos with 13T pinions.

These should fit your motors, they are not very wide: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXMTZ6&P=7

Those are nice jackets, but too much pressure and they burst out the sides.


Hope to see the bigger pinions and more voltage up those speeds...

That particular one is too big, but thanks for the idea!!! I've looked through every single one that OffShoreElectrics has and there was only one that would fit if I wanted to silicone the end a little bit. I took the water jacket off of Sir Sinksalot (my SuperVee 27) and it would fit! I'll have to order another one and hope I get a good one, I've heard the AquaCrap jackets are prone to leaking, but I'm sure a little silicone bathroom sealant will fix that right up. Thanks for the tip, James.

I've heard about the bursting issue, which was why I was avoiding the only ones on OSE that would actually work, but I just got this sudden rush of common sense (only comes once-in-a-while so it's good to listen to :lol:) that a little bit of sealant or even some Shoe Goo would easily fix those up.

For the speed, I was happy with it when I first ran it but then I took video of it and it looked painfully slow. 3s lipo will make it a completely different beast, but I'm waiting for my turn fins to come in from the U.K. which should make it somewhat controllable at speed. I'm aiming for 35 MPH out of this boat, I get the feeling the hull won't like that much though.

No prob US, any water cooling will help alot. I was surprised how warm the sv27 motor ran in my emaxx! It needs the water cooling for sure. Boats have no airflow when the hatch is on.

I have had my supervee flip a couple times and almost sink too. I'm a bit scared to run it now. Putting some 8000mah lipos in there and knowing they could find a home at the bottom of a lake doesnt make me feel so well. So wouldnt going to 3S and gearing down get you much better temps? Maybe enough to let you run a little longer without the water cooling?

Get a foam noodle (kids pool toy) and cut it up, pack the nose with it. Boat guys call this flotation, and it will stop the boat sinking if it starts taking on water... Or if you flip.

The SuperVee likes calm water. Fortunately most of the ponds where I live are very still. It's always windy here, but the ponds usually aren't too bad and that helps with keeping the SV hatch side up.

I may be gearing up as well as going to 3s which will make them run hotter, the water cooling will be essential.

Mine ran fine in choppy water. Had to get the cg and trim tabs setup correctly though. Adjusted the strut as well. Plus going to a x624 prop helps a bit as well with prop walk.