Going to the dark side. Jammin X1 CRT Conversion.

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Final pics with ESC mounted. Full galleriy here, this way you don't have to scroll through the thread to see them all.

http://gallery.me.com/thirdgen89gta#...r=black&sel=37

Things that i will change shortly:
Move ESC to rear of diff instead of front. I'll be mounting a carbon fiber tray that will mount to the rear bulkhead and attach to the center diff housing. The ESC and Receiver box will go there. This will lower the electronics and place it further rearward in case of the truck landing on its lid. I've also seen people fab up rollbars with Piano wire, I may try that to protect components from impact as well.

And finally get around to painting my Jconcepts illusion lid for this truck.

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Well, here's a video of the whole thing up and running. Wheelies all day long. Thats pretty much all this video is supposed to show. I have no one to record while I drive, so I'm doing BOTH the driving AND the recording. Drive with left hand and steer using my left thumb. While the right hand holds the camera and records video.

[YOUTUBE]3lUEBdUC0-w[/YOUTUBE]

[coolhandcountry]

I don't think you link is working for youtube.

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Fixed.

Normal link if the embed doesn't show for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lUEBdUC0-w

[coolhandcountry]

Yeah I tried to fix it for you but didn't refresh so just put back to original.
Hope you fix the pinion issue.
I posted on thread at something I seen.

[Thirdgen89GTA]

On 3S and 4S its fine all day long. Maybe the chassis is twisting. I did notice it seemed a bit weaker after the conversion. The motor mount and Z-brace that were on it as a nitro car added quite a bit of stiffness. So did the extended servo/radio tray.

Part of why I want to build a bridge to attach the front/center/rear diffs in a double decker fashion. As a nitro chassis it had alot more support from the front to the rear.

[Thirdgen89GTA]

My friends fail. They all say they wanna go to the track or bash and see this thing go and consequentely film it for me. But every time they say "Sure, I'll go" they dont. Grrr.

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Have plenty of runtime on the truck now.

Geared up to 18/62 on the motor, 14t was way too short. System seems MUCH happier now, temps are more balanced and overall its much lower.

These #'s are for running 3S2P and 4S1P, and not the 6S1P with the twin 3S packs. I haven't really had a chance to run 6S1P in an area thats big enough and not covered with snow right now. My electronics aren't waterproofed yet so I won't take it outside into the snow until I fix that.

After running 3S2P for about 25 minutes the batteries were about 90*, the ESC about 105*, and the motor was 110*. I did really well on 3S at the track. Enough power to match the nitro 8th buggies on the straights, with amazing acceleration but little to no drama. I ran without any punch control or torque limiting of any kind. Batteries didn't care one bit.

On 4S1P after a full discharge to the 3.2v cut-off the temps were 100* Batts, 110* ESC, and 120* motor. I messed up on my stopwatch here my guess is runtime was in the 15 minute range.

I don't expect much difference with 6S1P, but won't know till the roads dry up enough that I feel safe running it again. And running 6S at the track would be plain stupid. Though I might do it for a bit this thursday at the track to make a few people shake their heads.

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Well, after the bash session I had to clean the truck up. Man there was crap everywhere. And I think some of it was real crap, from a dog, or maybe a goose.

So here's the "upgraded" wiring. My X2 mount is still in the mail, so the center diff is going to drop further soon enough. One of the nice things about this layout is how clean it is, and how easy it is to take the ENTIRE motor system out. I'm going to cut and mount the tray in front of the center diff so I can mount the receiver there. Once that is done with 5 screws I'll be able to completely remove the entire motor system and the only thing I'll have to unplug is the steering servo!

Here's the original wiring as of this morning:


And here's the cleaned up wiring with some close ups of the ESC tray I made. I decided NOT to extend the tray back to the rear diff mount because of the complexity of working on the truck then. The battery trays themselves act as stiffeners. I may drill out a larger hole for the holes though so I can use a washer and a small nut for a stronger clamping force. Repeated tray removal seems to weaken the screw holes so the screws don't grip as tightly.

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Finished the X1 conversion and lowered the ESC mount even further.

Before:


After:

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Lost a LiPo pack today. Was running two gensace 3S 5000mah 40C packs in series on the truggy. Ran about a full pack time, then the cut-off kicked in so I brought it back. Well, when I went to pull it out, I noticed one pack looked a little swollen.

Well, it was a lot swollen. It had swollen enough to crack the clue holding the hard case together. Other 3S pack was completely fine, not warm at all. The ESC fan didn't even kick on.

Not sure why the pack decided to go, I've never charged them past 1C (my charger can only do 6A) and I had fully balance charged both packs last night. Now I'm sad. Now I have to buy 3 packs. I was planning on buying another set of 3S packs so I could run a bit longer.

Now I'll just have to designate the remaining 3S pack for the 10TT, and buy two more 3S packs to feed the truggy. :(

Packs sitting outside now in a metal bucket in case it decides to do something other than sit there swollen. I've been reading up on discharging, it looks like the two methods are the 1/2c salt to 1gal water and letting it sit for a few weeks. or that with something to discharge it faster like a light bulb or fan.