1/18th buggies

[Pipeous]

I am just looking at bringing in a few buggies we found to get a little club going. We have looked them over and they seem pretty cool. The company is A-Tech. They make a monster truck called the Leo X (as I am sure a lot of you know about). Browsing around we found the XMB4's. It's a 4wd buggy with a lot of potential. and economical.
I'll put a link to the info I typed out to save typing again. It was easier to put it up on the forum, then we all discussed it and decided we wanted to make some buggy tracks. so many little trucks allready anyway
http://pfdracing.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=29

I am just checking to see about some technical issues I heard about, and to see if we can just order without electronics.

[Mondo]

We covered these a while back Pipe: Link (http://www.yourmicro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16639)

They do look great, these are the same bunch who make the Leo AKA Venom Mini Giant
It should be a great product and hopefully they'll make some hop-ups for them too....

[Pipeous]

ya well, I don't read everything, too much info here to read it all lmao. I only visit the bottom section now. Hell I don't even go to some of my old typing grounds anymore. YM has been a hang out for so long though...

I was speaking to one of Canada's largest distributors on msn the other day and he was telling me about esc problems. no delay from forward to reverse. the demo models stripped 3 difs and blew one esc during thrash tests. once they switched esc's the problem was gone. I was hoping we could get them without the esc or maybe some rollers.

I don't much care. I told them I would take 8 for a club to start up. most of us will change the esc's anyway, as usual. And we will soon see what aftermarket stuff is coming as we wanted everything they had so just said ship it all hehe. I hope we can toss an rc18t ball dif in or similar.

[Pipeous]

Just got some answers, thought I would share.

The ecs now have a built in voltage cutoff for lipos, and a lipo version is available. So the esc was addressed...

The dif gears have a different mold and are made from a stronger material now. sounds good

we are ordering 8 kits with spares and some of the upgrade motors, and just waiting for a list of upgrades available to follow. probably have some buggies here next week to play with. of course one of the lipo kits is mine (maybe 2 hehe).

[Pipeous]

well after a million questions back and forth we ordered 8 of the standard units. the lipo kits were way overpriced (price went up on them allready and for $50 I can buy kokam or thunder power batteries.

we are working things out with a couple other clubs to do some group buying. if we can get enough of these little clubs going and buying together, our buying power gets us better deals all around. I can hardly wait to start racing these little guys.

now to save for that transponder system.... any ideas you guys have for a transponder system that is small?

[jaejw1]

let us know how they perform,,, does anyone on the forum own one yet,,, would love to have a 18th scale buggy since i have a 10th scale 4wd buggy,, only thing,, will they accept the standard 18th scale tires.. rc18t/mini-t

[Roelof]

Originally posted by Pipeous

now to save for that transponder system.... any ideas you guys have for a transponder system that is small?

The AMB digital personal transponder is very small but expensive if you have to get the whole system....

I know KO has a transponderless system, it works on the frequency of the receiver crystal:
http://www.kopropo.com/arc.htm

[Pipeous]

That is still $2000 holy smokes. cool system but dam. I was sure there was something a little cheaper out there.

oh ya, we ordered some of the oil shocks offered to try them out. buggy comes full bearings and aluminum wheel nuts stock. just the shocks.... price is good for the shocks. Kit is selling locally for $175 cdn rtr with everything needed to run except radio batteries (and I could be mistaken, they might include those as well.)

all profits are going towards a lap counter system of some sort. guess we have to buck up and get one of these puppies. maybe nanospeed will rent it on off weeks or something to help pay for it. is the amb setup more than that? I know personal transponders aren't cheap but once you own one, it can be used at nearly every track we go to.

[Roelof]

Take a look at:
http://www.lapz.com/

[Pipeous]

a local guy makes an infra red system like that. savage rc has one in store. not a bad idea. I still wrote the maker of lapz though. you never know.

thanks Roelof, you have been a great help. I had never worried about needing a transponder system before. I am learning as we go on that dept...

[Roelof]

You can make your own if you are a little bit in electronics.....

Take a look at a chip called LM331, it is a tone encoder/decoder.

In the past a friend did make a 4 transponder system arround this chip. Every transponer had its own tone frequency and a small 2 MHz AM transmitter. Receiving it on a 2MHz receiver and decoding the tones converting it to a 4-bit signal to the computer was done and working perfectly.
In stead of a AM transmitter you could use a IR transmitter.

Another neat idea I came across in the past was using lightbeams as used with slotcars. But the lightbeams were placed on different hights and a small flag on the car antenna could trigger the beam on a certain hight.
Diagrams and software for slotcar laptimers can be found on the web.
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/dekloet/slot.htm (an old schoolmate)
http://www.slotrace.com/laptimer/info.html

[jaejw1]

what ever happened to the talk about the buggy..lol

[microRS4guy]

its a rc18b

[Pipeous]

I saw the flag one. I think I will pass on that. if you go too fast and the antenna is bent, you score laps for someone else haha.

the slotcar system I know well. they used a light sensor from broken vcr's (the part that tells the tape is at end). the same guy that makes those has this transponder system. similar to the slotcar setup but IR.

little buggies will be here shortly. the trucker strike here is killing things. I am waiting forever for overseas stuff to arrive.

[Pipeous]

I found the system. these work great and are quite small. the only drawback is it needs to point up and out the window, though still from inside the rc, to trigger. local shop has been using one and for the price it is hard to beat. also built locally which makes support super easy.

Dan is a great guy, I have talked with him about the system. Now just to pay for it. guess I need to get back to work. and our buggies will be here saturday.