Monster truck conversio
 

All:

I was wondering the mall the other day and enterred the local KB toys. They had a small (1/24th?) Nikko monster truck on sale for $19.99 and a larger (1/12?) Nikko truck for $29.99 so I picked them up.

The little one uses 4.8 volt packs and the big one uses 6 volt packs. Neither one can turn worth anything and I got to wondering......

Has anyone tried pulling the electronics out and putting in a servo, ESC and receiver? It could be a cheap way to have a little fun with extra electronics.

I plan on attacking this soon but would love some insight from others who have attempted this.

Madd Matt

---------------
Matthew J Walter
Madd Matt's Entertainment
www.maddmatts.com

i thought of that two while back but I dont have a radio
you would have a fully proportional car then and you could also add more batteries to make it go faster withought any wory of frying the controler
I put my 7.2V race pack on a tyco revolver at it was amazingly fast and just so much fun untill I broke it

any more input
 

I realize that it's a small price to pay for science but does anyone else have any input?

On the one hand, if something breaks, I could just spend $20 to get an entire new truck for spares. It is unlikely that the electronics would be harmed so they could always be reused.

On the other hand, it is a $20 truck. You can add nice tires and leather seats to a Yugo but in the end it is still a Yugo.


hmmmmmm...

do it man and put on a 7.2V race pack and let the car rip it will do wheelies and you will have tons of fun with it just dont run it to long and you wont burn out the motor and you can chose a speed controler for a 1/10th scale car so it will be fine too
shock mount everything inside
if you want I bet you could even put in a bigger motor
you would probly stip the gears eventually but have a super fast car

further explain my idea
 

All:

to further explain my idea, I am not after a super fast truck or the best hill climber or whatever. I would just like to have some "cheap" fun.

The trucks I picked up both have a flat pan-like tray for the electornics so mounting everything shouldn't be too hard. Likewise it shouldn't be too hard to rip it all out when the thing breaks down. For $20 I can throw it into a new one.

Kind of a disposable RC truck! If anything goes wrong you can try to fix it or just drop $20 and swap electronics. I will probably start working on this in the next few weeks. I'll keep you updated.

In the meantime, let me know about any ideas

in that case I cannot quite see the point of it if it already has the electronics in it and they work why replace them
and for $20 you can just replace the whole truck and it will be ready to run right out of the box
unless you care trying to increase performance thiers now point maby having porportional control but its still a $20 car with $100 electronics inside it

it's all about the steering
 

It is a $20 truck and it runs ok out of box except for the steering which absolutely sucks. I need something better than a 15 foot turning radius :)

The only way I know how to do that is with a new servo but the new servo won't hook up to the old electronics.

You may be right.... All this for $20 truck?

I may rethink this thing after all

Madd Matt

yeah I get what your saying now but if you upgrade the hadaling you might aswell upgrade the drive train too which is what I was suggesting

or you could buy a 1/10th rc truck/car

:ö: check some of my work here...

http://www.mini-zracer.com/forums/sh...5&pagenumber=5

:)

:ö: it's a 1/32 tamiya wild mini-4wd... but it's only 2wd as of now and i'm working on my next 1/32 all-wheel-drive project rc truck.
;)

on top of my hand!
 

;)

internals...
 

;)

very nice
 

Wow!

You really crammed the electronics in there. What batteries are you using in there?

Thanks for the pictures on your hand. I would've thought it was much bigger.

Madd Matt

wow nice how is it speed wise?
I saw a wheelie bar on there
looks good

:ö:
thanks MadMatt,
the batteries i'm using here are 2x 3pcs of wireless phone batteries, that gives out 7.2V w/ 300MaH of power, i was suppose to use Li-ion batteries, but they are so light!, with a slight pull on the trigger, the wheel would spin, and do donuts wild :eek:! ( i modified the gearings too, to improve the speed )
-æ

:ö:
Lord_Nick_D,
the wheelie bar there serves well, the truck wheelies on demand, from standing start, jerk the throttle to full power and it will lift it's front wheels like it's 1:1 monster truck counterpart!, do the same procedure on sand or soft dirt track, the truck will give a good rooster tail while trying to lift it's front wheels:cool:, about the speed, with the modified gears, the truck has the speed of a stock mini-z racer, in an off-road track, but if i wanted to do trial course, i'll just place back the stock gear set-up and the truck could crawl up to almost anything in it's path.
-æ

how'd you do it?
 

Killer:

So you took a 1/32 scale tamiya non-r/c truck and converted it to r/c?

Is there anything special to know before I try this as well?

Madd Matt

Re: how'd you do it?
 

:ö:

yes!, that's just it, nothing special ;) ... but i'd like to remind you that the Tamiya 4WD Wild Mini "Monster" Truck stock gear set-up is not built for speed... for crawling, it has more than enough torque to crawl itself up on any trial coarse, but if the need for speed arises, you'll be surprised how fast this truck is when the gear is modified :cool:

-æ

Need for speed
 

Killer:

Although the need for speed is not why I am pursuing this project, you could also get your truck moving quicker with an upgrade in batteries. If you moved up beyond 300mah you could probably get more speed out of the little monster.

Madd Matt

MaddMatt:

Changing MAH on batteries does not increase power or speed. it will only increase the run time. Voltage will increase speed and power...but the little 130 motors dont really like much more than 6-8 cells. Your best bet is a gearing change if you want more speed.

:ö:
Madmatt,

binaryterror is right, increasing Mah does not affect speed of the truck or any rc vehicle, instead, you'll notice a considerably increase in run time.. as to what the MaH stands for; Milli Amps per Hour, so if you want to increase speed, it's either add more cells to your kit, or upgrade your gears and electronics... or use a faster, powerfull motor instead. ;)

my new truck! :) though it's just 90% finished

...

side view

on top of my hand....

cantilever suspension... though not yet complete..

top view of test fitting with electronics.

that is looking very good Killer
 

That has to be one of the best mini monster trucks I have seen yet.

Where did you get the U-joints from? did you make them or buy them somewhere?

I am getting very close to being able to make one also, I'm just getting tooled up for projects like that, actually after my bit project(it's sort of a test project) I will be starting a micro monster truck project 1/43 scale and if that works I will go smaller yet.

thanks slugbug! :), if you are referring to the u-joint on the steering, i made them out the stock 4mm steel axle of the 1/32 Tamiya Wild Monster Truck..

but if you are referring to the u-joints on the propeller shaft, i made myself out of allum tubes.. which we are planning to sell in the near future, i'm still testing the durability and strength of those u-joints. ;)... oh and here's a picture of my 1/87 4x4 chassis which is powered by a 7mm pager motor..

size comparison of the 1/32 4x4 chassis with my 1/87 4x4 chassis.. :p

if you want to see more of the 1/87 proportional control r/c truck.. check this site

http://www.tinyrc.com/forums/forumdi...?s=&forumid=92

I like the 1/87 scale too.
I cant even come close yet to making U-joints that small, someday maybe.

:ö: if you want to see more pics of the truck... check this site..
http://mini-zracer.com/forums/showth...5&pagenumber=9

done!
 

:ö: all i need now is a perfect size battery!.

..

...

make a costom pack its not that hard

:ö: thanks for the advice Lord_Nick_D, i just found 4pcs. N-110AA battery on my box and tested it on my truck, it's a bit under powered at 4.8volts (co'z Futaba MC330CR can take up to 8.4volts of power :eek:) but check out some vids we took so you could see how the truck performs, it's quite slow at 4.8volts only. ;)

check vids here: http://mini-zracer.com/forums/showth...&threadid=8384

what format do you have those in I cannot open them

:ö: they are zipped mpeg, use a WinZip program to unzip it. ;)