Newbie probs with 1st Digi q

bluemax_1 · #1 03-18-2003, 02:25 PM

Hi all,

Just got a new Digi Q for the first time. RX-7 with the turning front wheels. It's great aside from the fact that the front wheels turned out to be caster type wheels and not actually controlled, but the little thing sure is faster and handles alot better than a Bit!

Got a few problems with it though. I'm not sure if they're common to Digi Q's. So I'ld really appreciate any help with sorting it out.

Problem 1) after adjusting the trim a little, the car goes pretty straight,... when going forward. Reverse is a whole different story. For lack of a better description, it wiggles side to side when reversing, and sometimes, although still wiggling, it's moving in a more or less straight path. Other times it also wiggles side to side and then turns on its own. And although it goes pretty straight in the forward direction, it ALWAYS wiggles when reversing, like a snake. Also it goes MUCH slower in reverse than it does forward. and I'm not sure if the buzzing sound in reverse is normal. (Different from when it's going forward)

Problem 2) I'm not sure if this is normal either, but on partial throttle, the car buzzes much louder than at full throttle.

Could someone tell me if these things are normal for the car or if I have a problem, what I should do about it. Just received the car in the mail yesterday from Cosmogames. If there's something wrong with it, should I return it?

Thanks for any help with these probs.

Namuna · #2 03-18-2003, 03:47 PM

Problem 1:
The 'wiggling' or just plain spinning out while going in reverse is actually common in the DigiQ...It's something you have to learn to adjust your driving to so that it doesn't do it (you CAN'T gun the throttle in reverse if you expect to go straight)

Problem 2:
From a dead stop or while accelerating, the motor has to work harder to get the car going vs. cruising speed...You can associate the louder noises due to the harder working motor/gears.

Namuna · #3 03-18-2003, 03:48 PM

Oh, and glad to see you're able to post now.

bluemax_1 · #4 03-18-2003, 04:39 PM

Thanks Namuna! For some reason it took over 24 hours to get the email to activate the account.

And BTW the wiggling problem isn't that the wheels are spinning 'cuz I'm gunning it too much. Even on partial throttle whether I'm crawling slow as a snail or going full speed on linoleum or carpet, it turns side to side as it reverses. Oh, and I tried reversing over longer distances (about 2-3 feet) and by that time, it's wiggled so much it's headed in some completely different direction sometimes even turning completely around!

Also is it normal for the reverse speed to be about 10 times slower than full forward speed? Even when I set the controller to high, it crawls in reverse.

As for the buzzing noise maybe a little more detailed description. The controller that came with the car has a little slop/ freeplay in the first fractions of an inch between forward and reverse, i.e. the spring on the trigger won't return it to dead center.

It's possible to accidentally nudge the trigger so it isn't in the throttle neutral/off position and since the spring isn't centering it yet, or pulling it back to neutral, the trigger will stay at this fractional throttle position unless I manually push it back to center and all the while it's transmitting to the car to send just a little bit of juice to the motors.

In either the forward or reverse position where it just barely connects, the car will not quite start moving but will buzz very loudly and even when I apply a little more throttle to just get the car moving to where I can slowly crawl around my desktop, it's still buzzing really loud as long as I keep it at very low throttle. Is this normal?

Dougboy · #5 03-18-2003, 05:24 PM

pro #1
i dont have a digiQ-R but i can say for sure is that konami made the second generation digiQ go slower reverse so it seems like it can actually drive right. the first generation digiQs went really fast backwards but spins a lot. more than u can ever imagine in reverse. the slowing down problem is not the car. it lies in the propo. if u were to use the R propo with a normal digiQ with the same id, it would so slow too.

pro#2
i dont think it's the gears, it's more of the electronics. sorta like the miniZ servo noise. it sometimes makes the noise even if the car is not moving. it's not that big of a deal.

bluemax_1 · #6 03-18-2003, 05:40 PM

Hmmm... so it's the controller? meaning when my Propo Special arrives that should take care of the slow reverse speed at least?

Good to know that the noise is normal.

BTW Doughboy, you didn't mention if the reverse wiggle is normal or not. Namuna thought it might be due to my gunning the control but it isn't. For one thing, like I said the car already goes really slow when reversing and even when I use partial throttle so it goes even slower, it still turns side to side. It looks as if I'm turning the Tx wheel left, right, left, right constantly but I'm not even touching the wheel. And for some reason, it only does it in reverse.

I tried it both on carpet and on linoleum and it does it on both, no matter where I reverse or at what speed. Wondering if it might have something to do with the instability of the RX-7 type-R's caster front wheels. It pretty much makes it futile to reverse anymore than 5-6 inches 'cuz more than that and the car could be facing ANY direction by then.

The little that I've seen of Digi q vids have never shown this problem, Wonder if anyone else with a type-r RX-7 could comment on this?

djmr2 · #7 03-18-2003, 08:18 PM

spinning going in reverse is normal... shouldn't be much of concern, noone races backwards anyways

i have a DigiQ-R (skyline) which some may say is the 2nd generation and it does this too..

chelboed · #8 03-19-2003, 02:02 AM

Would you please read the guy's post! It doesn't spin in reverse. It wiggles back and forth, like a wide-bottom girl trying to get out of an arm-chair after dinner. I wonder if it's because of the casters. If it still does it when you get the Propo special, I'd return it. But hey, what do I know? I don't even have a Q yet.

Racer9 · #9 03-19-2003, 04:08 PM

It wiggles because the wheels have forward caster and that makes it so they turn in forwards sharper. In reverse they will wiggle and so will the car. Even BCGs have slight caster to make it so they snap steer better. If it didn't they would hardly steer.

bluemax_1 · #10 03-19-2003, 08:37 PM

Thanks for the help all. Yeah, I guess the wiggling is the same as a shopping cart with loose caster wheels. Well, I also ended up ordering a Castrol Pitworks DRS-03 from cosmogames too.

Incidentally, when I emailed them that I had a problem, they were very quick to reply. sign of a good place to deal with usually.

And as for the problems with not being able to control the car at all, i.e. steer at all in reverse. I just charged up and played with the car again and they've mysteriously dissapeared. No idea why. At the time I was having the problem of zero control in reverse, I checked to make sure there was no IR interference from any other source. Hmmm... chalk it up to one of those odd things.

Racer9 · #11 03-21-2003, 05:46 PM

Good for you!

Dougboy · #12 03-21-2003, 11:27 PM

the caster wheels is a major reason why it wiggles. another reason maybe that the front wheels have a toe-in angle. a toe-in makes a car mor stable in high speeds but reduce responsive turning. in reverse, it's the opisite. it would be a toe-out. it would not be stable and it might turn sharp so even with a bit of movement it migh wiggle.

btw, my name is spelled without the "H"

bluemax_1 · #13 03-22-2003, 05:16 AM

Ahhhh... so the front wheels DO have a little toe-in. I was wondering if it was intentional or if the rack the turning front wheels were on was just not made too well. Also, I found an interesting solution that has reduced the problem somewhat. The front wheels have some freeplay in the vertical axis, sort of similar to the BCGs. The front turning axle is actually mounted on a sort of bump on the chassis creating a rocker and while there's no real suspension of any sort, allowing the axle to rock lets it deal with ground that's slightly uneven i.e. carpet.

However, the caster combined with the toe-in, (toe-out as you pointed out in reverse

) and the instability of the rocker axle makes the car extremely unstable going backwards and therefore, the turning in all sorts of unwanted directions in reverse.

My solution was to first reduce the amount of travel and freeplay in the vertical axis so I just rigged a 'damper' of sorts using folded card which prevents the wheels and axis from wiggling up and down as much and voila! Instant improvement. The car now has some semblance of control in reverse. Problem is that the reduction in wheel travel and the ability to cope with uneven ground, has also affected the cornering ability and stability of the car going forward at maximum speed. i.e. when I set the speed and acceleration on the Propo Special to maximum it tends to traction roll in turns a little more.

SO... now for modifications part II, by dissecting a Bit clone, I'm going to try and adapt the centering spring for the Bit's front axle to the Digi Q's turning front wheels. I think given how small the spring is and how weak, it shouldn't interfere with the wheels' ability to turn when it's supposed to, but it should hopefully be enough to keep them pointing straight when no steering input is made, in other words when no lateral force is applied to the front wheels.

Hopefully this works, it would also solve the problem some other people have noticed about playing with the Type-R cars with turning front wheels on small area surfaces such as table and desktops. After you stop, the car tends to start off in the direction its wheels were last pointing when you stopped. Which in some cases leads to the car jumping off a cliff

Well, if anyone's interested, I'll post the results of my attempt to do this mod.

bluemax_1 · #14 03-22-2003, 05:19 AM

Oh, and sorry about the misspell Dougboy

bluemax_1 · #15 03-25-2003, 05:48 AM

OMG!!! Castrol Pitworks skyline rocks!!! Just had to get one of those with the lights and w/o the turning front wheels to compare and Wow! The Pitworks Skyline is sweet! The paint and decoration on it is great and yes, w/o the turning wheels, the wiggling reverse is nonexistent, although getting a little happy with the throttle will make it spin.

The lights are cool, especially when using the UFO code on the Propo Special. Good thing I don't hav a pet cat or dog, It would probably drive them nuts. The spinning thing with the LED's really does look like a UFO.

Funny, but it seems almost as if the Skyline takes off faster than the RX-7 even though they're both set to the same setting on the Propo Special.

Also, as Adam pointed out, the mount for the front axles is the same so it's really easy to pop the RX-7's turning front wheels into the Skyline. Well, you do need to squeeze 'em under the lights, but it's not difficult. As far as handling goes, hmmm... the Skyline actually handles really well, as far as turning and all that go. Also, w/o the tunring front wheels, it doesn't have the bump steer problem the RX-7 exhibits and obviously, tracks a straight line much better in reverse. The RX-7 though is much easier to drift nicely.

I tried inputting the drift setting that I found on some of the threads here and couldn't quite understand why people use it until I got the Skyline to compare. The RX-7 can be drifted at max speed and acceleration setting, although obviously at those speeds, the drifts are a little wide. I found it very difficult to drift the Skyline with max setting though. It would skid, but I couldn't really HOLD a drift at that speed unlike the RX-7. With the drift setting though, I found it too slow, and the drift wouldn't last very long on my kitchen's linoleum floor. Usually not more than a few inches as opposed to the RX-7 at full speed where I could drift a nice curve for a foot or two. Maybe it's the difference in traction with my kitchen floor, and what people drift on with the setting.

For the moment, I'll leave the RX-7's front axle with it, 'cuz I think if I try putting it in the Skyline, the RX-7 just might end up gathering dust