LiPo Dragon Slayer w/ IW02 CB for ABS Breaks
IW-02 Circuit Board w/ functional ABS Break
145 mAh swappable LiPo battery pack
Interflite Mega Micro Servo modified by replacing motor with a 22.5K ZZ motor.
Charges on gutted ZZMT controller now LiPo charger
I got my first ZZMT the day they showed up at the local RS and it only took about an hour for me to decide that it needed to be proportional. My first thought was of course to try a SE circuit board but the Iwaver CB sitting on my work bench immediately sent that idea to the recycle bin. So I spent literally months and untold hours adding a potentiometer to the steering (destroying more than one truck in the process) and just as I finally got it working reluctantly admitting that the weak steering wasn’t going to get any better, I see Microsash's in a post by Luckyyy. One look, oh! at the way he used a micro servo for the steering and I gave myself a couple of good hard thumps on the forehead, quickly rummaged through my spare parts, triumphantly pull out an HS-55 and proceeded to happily destroy four months worth of work. The end result worked much better than my arrangement, but the HS-55 is a $20 servo and was still a little large so you had to do a lot of cutting on the chassis and the servo. It didn’t take long to get pressured into making another for a friend, the servo I found for it cost about $14 and was smaller but still required you to do a lot of dremil work, and chopping.
But this one is different, almost a destiny sort of thing. First at a LHS I found a Interflite Mega Micro servo, super small and only $9.00, so I bought one for no real reason, it just looked useful. On the way home I stop at the bank then wandered into the local RS which is next to the Safeway with the bank, and of course there was the Dragon Slayer and my second impulse buy of the day, still no plans I just liked it. But when I got home the wife handed me a package from ToyEast and everything came together, the IW-02 Circuit board was originally intended for an Epoch but that could wait, with everything sitting in front of me it just seemed like something that was suppose to happen.
The servo went in like a dream especially since the back comes right off, you only have to clip the tab off of one side and do a little trimming to one side of the chassis for a very clean install. The only problem was that the servo pot was 10K and the Iwaver CB’s use a 5K, but installing a 10K surface mount resistor between the wire pads on the CB quickly fixes that. Everything was going almost too easy but accidents happen and while adjusting everything before permanently gluing everything in, I pulled one of the servo motor wires off. Again what was needed was right in front of me, I look up and noticed a red ZipZap motor that had rolled under the storage drawers, so I used it and what a difference, wow, the steering is perfect, the Interflite servo combined with the ZZ motor ended up being much stronger than the others, short enough with the back off that you don’t have to drill into the aft bulkhead under the motor compartment, very clean. I also used a metal servo-horn pin and aluminum tie rod bracket setup that is very smooth with no slop. It literally feels like you are getting 256 steps on each side.
With the IW-02 CB and digital controller the ABS breaks actually work too. One fun thing to do with the digital IW controller is to program in a front wheel steering setup and a rear wheel steering setup so all you have to do is turn the body around for a quick change.
I’m not done yet though I have a light socket that I will be wiring in I did this before on one of my Iwavers to use the Xmod CLL lights the only problem is that you have to use a couple of diodes and a resistor to get them to function like their suppose to. There is a good deal of room in front where the original steering motor and gears went, enough to put everything on a small circuit board that would connect to the IW CB with 4 small wires and make it easy to plug and unplug the lights.
I have two super bright orange LEDs that should look great with the Dragon Slayer paint scheme, I plan to install them where the black painted lights are leaving the white outside LEDs in.
It also needs a wheelie bar, the problem though is that like I said above it’s fun to occasionally put the body on backwards to have rear wheel steering especially when climbing so the wheelie bar also has to be reversible.
I keep adding to my list of things to do, the first couple of these I made I used spare circuit boards that I had lying around they already had FET stacks. Since this one was make form all new parts, I didn’t replace the FETs so it will be getting at least a 2x3 stack not for power but to reduce the on state resistance since the difference is noticeable, it doesn’t need more speed just more efficiency for better battery life and a little more umph for better control at the lower end of the throttle.
Linear Mode
