Showing posts with label VXL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VXL. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
VXL downer
Went racing at RC+ with Jer and Anthony on Feb 12, 2011. Long story short, my car stopped completely during the 3rd battery. Jer quickly deduced it was a bad steering servo just like his. Bah humbug. I wrote to Traxxas and they did not quickly replace mine like for Jer. They said I need to send it in and it would cost $5 to ship it back to me and $15 for repair. I would have to pay about $5 to ship it there, so that's $25 for a servo which costs that much at Tower. I basically told them I would not be buying Traxxas anymore. I then wrote e-mail to Tower Hobbies and forwarded them the e-mail exchanges with Traxxas; I told them this reflects on them too since I bought the car from them. Tower right away said they would send me a free replacement. I got notice today that it has been shipped from Reno, yay. Too bad, the car is cool, but the durability of the very important steering servo is highly questionable based on how fast they died in Jer's car and now mine. I don't know what I will do after the free replacement dies like I expect it to. I do know I will not support Traxxas a single penny more.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
VXL Racing!
On Monday, Jan 17, 2011, Jer and I took our cars to RC Plus to race on their inside track. We walked in without our cars to scout it out, and there were about 6 guys racing or pitting in there. Jer brought out his car and immediately could stay up with them or pass them, being the racy guy with lots of skills that he is! Oh, these guys were racing larger scale, I think 1/10th or 1/8th. After seeing Jer do well, I went to get mine too. I did not do that well, but stayed with them once in awhile. The track is carpet and definitely slippery for our drift car setups, but it's lots of fun anyhow! Jer finds the good line around the track and is able to get in it quickly. It takes me awhile to find that line (sometimes never) and to actually set up for it.
We used all our batteries. Since Jer started a battery before me, I let him use one of mine at the end, so he ended up running through 5 while I ran through 3. The Tenergy batts that we got for $5 each are JUNKO! They are 1400mAh and run shorter than the Traxxas 1200, and don't have as much immediate punch either. We will look for better ones. Lastly, the guys we ran with were very nice fellows with good humor, and the really neat thing about RC Plus is that track time is FREE FREE FREE, except when they have organized races.
We came home with new diff loob (30k weight) and Jer changed the lube in front and back of HIS and MY cars right away. Took between 2 and 3 hours! Lots of work, but these cars are engineered rather well! During the job on mine, we discovered one of my bevel gears looks badly worn. It sounds a little noiser too. I don't recall a change in sound after any crashes at the track. Maybe it got damaged from a crash, or maybe it has been that way all along. Things don't last forever on RC cars, so I'll be getting a replacement gear soon. The cars seem unbelievably durable after our first racing day at the track!
We used all our batteries. Since Jer started a battery before me, I let him use one of mine at the end, so he ended up running through 5 while I ran through 3. The Tenergy batts that we got for $5 each are JUNKO! They are 1400mAh and run shorter than the Traxxas 1200, and don't have as much immediate punch either. We will look for better ones. Lastly, the guys we ran with were very nice fellows with good humor, and the really neat thing about RC Plus is that track time is FREE FREE FREE, except when they have organized races.
We came home with new diff loob (30k weight) and Jer changed the lube in front and back of HIS and MY cars right away. Took between 2 and 3 hours! Lots of work, but these cars are engineered rather well! During the job on mine, we discovered one of my bevel gears looks badly worn. It sounds a little noiser too. I don't recall a change in sound after any crashes at the track. Maybe it got damaged from a crash, or maybe it has been that way all along. Things don't last forever on RC cars, so I'll be getting a replacement gear soon. The cars seem unbelievably durable after our first racing day at the track!
Update: I recall that when we were almost done racing, the car would hesitate before moving from a start. I probably could not hear from the driver's stand, but I bet the gear was not meshing well, probably due to one of my runs into the sideboards. There were some hard ones and a couple even head on into the boards. My guess is that ruined the main gear that connects to the front differential. I ordered a couple replacements today from Boca RC online.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Slip Sliding Away
Update on 12/16/10: Alex and I drove the car on the driveway for the first time. Now that is fun! Stock tires seem to work well on the driveway, allowing drifting without a lot of unwanted spinning out of control. Ran the 1200 NiMH packs in parallel and got about 25 minutes run time, running pretty full out most of the time. Hmmmmm, would like longer run times! Need more batteries. :)
12/19/10: Jer and I ran our cars under the shelter at the elementary school. Set up a course with 4 frisbees. The pavement is smooth and it was cold, so the cars were really slipping, but that made it cool for drifting. The cars hit each other sometimes, but all impacts were minor side swipes. They seem to be durable. Tad came and drove both our cars and liked it a lot. It's going to be tough to beat these boys, but IT CAN BE DONE! Lots of fun had by all.
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