cumquat

if anyone is looking for a cheap BL system, here's a good deal right now http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...r-Combo-3900kV

DieHarder

Yo! Anybody do any Evadering this past weekend?

Rob: Have you had much time to run the Hyper 10TT?

NoTraxxisRustler

I had two afternoons of running Dromidas (buggys) with my kid. After the batts. fizzled we pulled out his Slash and my Evader. The ensuing scene could only be described as the LIPO circus.

My kid busted the front bumper off of his Slash . . . hit a fence post and flew 25 feet.


Both spent lots of air time. The Vader is actually pretty tough with the TBR bumpers . . .although I must admit . . . if my kid was driving my Evader it would probably come home in a box.

rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

I've run these... with a 12mm adapter

wheels
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXNDA2

adapter
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXNMR8

The evader ST axels use a larger nut which i had to thread on backwards (nylock side first) but the ext spec's with their 5mm nuts work just fine. I did have to dremel away part of the bead as these are the traxxas style.

and wayy too cold to run rc's now some school are closed for the week due to cold...

EXT2Rob

My Feedback: (1)

Hey NTR! How do you like the Dromidas? How 'bout Revell, the old plastic model maker, coming out with cheap hobby-grade(?) RCs? How do they perform?

Whew! you poor guys back east are gettin' HAMMERED, while out here in California, we're not even HAVING a Winter! This could be bad. Especially since the So-Cal Water-mongers want to build ANOTHER giant straw to suck up even MORE of Nor-Cal's water, with the additional affront of calling it "environmental protection". What a bunch of bullcrap! For the cost of what they say it's gonna cost to built those pipes to steal our water, they could build solar-powered de-salinization plants, instead of relying on ROMAN-ERA TECHNOLOGY!! What a bunch of boobs.......

So, since we've had no rain, the track is a desert. Dry and dusty. Not exactly good Evader driving conditions for racing. The 2wd, as good as we've gotten at racing them, just doesn't drive as easy as 4wd. Consequently, racing action is SO much more fun with the 4wd Hyper TT, we haven't been running the Evaders at all. We were kinda waiting for rainy weather to wet the track, when the Evader does a lot better and doesn't spin out as easily. The TT doesn't care if the track is damp or dry, but we've had to water it enough just to keep the dust down so we aren't breathing dirt. And since it looks like we're heading into a severe drought, we may not even be able to do THAT, as the "water police" will be on the lookout. Either that, or the neighbor we complained about to the county will be looking for payback.

As beefy as this truggy is, we have had our broken parts. Last time we both broke one of our steering knuckles. We've both had rear arms break, but the design is such that the arms are the sacrificial part, so that other more expensive parts don't get damaged. The front CV axle pins can fail, so I replaced it with music wire. Par for the course, I suppose. I was surprised this week when our "night race" got cut short when I discovered I had a bent shock shaft. !! How the heck I did that, I dunno. Got some new shafts coming.

I must get my Subie-vader out again, but it's so nice an clean.

Nate, if your plow truck is working, could you make money with it plowing neighbor's driveways?

NoTraxxisRustler

Rob - I am quite surprised with the Dromidas. The plastic is pretty good. Shocks needed some oil. For a small brushed motor it's pretty fast. Waterproof. They handle great. We've had them outside and done some carpet racing with them. A good time has been had with them.

My biggest gripe was the routing of the antennea . . . . which made it prone to breakage. My kid has managed to break his dogbones, but I have had zero problems with them..

As 4x4's they handle really good compared to the Vader and 2X Slash. In fact, when you run the Dromidas first then run the 2X trucks you think "These things SUCK!" But then you get used to them.

For 99 bucks they are fun. My kid saw the advertisement for them and had to have one. I was going in the Durango DEX410 direction but my kid wants to run trucks with ME so I factored that in. . . . . plus If it costs 99 bucks and it is something to do with the boy, it is kind of under the radar . . . if you catch my drift.

The funny thing is. . . when I get the hankering for something else, I take the Vader out and have a blast with it and think "It's pretty fun!". The TBR bumpers have really toughened it up. I put some Pro-Line shocks on it too. They are great.

I wish we could get a little dry weather!! My yard FINALLY is not muddy because it's frozen!

Funny on your water issue . . . you would think desalanization would be the way to go. It would be hard to dry out the ocean!

Regards

DieHarder

Yes, yes we have been hammered. I shoveled the driveway at 4:00p.m. this afternoon so dad could pull in without getting stuck. At 7:00p.m. the same night, there was 6-7" more fresh snow on top of what I just shoveled. It has been snowing vigorously for the past 2 days, and it's coming down in big flakes. I builds up as light fluffy, powdery stuff. Snow blower is broken if your wondering why I shoveled.

My plow truck is currently out of commission. It needs a delrin spur, an aluminum motor mount to stiffen it up, a BEC or something like it to help the limping servo that lifts the plow, and perhaps a light system for plowing at night. It might be next year that it actually runs nice. I can do large areas, but not more than 1-2" (2" at long distance is pushing it HARD) I would love to do it for the neighbors, but I just don't think it pushes enough snow for it to be worth money. 1-2" doesn't really harm any of the neighbor's vehicle's performance. Sadly, it's not that worth it. It's more cool for plowing a trail to the mailbox, or doing scale stuff. It impresses a lot of people. My video has over 1,100 views now. I can't believe it! I wish it was bigger and stronger, but it's not. I am looking at getting a plow for the little Simplicity Yeoman. It's a Yeoman from like the 60's-70's. Remember when I said dad collects old lawn/garden tractors? It's a nice unit as I have done a lot of the restoration myself. I might be able to make money off of that rig...

egbasher

Hey Rob, don't forget the bearings. The Hyper TT eats its rear wheel bearings. I have taken one apart and it is packed with mud - to the point the bearing wouldn't spin. So here's my question. Which bearing brand do you guys think seals out dust the best?

DieHarder

Boca Bearings FTW!

egbasher

Hmmm...Rob has had a couple of the green seal Boca's go bad. I oredered some Acer bearings. We'll see.

DieHarder

I just said that cause Tom from Boca Bearings was here at one point. I've never actually tried their bearings. I myself usually just buy the stock Duratrax ones. I normally don't run through water, so rusting out or failing due to water is never really an issue. Acer bearings appear good! At least I know their advertising girls do! LOL

rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

i've had a hub bearing fall apart on my before... but that was old and had seen lots of abuse... for the most part as long as you lube your bearings regularly and your tires aren't too unbalanced i've had mine last a long time... I think i got some acer bearings for my savage a while back... those seemed nice, the thing i don't like about the dtx units is the seals... the acer's or bocca's seem to have a better rubber seal...

DieHarder

The Duratrax ones have some funky plastic mesh for a seal. There cheesy as for that part, but like I said, I don't run through water that much and the plastic mesh seems to keep most of the dirt out. I might try a Boca or Acer set next time I go to buy bearings though.

EXT2Rob

My Feedback: (1)

Hey Nate, yeah sounds like you need to put a blade on that mower! A mini-snowplow would make you some moo-la, I'd think.
I got some Duratrax replacement bearings, once. I thought I was going to get the metal-shielded ones, but got the ones with that funky paper "seal". They didn't last long. The LHS carries the Bocas, so I get those. I too had one of the green "rubber shielded) bearings become so stuffed with dust, it became mud, and seized. I removed the shields, used a Bearing Blaster, but still had to dig the mud out with a hobby knife. Got 'em all cleaned up and lubed, and seem to be fine now. Ceramic bearings are for those who either race, or, have more money than sense.

DieHarder

Hey Rob (and all other Evader guys), (in response to your PM on URC) here are some pics of the outside here at our house. If Rob over there is having 70* weather, then that seems amazing to me. It's 14* out here with 25mph steady wind, snow blowing and 30+ gusts. Yesterday we had some 55mph gusts! Insane! Notice in the third pic how the snow was drifted up near the door. That part of the deck is a covered area for like 7' out from the door. We never get snow within 2' of the door. Wind and drifts, yo!



1st- Off the back porch over looking part of the blueberry fields where I fly my Radian. We can usually see the entire tree line and trees individually very clearly.
2nd- 3' drift near front door.
3rd- Showing how door pushed drift away when I opened it.
4th- Looking out over front yard. That light pole on the left there is buried in about 4-5' of snow.
5th- Garage area where dad just snow blew about and hour ago.

Serious winter weather happening here. With the winds yesterday, we were surprised that we didn't lose power...

egbasher

Dang DH, that looks nasty. I'm sure it feels worse than pictures show. Hope you guys stay safe and warm until it ends. We may be breaking records for warmth out here but were also breaking "no rain" records. Towns are starting to build pipelines to tap into other water sources because there's might dry up. Not good.

As far as bearings go, we aren't runing in wet conditions, just real dusty ones. It's like Rob said. You take a bearing apart and it looks like someone purposely packed mud in it.

DieHarder

It's very cold here now. We have what they call an Artic Blast. They are expecting -16* wind chills tomorrow. Yes, that's negative! The blowing snow is awful and stings when each frozen flake hits your face at 35mph. I believe temps are supposed to stay around 0* tomorrow. Hmmm.... A nice COLD birthday I will be having tomorrow...

cumquat

come down here, we're having a heat wave. 12*F! it always makes me giggle when the high for the day is lower than the temp this early in the morning. it's supposed to be 7*F with a low of -7*F. we had about a foot of fluff earlier, so we busted out the shovel and rake (one of the metal garden rakes, they work better than you'd think) to take off about 7 inches just so her van wouldnt bottom out and get high-centered. after about an hour, a lot of sweat and some kitty litter she was free. i find it hilarious that we can drive through 4"+ of snow in a front wheel drive mini van ('05 dodge grand caravan to be exact) yet Georgia, home to many a redneck with lifted 4wd's, shuts down over 2". most people up here dont even bother with snow tires for that!

rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

We've been seeing a lot below zero for days now hanging around -10 before wind chill. My gf who goes to school in upstate new York saw -26 for a day or 2 before wind chill. The last time school got shut down for snow we got about 4ft over 2 days and the 3rd day was so they could clear the roads better.

DieHarder

I've got some pics. This winter we have received the most snow in over a decade. It's awesome! Dad snow blew the driveway out last night again, and it's already filled in about 8". There is over 8 ft deep drifts!




1st: A neat snow drift near our front door.
2nd: Wind indicator out at the field.
3rd: My wind indicator with field in the background.
4th: Flying Field.
5th: Wind indicator next to runway.
6th: View of landing strip from the beginning.
7th: Showing how you can't see across the field with this blowing snow.
8th: A cool little drift.
9th: Same drift, but from different angle.
10th: Showing how the light pole is so buried, that it's at arm level.
11th: Sideways shot of buried light pole. (It's inline with the tree)
12th: A bit larger drift.

This wind is very cool, the way it forms snow sculptures. It's very pretty outside, but hard to walk through the 2ft+ snow. The wind chills are ridiculous though. It's currently 5.4*F outside with like a 23mph wind steady and 30mph gust. It was actually kind of hard to get those pics.

None of our vehicles have gotten stuck yet, but the '98 Chrysler Town & Country minivan did throw a belt once or twice. We just recently bought a belt guard kit for the tensioner pulley. It appeared that when snow got up in there, it just slipped off the tensioner. Also, the snowmobiles are full of gas, and ready to go! THIS is a Michigan winter!

egbasher

We have the opposite problem out here, cumquat. People see ads on TV for 4WD SUVs blasting down snowy roads and they think because they have 4WD they can drive like normal in bad conditions. Needless to say, on any trip on I-80 in the Sierra's during snow you'll see lots of SUV's blasting along at 50-60 during chain controls (25 mph limit) who end up spun out into the guard rails. Evidently the concept called friction is not well understood.

Don't want to rub it in but we have had a couple of weeks of 75+º weather here in CA. Our big problem is that the track at Rob's is so dry the dust gets so thick you can't see the cars. Not great for breathing either. Gotta water it down but that may become too expensive if the drought continues. Last big drought we had (1976-77) we were limited to using only 42 gallons of water per person per day. Use more water than that and the cost went WAY up. I remember my mom had a sign on the toilet that said "If it's yellow let it mellow if it's brown, flush it down." Hope we get some rain.

Happy birthday Nate. What did you ask for??? A new car, perhaps?

DieHarder

Well 75* sounds super nice compared to this, but even if it was that here and dusty and dry, I couldn't run anything, cause my Evader needs LOTS of stuff yet before this spring.

I've been hinting around that I need a texting/general smartphone-like device. I'm hoping dad will get me either an iPod Touch 5G, or a smartphone. An SCX10 would be awesome though too, but with only 2 RCs running, I need to focus my attention on fixing the ones I have versus buying new and shelving it after it breaks. SCX10 is my dream build,... someday. (Either that or a RC4WD Trail Finder 2 (TF2))

DudaDude

Starting my new plumbing job tomorrow so in a few weeks you'll be seeing a lot of updates from me

DieHarder

Meaning that you'll be gone for a few weeks, or we'll be hearing about it for the next few weeks?

I'm in a bad mood now, because I was just denied to go to a Super Bowl party with my friends,... AT A CHURCH! Mainly for liability issues. Like really, I'm going to fall and be hospitalized at a church Super Bowl party when everyone is sitting down watching the game, eating subs, and drinking soda. Really?!

bcredneck

wow nice ''freinds'' will they even be drinking
anyway i was thinking about buying a evader it kind of looks like a cross bettween a losi xxt and lxt are they a copy or just realy close the front arms and shock tower look just like the xxt