KE4QPF

Posted January 01, 2009 11:41 AM

OK guys... need some help. Last night the truck started making clicking noises when turning right. This occurred after hitting a car head on due to my own stupidity. The wheels are fine. The truck still drives straight, but the radius for turning right has increased by about five degrees. After doing an inspection, it appears that the brake on the steering servo somehow is not engaging?!?!? Any ideas on how to correct this? I'd appreciate it greatly. Otherwise, I've had only one other problem that was cured rather quickly... one of the battery cells shorted out due to a manufacturing defect. It was easily cured by finding the scortching hot cell and replacing it.

UPDATE: Situation repaired

KE4QPF

Posted January 01, 2009 12:19 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 01, 2009 03:34 PM

Thanks for the encouragement. I got the servo apart and found the gearbox had one tooth totally hosed. Trying to get the thing back together again was another story. I kept looking for a set of chopsticks in my arsenal, but eventually gave up. I'm heading back to Toys 'R Us and getting another truck to steal the servo out of it, then return it with the bad servo. New Bright should have a little better "quality toy" control. Wasn't expecting this one so quickly to break.

KE4QPF

Posted January 01, 2009 03:45 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 01, 2009 05:42 PM

Well, after seeing what you posted, it might just surprise you that it wasn't the smallest/most toothed gear in the box that snapped the tooth off. It was the biggest/least toothed one. You would think that it would occur the other way around!?!?! Mainly because the servo's mini silver can motor drives the smaller gears which step up to the larger ones. This didn't make much sense as I'd have to pretty much drag a tire for the biggest gear to strip out. Wouldn't you think?

EDIT: Everything is back to normal. Replaced both the servo motor and gearbox using the ones off the new truck. Wish me luck!

KE4QPF

Posted January 01, 2009 08:13 PM

I'm getting closer to that 10 hour goal. The batteries are still getting broken in. The last charge yielded 5 hours. I found that one cell collapsed on me, so it didn't help my initial quote to you. With NiMH batteries, the more charges you give them, the better the yield until they eventually fry out. I'm confident I'll be close to 7 hours after the next charge. I took a video with my PocketPC this evening after forgetting to charge the batteries after a good 2.5-3 hour session last night. I'll post it up when I get home from the guy's house who helped me with the servo issue.

EDIT: Just read that these NiMH batteries will take about 5 chargings before they release their full potential based on the longest scale given below, which is probably correct due to the high mAh these batteries have.

KE4QPF

Posted January 01, 2009 09:53 PM

OK... here's the pic of the dead gear in the bad gearbox...



Please view the video of "The Blue Streak" below.

NOTE: THIS IS ON BATTERIES THAT WERE USED FOR 3 HOURS PRIOR TO THIS VIDEO BEING TAKEN.

KE4QPF

Posted January 02, 2009 11:59 AM

KE4QPF

Posted January 02, 2009 05:58 PM

Thanks for all of the help you provided to me on the project. The insight you had was amazing in helping me determine voltage levels and gear issues. I owe a lot to you and the forum, so consider the video my treat.

KE4QPF

Posted January 02, 2009 06:05 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 02, 2009 06:38 PM

I truly appreciate the gearing help you provided to me. If you need any help with modding your rigs with lighting, give me a shout. I'm a pretty good solder monkey. I learned from many years of training from a Motorola technician... back when Motorola actually made stuff in the states. The main reason for the lighting is pretty self-explanatory from the video. It's friggin' pitch black in the neighborhood I run this thing in. Having lights on this puppy allows me to run it when the traffic flow is light to non-existant, lessening the need to pull it off the road. My friend, who I elluded to earlier, has a Craftsman C3 and loves it... but he's jealous of the lights I have. Here's what he did last night... the numbnut!!!

He actually taped a penlight to the top of his truck as a headlight!!!

CLASSIC!

But yet, he chided me for having the blue streak under mine. I think I smell a bit of jealousy. He works with me at the local cable company and I caught him on eBay pricing 12V LED lights. He "claims" he's looking to help me out with finding 12V white LEDs for headlights. We'll see about whether they're for me, or actually for him!

EDIT: Maybe I'll have to make his "The Yellow Streak" for his chicken $*** way of telling me he has truck envy!?!?!

KE4QPF

Posted January 02, 2009 07:41 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 11:51 AM

OK guys... a few more improvements!!! I got bored on New Year's Day and had to do something. So, I went to my local cheap hardware parts store and picked up a few things for the truck...

First, I got sick of the plastic body pins always slipping out due to their flimsy design and poor length. It was time to do something a bit on the wild side. Metal beats plastic, so here you go...

Harbor Freight Tools' Storehouse Hitch Clip Box (MOD #: 96243-2VGA)

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=96243



Use the 5/64" x 1-5/16" pins... the box comes with 30 of this size and has 5 other sizes for other projects you might be working on. Price: US$4.99/box




I also found the antenna straw??? to be lacking in total physical strength, so I beefed up everything with a layer of shrink wrap tubing...

Harbor Freight Tools' Chicago Electric Heat Shrink Wire Wrap Assortment (MOD #: 96024-0VGA)

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=96024



Use the white 18-22 AWG tubing as that is the smallest and will shrink the tightest. These tubing pieces start to shrink at 125°F, so all you need is a hair dryer to get this stuff to suck on. The antenna hole DOES NOT need to be reamed out for this mod... it just makes everything snug so the antenna doesn't wobble around aimlessly i the wind. It doubles the strength of the antenna mast and allows you to go under more items without fear of breakage. This also keeps the wire sticking up higher to ensure a better ground plane for the reception of the transmitter's signals. Just make sure you wrap this around the antenna straw??? as well as the end of the cable that you'd normally leave hanging out of the top. This works wonders. Price: US$1.99

EDIT: Should you knick the shrink tubing and crack it, just hit it with the hair dryer again and use flat white model paint or even white out. I thought about this for a while, and it's conceivable that someone will scrape the plastic going through a tunnel or some other diversion... like, say, that car I went under.



Should I think of anything else, I'll let you know. My next idea was to possibly put new clevis pins into the frame for the body to replace the plastic ones, but I'm having trouble figuring out if these are friction welded to the body!?!? Anyone know??? Here's a pic of what it is I'm referring to:



Obviously, I'd have to place the nailhead of these things in the downward position (into the frame) so the body can slide up and down. I'd slide a hot Exacto across these things to knock them off flush the frame, but don't want to do that if there's an easier way.

BTW: I still haven't heard anything about Rockcrawler.com decals for the quarter panels and hood... that would really look sick! Especially considering it was the help of people from this forum that got this truck together for me.

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 12:22 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 12:25 PM


That's just sick!!! On it now!!!

==============================================

OK... first of all... us electrical guys know nothing about gas tubing. We use heat shrink tubing. So I had to mod the mod

STEP #1: Take the leftovers from your antenna straw project and pull them out. Grab the red shrink wrap (14-16 AWG) tubing as that will work best for most sizes of vinyl tie wraps. Fold and cut into halves. You should continue to do this until you have 24 pieces out of the entire 3 red tubes. This will provide 8 pieces for the top and bottom of the clevis pin rods and give you plenty to spare for other people, and yourself. A precision cutter makes things easy.



STEP #2: Zip the tie wrap around the eye of the hitch clip making sure you pay attention of which way you have the pin, tail, and head facing... this comes into play later.



STEP #3: Run a piece of the tubing you just cut up the tail of the tie wrap until it makes contact with the head, use your nail to hold it in position, and use your wife's hair dryer to shrink it snug onto the tie wrap tail. Ensure you have this shrink wrap snug against the head of the tie wrap, or you'll screw yourself and have to use another as once you shrink this stuff, it tends to bond to the grooves on the tail making it semi-impossible to get off.



STEP #4: Take another tie wrap and run it up the tail ensuring the head is in the same position (be it up or down) as the one you wrapped around the hitch pin



STEP #5: Cut off the tails (as shown above) with precision cutters to achieve your final product. Make sure to use only precision cutters that are VERY SHARP!!! Failure to do so will result in several pokes, prods, and cuts on your fingers when using these due to a dull cutter's inability to make a flush cut.



STEP #6: Continue the process until you make all necessary (or wanted) hitch clips for your rig. Here's where positioning comes into play. If you want matching left and right sides, ensure you position the heads of the tie wraps as seen here, or you'll be lop-sided with all facing the same way. This was not mentioned in the original gas tubing post.



STEP #7: Install on your rig for that "tricked out"/"pimp daddy" look.



Thanks for the idea 'not a toy'... it worked marvelously, expect for the gas tubing part... friggin' gas guys... always trying to show us electric guys up!!! The nerve of them!!! Anything they can do, I can do better!

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 12:27 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 12:43 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 02:16 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 02:23 PM

Great idea, but there's too many curves in the body of this beast to make it stay in place without huge lumps around the curves. I was hoping someone had a regular decal, like the ones on the Rubicon Jeep, that would position around the curves much better.

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 02:39 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 02:45 PM

Thanks for the kudos... as for this idea..

I'm thinking that doing this will give me problems with body alignment if I use an Exacto... any thoughts???

My better judgment is telling me to leave well enough alone!

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 02:53 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 02:56 PM

If that's the case, I think I'll leave things be. I don't want to crack the frame by drilling this out. There's no need for that much work... purely cosmetic... but... my intuition is telling me to keep thinking about it!

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 03:07 PM

KE4QPF

Posted January 03, 2009 03:37 PM

I'm thinking this is one mod I could do without... I'd rather get a nice light bar for the top and some low, forward-facing, white headlamps for the front bumper.