rickshupe

I am wondering if there are a lot of people that are removing there Optidrive and if so what are the pros and cons of doing this.

Beasley1

Only do it if you get a FOC. You loose a lot of weight and rotating mass in the tranny. Definatley one of the best, eaisest, cheapest upgrades out there.

envisa

Pros:
- It prevents ripping the gears. It will only allow to change from forward to back (or from back to forward) when the truck is not in motion.
- It has an "inbuilt" failsafe.
Cons:
- I got tired that it didn't allow me to shift gear even though I could see that the truck wasn't in motion.
- The failsafe is not bulletproof.

I've removed the Optidrive and I'm happy the way it is now I just need to be carefull not to shift gear when the truck is moving. The spring in the throttle arm of my Revo pushes the throttle back to idle so it acts as a kind of "mechanic failsafe".

Mspeed

I would recommend getting a fail safe whether you take the opty out or leave it in. On my revo, if you turn the transmitter off while the truck is still on, the opty drive will not default to full brakes no matter how much I have tried to program it. With a fail safe in the link you can have full brakes as soon as you lose signal. A note on the throttle spring, I went through a few servos before I figured out it was the heavy spring traxxas uses on the throttle linkage that burns out the average throttle servo. I tried alot before I decided to give up on the stock spring and put a low tension one in there due to the danger of a run away. I must of adjusted the carb angle like 6 times and still not luck. The guys who run top quality non traxxas throttle servos probably never have issues.

envisa

Wasn't aware of that one. When/if my throttle servo breaks then I know that the stock spring may have caused the failure.

Mspeed

After I learned that the Traxxas heavy spring used was the problem on my Revo, I ended up changing out my spring on my Jato as well, and I have never broke a throttle servo case on the Jato or burned out a servo on my Revo since. You hear alot of Jato owners breaking throttle servo cases...hmm and if you look at the new Revo platium specs, it comes with a lighter throttle spring...hmm.

ajb1205

Also, if you upgrade to an aftermarket radio, chances are the optidrive won't work correctly. When I installed my Hitec rx the optidrive failsafe mode kept kicking in. Took it out, ended up installing a cd/rb kit and a Venom FS and everything was good to go. Now since I have went to Spektrum, I ditched the fs since the Spektrum rx has one built in.
This explains why and a fix...
http://misbehavin-rc.com/pit-lane/ba...o-battwarn.asp

Krazy Chicken

my dads revo 3.3 opti drive didn,t work right once, and he hit reverce, and it didn't go, then he swiched back to forward, and he gave it gas, and swiched to reverse while it was moving, and it stopped, and stripped the wheel hexes

chuck67207

yea, i took mine off to. got tired of it not working right. put my failsafe back on and it works good now.[8D]

rickshupe

When you remove it is there anything you have to do or do you just unhook it? It seems like it controls the travel of the throttle. There has been a couple of times the body has flipped up and pressed the button on the optidrive and I only had about half throttle until I reset it. Has anyone else had this problem?

envisa

Well, yes, you can just unhook it but you need to connect the servos to the receiver.

There are three wires going into the Optidrive:
Sensor in: If you remove the optidrive you don't need the "blue" wire. Just leave it unconnected.
Throttle out (channel 2): You have to connect this wire to the receiver. Remember to connect it to channel 2.
Shift out (channel 3): You have to connect this wire to the receiver. Remember to connect it to channel 3.


Are you sure that you have half throttle because the button on the optidrive gets pressed? Seems a bit strange... [sm=confused.gif]

rickshupe

I know it seems odd but that is what was happening. The rear clips were out of the truck ( I was getting tired of them falling out ) and when I would do a wheelie the back of the truck would flip up. The corner of the body, by the optidrive, would hang up right on the reset button. When it would do this at first I would loose all control of the throttle when I would set the body back on…. I just remembered after I would fix the body the reverse switch would work backwards and if you tried to run it like that it would only have about half throttle. It took me a while to figure out what was going on but once I would reset it everything was fine until the body would flip up again.

envisa

Not sure that I understand it. The optidrive has only one button called "SET". You can enter the programming mode by pressing it twice (the manual describes it very well).

Are you really sure that the Optidrive is the problem? You could try to run for a while without the optidrive to see whether you experience the same problem...

rickshupe

I guess I am talking about the set button. If you press and hold the button until you here the servos come back on the one for reverse should work the opposite. If you do it again it will go back to normal. I don’t know why it does this, I have red the book about it and I am still puzzled. Maybe you can try it and let me know if yours does the same thing.

envisa

The optidrive reduces the throttle to max 70% if you are in reverse. It might be experience as half throttle.
Could it be that the optidrive "believes" you are in back gear when you in reality are in forward gear? Does your shift servo work fine?

If you hold the "SET" button down the shift servo is reversed? I can try that when I get home and post you the results.

envisa

I've just tested the optidrive and here are the results:
- If you hold "SET" a long time (about 5 secs) the optidrive will start flashing green, then there is a pause and it will shortly turn the red light on.
After that the shifting servo is reversed as you explained and as a consequence there is only 70% throttle instead of 100%

What seems very strange is that the "SET" button of your optidrive somehow gets pressed during 5 seconds which is a loooooong time. If you carefully open the Optidrive, using a screwdriver (I've did it several times) then you will discover that the "SET" button presses the real button which is in the PCB (printed circuit board). Perhaps your "SET" button is damaged and is almost constantly pressing the button in the PCB?

rickshupe

It is kind of hard to explain I tried in an earlier post but the way I wrote it was probably confusing, sorry about that I will try again. I kept loosing the rear body clips so I was just running it without them. When the truck would wheelie the rear of the body would flip up and the corner of the body (by the optidrive) would fold under and rest on the set button. It sounds impossible but believe me it can happen.

envisa

Now I see your problem.

Well, I'm afraid that you already know the solutions:
- Secure the body with clips and replace them when you loose them.
- Cover the "SET" button so it cannot get pressed.
- Remove the "SET" button and cover the hole with tape so dust doesn't get inside the Optidrive. (Then you need to remove the tape and use a needle or alike every time you want to program the Optidrive)
- Remove the optidrive.
- Don't make wheelies
- And sure many other solutions

systemlord

Get rid of it, forward only makes you think ahead and makes you a better driver.

matts6887

Another good reason to take it out is if Like I; u may possibly run a aftermarket radio such as the spektrum radio system(s); I myself run the spektrum dx 3.0 system and was originally told but some other bashers that they experienced the glitching when using one of those radios, but solved the problem when they got rid of the optidrive. U just have to remember to come to a complete stop before changing from forward to reverse so it wont "grind" the gears...

shadymarkny

Hey, I'm using DX3 radio for my Revo 3.3 too!! Yeah opti-Drive sucks!! It does not work perfectly everytime and is one of the reason why Revo costs so much!!.. Well.. to me it is just another reason why I took mine out. Be a real racer and go forward!!

rickshupe

I think I will run with the optidrive for a while but eventually I want to eliminate reverse and use the servo to shut the fuel off with the radio.