Jumping in the deepend!

[robs]

You will more than likely flame, but anyway.

I havnt owned an RC car in 7 years, and i need a little more advice specific to the X10. (mainly for use on loose gravel/dirt/grass)
I have ordered my X10 now (should arrive thursday they said),
along with the following (which i hope will work):
LRP Vector-Sphere Brushless Combo (2-Star)
LRP HV-Plus VTEC SC-4200 Big Mama Factory Team Cells
and, grease, oil, 30/50/60 weighted shock oil, threadlock.

i know i need a receiver/transmitter/servo/charger/discharger/tyres/glue/tools.

which i havnt decided on yet, but i dont really want to spend much more money to be honest.

anyway, a few questions.

Tyres: What and where should i get a dry gravel/dirt grassy conditions? i i have searched the forums and found a link to here which seems to have a quite a range of buggy tyres which i havnt seen on any other uk site. i presume this 'yellow','red','silver' means the compound, why are they named by colours? why not soft/medium/hard/solid/bullet proof etc ? what do they actually mean? Also what inners should i get? if any?

What Glue should i get for the full assembly of the X10?

Is it work skimping on the receiver/transmitter/servo/charger/discharger? or will it hinder the performace or response times etc too much? i started off thinking it would cost over £500 but i've already gone over that lol. oh well.

And finally tools, is there any handy tools that you recommend i get before i start the process of building this beast? i really dont want to be using the wrong tools and screw this up.

i love this car, i remember the schumacher cat's being plastered all over my wall when i was kid, now i can afford these things i thought i'd splash out.

Cheers in advance for the help and time reading this lengthy thread.

[chris burgess]

oh my! ;D

right, simple stuff first.

tyres - blue/green/yellow (schumacher) does indeed denote the compound of the tyre. blue being the hardest, green being the softest and yellow being inbetween. But in reality (and my experience) yellows wear far more quickly than greens.

for grass ( i will stick to schumacher tyres for simplicity) you need yellow minispikes all round for short, dry grass and if it's damp you can use green minispikes all round.

for astroturf and carpet, it's either green or yellow minipins all round, or you can use minispikes on the front in either compound. Its usually better to keep the same compound on the front as the back, but it's down to personal preference.

The minispikes shuld also work well on the gravel/dusty sections, as long as you have a little throttle control!

The equipment you have chosen (i.e. the brushless setup and cells are fine and will give you car plenty of horses. However, you will need to get a little imaginative when it comes to fitting the speedo in the car. Space is exceptionally tight.
When it comes to servo/receiver combination, smaller is always better in the Pred. I have a coreless futaba servo which is tiny, a quantum 2 esc and an LRP phaser receiver. It all fits well, but then again it's all small!
A good radio for your money is the sanwa gemini 2, retails for around £100 and has plenty of features, and the receiver it comes with is quite small too.

Chargers - something like an Eagle CDC is good, but here (as in all other areas of the sport) you pays your money and makes your choice. I have a CS Spacecharger which is Fab, but I also have a Pro-Trak which is the dogs danglies. There's almost £200 between the two though. I also use a Novak smart tray on the cells to "equalize" them after each days racing. If you get an eagle CDC, that's also a discharger, and a cell monitoring thingy, and it retails around £135 I think.

As for tools, get yourself some Team Magic allen drivers and screwdrivers. they are excellent quailty, and last for ever. They are cheaper (I think) than others on the market, but they are just as good.

I think that's all, no doubt others will corect me where i am wrong, but that's the nature of the game!

Oh, and welcome by the way!

[alfonzo]

Welcome!

I think Chris has covered it all pretty well. Don't skimp on the allen keys, buy some good un's - best few quid you can spend. Read the buid tips on this forum. Take your time with the build, it takes longer to build a Pred than some of the other kits out there. Take your time painting your bodyshell - it's the icing on the cake!

Enjoy

[robs]

Cheers buddy

Just to check the tyres come in pairs dont they ?
says 'MiniSpike Rear, Yellow***' to me that suggest 1 tyre, but it pictures 2

Foam inners, Yes? No?

will i need to purchase any 'Pinions & Spurs'? or will the kit come with them? i read the setups.pdf from the ttech site and its suggest a 19 or 20 tooth pinion.

i'm about to make an order on that DCRACING site, with the tires, and all the other extra bits i need to finalise it all, i just need to know what servo to get, are any of these small enough ?
dcracing.co.uk/dcrshop/index.php?cPath=57_58

DCRacing Foam Inserts 4WD Medium
MiniSpike Rear, Green
MiniSpike 4WD Front, Green
Fastrax Clip-on Radial Motor Heatsink - Blue
Sanwa Gemini II
Eagle CDC

need glue and servo

Thanks again for the help

This is an expensive hobby, i had better enjoy this lol!

[robs]

I am going to get my mate to do the body, shes a professional airbrusher and got some fancy kit, although i am thinking matt black with gloss black decals, like my mountain bike frame.

I'm not really into all these fancy colours and logos and stuff skattered around the place, simple is best. Nor am i an artist, but i'll see if she can come up with anything cool first.

[chris burgess]

oops forgot about pinions...you will need them too. if you get some between 18 and 22 you should be sorted. 48dp by the way.

Tyres do indeed come in pairs, and you will need to buy foams as well. the DC racing ones are new to me, but I am sure they will do the job.

and if you can, xwap the fastrax heatsink for one with a fan built into it. 3 racing do one that has the fan attached to the side of the heatsink, it fits lovely in the X10

It certainly is an expensive hobby, but you are at the expensive stage. it will get better after the initial outlay!

[robs]

LOL couldnt find anywhere that sells that heatsink, but i did find this this which made me chuckle.
I cant beleive they have TEC cooling on RC cars lol. i'm suprised it works tbh, TECs get seriously hot, i've used them on PC CPU's before mind you that was a 200+w TEC.

oh .... im guessing that this is the old version? and i should get this

found these, tempted by the titanium top fan mounted one. although personally i would have thought a fan would hinder the cooling as isnt there an air vent on the shell which scoops air as the car is moving? those 30mm fans must push no air what so ever but i have to admit it looks sweet lol, so there sold to me.

cheers for the heads up on the 48dp what ever that means, left my wallet at home, will get the bits ordered tonight.

[chris burgess]

I have to agree with you about the 30mm fan not moving much air, but spookily, they do seem to make a difference. mine is wired directly to the plug leads, so as soon as the car is on, the fan is working, and by the time i have completed the race, then marshalled and returned to my car, the motor ir much cooler than it would have been. I have turned the fan round on mine though so it is sucking air away from the motor, as opposed to blowing air onto it. (i only did that though 'cos I was looing for something to do between races one day though!). They don't seem to cause any hinderence to the vents on the motor either, probably because mine doesn't cover the vent!

not sure about the chargers....Dom at DC will tell you. Like I said, I have a protrak, so I never need to look at other chargers. (it's a bit like that with my wife. I have her, so I have no need to look at other women. well, that's what she tells me anyway! ;D)

48DP is the pitch of the gears, must buggies run 48pitch, touring cars and 1/12th scale often run 64pitch and entry level cars often have 32 pitch. 32 pitch is big teeth and almost impossible not to mesh correctly, 64pitch is very fine pitch, ideal for precise gear ratios (needed on touring cars and 1/12th scales) and is nearly impossible to mesh correctly, and 48pitch is in between and easy to mesh correctly.

[DirtRacer]

Hmmm... off topic!!

But i guess my wordiness has caught on amongst you lot!!!

I thought i was the only blabber mouth round here

[robs]

Right finally ordered all the final bits, lets just hope it all comes today or tommorow.

DCRacing Online:
1 x Hitec HS-5925MG
1 x LRP Pulsar 2 (Just because i have LRP everything else
1 x Sanwa Gemini II
1 x MiniSpike 4WD Front, Green
1 x MiniSpike Rear, Green
1 x DCRacing Foam Inserts 4WD Medium
4 x Robinson Racing Super Hard "Absolute" Pinions (17/19/20/21)

I went with some random servo dont know whether its any good or not but it looked smallish and was only £60

Brock Models:
1 x 3Racing Motor Heatsink with Cooling Fan - Blue
1 x 3Racing Motor Heatsink with Top Mounted Cooling Fan - Titanium
1 x RPM Pinion Protector Case - Black
1 x 3Racing Antenna Post - Titanium color
1 x HPI Antenna Pipe and Cap
1 x HPI Body Clip (6mm/Black/20pcs)
1 x Deans Female Ultra Plug (2 Pack)
1 x Deans Male Ultra Plug (2 Pack)
1 x Deans Silver Solder

ordered loads of random bits and bobs to make the order above £30 to make it free delivery.

I cant wait to get building it, my X10 still hasnt arrived ordered it on monday or tuesday (they did say thursday or friday it would arrive though in an email) from 'The Race Place'.
I received my Motor/Speedo/Batteries/Shock Oils/Grease/Locktight. going to source a soldering iron locally today as no one seems to really stock any online from the RC shops.

shame i am going away this weekend.

Anyway thanks for all the help chris, i'll no doubt be back needing help with the build and setting the leccy up, i a bit confused already from looking at the motor/ESC as to how i am supposed to connect the batteries to the ESC, as connector on it is a 2pin molex type thing, and i couldnt see any of female versions of it anywhere on any of the sites so i might cut it off and use the 'Deans Ultra Plug's which i could find, Is that ok?

Cheers

[chris burgess]

I'll bet your savings/visa have taken one hell of a battering this week ;D

The servo you have purchased is actually quite a good one. You have paid a little over the odds for it, but it is a good servo. quite fast, plenty of torque and it has metal gears too. I have a couple of those in some other cars, and they have never given me any trouble.

When you get round to building the kit, you need to take your time, and follw the instructions to the letter. If/When you get stuck because the instructions appear to have missed a step, **ahem** don't worry - the pictures should get you out of trouble - if not pop back here and we will help all we can!

When you start driving it, you will need to be patient with it, and not trigger happy - you will see what I mean when you get racing. And when you need spares, there's a great online place not to far away from here!

Good luck!

[robs]

Yeh just a little bit. Wasnt quite expecting it to cost nearly £1000 but i'm sure it will be worth it. I finished university back in may and coming from being skint almost all the time to a 26k salary, i've kind of been just buying all the things i've been meaning to get but just havnt had the money.

I have my X10 now, and also the DCRacing kit i ordered (came before 8:00am this moring), i ended up changing charger, servo and getting PSU. The servo i had to switch to a Hitec HS-5945MG which was the closest thing that had in stock look pretty much the same.

got 'Pro-Peak 13.8v 20a Power Supply' and the 'Pro-Peak Elite Charger'

my Brock Models order has only just been 'Shipped'

I will be carefull and take my time with the build, i'm visiting a mate at uni tonight and most of the weekend and he said he'd help build it as he had a losi street weapon at one point, so hopefully get it setup this weekend.

They need to make more carbon fibre bits for the x10, the chassis base feels really heavy, i knoticed they have an upgrade version of it, why do the-pred.co.uk not sell it ?

Anyway cheers, will post progress tommorow.

[chris burgess]

there is indeed a graphite version of the chassis - same style, just a different material. it's about 40% lighter than the original and is a good upgrade.

the.pred.co.uk will sell it soon, just getting all of the "common" stuff on the site first!

[robs]

Hi

I opened up the manual started selecting the parts for the first step (building the tranmission) and what do you know, the kit didnt come with a spur gear, how annoying. lol, i build the entire car without glueing the drive shaft bit and a spur gear so i am going to have wait even longer before i can get this going. I just hope ttech get my email in time to dispatch it today.

Anyway more waiting.


PS. My thumbs and index fingers are in so much pain. ttech should glue in little tiny metal inserts into the plastic/graphite (pre threaded for you) so you can easily screw stuff in, and just use locktight stuff.

[Cooper]

robs said:

My thumbs and index fingers are in so much pain. ttech should glue in little tiny metal inserts into the plastic/graphite (pre threaded for you) so you can easily screw stuff in, and just use locktight stuff.

a 3mm tap to pretap the holes or a bit of oil on your screw could make it a little more easyer.

those 'helicoils' you talk about would be ACE ! no more stripping holes etc.... BUT it would make the car even more expensive.