2016 - Tamiya CC-01 "Unimog"
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That's it, I'm done putting lights on RC cars. It's nice to have them, but it's just too much work.
They sure look good, though. But this is what I had to go through to make it work:
Six LEDs with power-limiting resistors, and a ton of little strips of black tape to keep the wires securely attached to the body. Once was enough, thanks.
Anyway, my CC-01 has fairly stiff suspension, more like the military truck it looks like and less like the rock-crawler some people build it as. It has the stiffest springs from the XV-01 long-travel tuning spring kit in the front, and the stock soft rear springs since there's so little sprung weight in the rear. It also has unlocked diffs filled with silicone grease; the diffs aren't sealed, so silicone oil isn't an option, and I still wanted *some* limited-slip action, which I wouldn't be able to get with lithium grease.
The tires are the original Rock Block tires, which are fairly hard, supported by Crawler Innovations Lil'Nova firm foams cut in half to make four donuts out of two. They're mounted on Pro-Line FaultLine 1.9" beadlock wheels, partly for extra weight down low to stabilize the chassis when cornering, and partly so I could dismount the tires easily to experiment with different foams and different tire compounds. I doubt I'll need to, though, because the current setup works well; the stock tires provide about as much traction as the chassis can use without tipping over all the time, and they're not going to wear out any time soon. They're definitely scale-accurate military tires in THAT regard.
The edges of the rear diff halves were sanded until they formed a smooth seal, to minimize leakage of the grease as the vehicle runs. I also replaced all the bushings with bearings, and came up with a way to brace the rear diff case so the entire lateral load wouldn't be supported by a single rear axle bearing.
The steering assembly was replaced with a Hot Racing aluminum/carbon-fiber upgrade during initial assembly, because I'd heard that the stock steering was really sloppy and that just wasn't going to work for me.
The rear suspension links were replaced with a Junfac 4-link kit after only a couple runs, because the stock plastic links were acting like undamped springs and the rear of the truck was WAY too bouncy. The aluminum bits fixed that problem nicely. The shocks look like they're stock, but they're actually the optional long-travel CVA shocks for the XV-01 (and various other vehicles), which have a newer design that allows the use of plastic smoother action. (I went with TRF teflon pistons, because they work even better.) The original shocks had shafts with integrated metal pistons, and there was just no way those would last long; the metal pistons were sure to scrape the insides of the shock cylinders after a while.
Since the Junfac 4-link kit came with a skidplate to protect the front-lower link pivots, I took advantage of the (perhaps unintentional?) adjustability offered by the kit to relocate the front-lower pivots into a lower position than stock, making the lower links almost horizontal. This makes the rear suspension more responsive at high speed (19mph, which is actually a lot for this kit), at the expense of less compliance on rough terrain, but I'm not planning to crawl this thing over rocks anyway. To correct the axle travel path so it would remain level throughout the suspension travel despite having the front-lower pivots in a lower position, I shimmed the front-upper pivots downward with stacks of washers. It can now jump speedbumps fairly smoothly as long as I'm careful with the approach, but that's not the intended driving terrain, just a standard test I perform on all my trucks.
The electronics are one of my standard setups: Spektrum receiver, Dynamite DYNS2210 60-amp brushed ESC, Hitec HS-8775MG low-profile coreless servo (not shown, the picture above is a little old), and Holmes Hobbies TrailMaster Sport 27-turn brushed motor. (I like the TrailMaster Sport motors vs. other silver-can motors because they have ball bearings, so they can run smoothly until the brushes are completely worn-out.) This is the same electronics package I have installed in my XV-01 FF front-wheel-drive rally car.
The truck runs on a 2S LiPo, and the chassis needed a lot of trimming to make it fit. I had to cut a bunch of rounded ribs out of the battery tray to make it work, and then I discovered the battery was too long for the original retaining clip to hold it in-place. However, the battery fit so tightly that it doesn't actually need any extra retention; I actually had to cut a hole in the other end of the battery tray so I would have a way to push the battery out of the tray. The electronics plate sitting on top of the tray is shimmed upwards with a set of O-rings, so I can adjust the amount of clamping force it applies to hold the battery securely.
There is one other mod, which I unfortunately don't have a picture of, and that's a high-speed spur gear sold by http://www.rc4x4-shop.com. In combination with the only pinion gear that will fit it, it runs 39.5% faster than the highest gear ratio possible with the stock spur gear. It has huge Mod 1 teeth, unlike the stock spur gear which was Mod 0.6, so it will probably never wear out, though it does make quite a racket. It's good for a top speed of 19mph, which is about 60mph for a 1:10-scale car; probably a bit faster for this truck since it's built on a common platform with smaller vehicles and it's actually quite a bit smaller than 1:10 the size of a real Unimog. Either way, that's pretty much as fast as a real Unimog can go.
Here's another picture of the headlights, just for the heck of it.
:D
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