Help me beat the Worm Gears

[WAM]

So the local Losi's are ganging up on me and have figured out if they build their courses with diabolical descents, requiring very deliberate and careful maneuvering on the way down, they can kick my butt. They'll put up to three gates on the same downhill that you have to creep back and forth thru. No opportunity to point and fly.

My lowest speed even wih -100% expo is fast enough that if I lift the trigger, the dragbrake flips me over. I've already weighted my rear tires up to 8oz.

I need to be able to descend much slower, and be able to run with less dragbrake.

One thought is to up the battery to 3s and then cut the spur & pinion a bunch to add parasitic drag. That might allow me to turn down my dragbrake but still not roll back on uphills.

Help a fellow Scorp driver out -- what's my best bet here?

Running a HH 35T Expert, AE2 esc and a 4PL on a GC-3A.

[JeremyH]

How about you just build a course that requires a lot of speed and possibly a few gap jumps? Then laugh when they cant do either of those...

Seriously, the cheapest option is for you to simply adjust your throttle trim some in the forward direction and just let the truck "idle" down the decline. Practice with it so you know how much to adjust it when on course.

[shizzz]

When I don't have a dig. I use my left-right wheel turns to slowly slide in such cases. However, this does not guarantee you a clean walk through

[WAM]

Originally Posted by JeremyH

How about you just build a course that requires a lot of speed and possibly a few gap jumps? Then laugh when they cant do either of those...

Seriously, the cheapest option is for you to simply adjust your throttle trim some in the forward direction and just let the truck "idle" down the decline. Practice with it so you know how much to adjust it when on course.

Never worry -- I generally do fine on MY courses. I can generally out-climb them.

I'll give the throttle trim a try, thanks.

Originally Posted by shizzz

When I don't have a dig. I use my left-right wheel turns to slowly slide in such cases. However, this does not guarantee you a clean walk through

I guess I have too much dragbrake for that. It just sits there if I don't throttle it. I used to think dragbrake was only a good thing.

[Erin]

yea, try dropping your drag break. mine will free roll very controlled once I give her just a bit of throttle to get things moving.

not sure if the ud gears in the rear help on downhills, but mine has them none the less.

[WAM]

Sure would be sweet if you could adjust drag brake from the TX.

Or pre-set it to different values moving forward and reverse. John Holmes said he worked on that but too pricey.

Yeah, mine has OD & UD. Seems like it should help since it must contribute some downhill drag independent of the DB.

[JeremyH]

Another cheaper option is that you could always swap in a low tooth count motor pinion if you see a course with a lot of descents....

[Meatwad]

Funny, I've contacted castle about an rpm dependent drag brake. For sensored motors, if you let off the throttle at a faster rpm then drag isnt as much as from a slower rpm. Lessening the chance of endo's.

They didn't seem too interested and also said it has no use.

[KBrog]

I believe a FXR has a setting similar to what you are talking about. I forget what its called. It is a rate setting on how fast the drag brake is applied to bring it in softly.

[WAM]

Originally Posted by KBrog

I believe a FXR has a setting similar to what you are talking about. I forget what its called. It is a rate setting on how fast the drag brake is applied to bring it in softly.

You might be thinking about the power mapping, because there isn't anything programmable about the FXR drag brake other than it's maximum value. I just checked with Jeremy at teamtekin to verify.

And after talking to CC and Tekin, I discovered that the SV2 has the ability to apply a user-defined custom power map which I can hopefully use for a really soft initial throttle hit. Anything gentler than I have now should be useful. Tekin only has pre-built curves to choose from, and while CC built my Axial AE2, Axial deleted the custom power curve stuff, for whatever reason. Maybe too complicated for an out of the box product.

[Highlucks]

Turn down the drag break via the castle link. You should be able to find the sweet spot you need after a few trials of different settings.

[killswitch]

Originally Posted by KBrog

I believe a FXR has a setting similar to what you are talking about. I forget what its called. It is a rate setting on how fast the drag brake is applied to bring it in softly.

They called it "push control" and I'm pretty sure they deleted it from the newer updates.

[WAM]

Originally Posted by highlucks

Turn down the drag break via the castle link. You should be able to find the sweet spot you need after a few trials of different settings.

Yeah, I did that but the AE2 has pretty coarse programming. I should be able to do better with the Sidewinder when it comes. At 90% it won't start coasting downhill on it's own, but sometimes a sudden wiggle will get it started.

Also played around some with the fwd throttle trim, but it prettymuch ignores it until I get up around 60 or 70 and then it speeds down. So I set it to 35, but can't really see any advantage. Maybe it will help with rollbacks due to the reduced dragbrake. I kinda have to hold it on steep slopes with a little trigger now. That's gonna cost me. I'll find out tomorrow.

It has the standard 14 tooth pinion. From the instruction book it looks like I can fit as small as a 12 with the same spur. I'll try that for the following comp.