Green Mountain Abominable Snowman

[motopreserve]

The Yeti (/ˈjɛti/)[3] or Abominable Snowman (Nepali: हिममानव, lit. "mountain man") is an ape-like cryptid taller than an average human that is said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet

Hey folks. I have had my Yeti (Aboninable Snowman) for a while now, but had never done a build thread. While this still won't be a traditional build thread, I figured I'd document a few things I've done along the way.

My buddy has some great property up here in Vermont that has been really fun to thrash around on. We have plans for the spring to turn some of the spots in to more proper courses, but for now we have been bashing around just having a blast, and putting the Yeti through its paces. Some things work great, some things broke, but the biggest problem: it gets dark in the woods around 4pm!!!!

Since this thread is a little late to the party, I'll work backwards....

Needed some light out front. Milled a piece of aluminum stock to approximate the expensive light bars I've seen for sale. Maybe not as fancy as VP Rigid, but hopefully no one will notice at high speed











The mounting holes are straight through the bottom into the aluminum roof. The LED wires are also routed straight down and will run along the underside of the roof to the back - where I'll install a quick connect (JST) plug for fully removing the frame. The black goop in photo 3 is some plasti-dip to make sure the electrical connection is not touching anything.

More to come....

[cmbscx10]

Super nice job on the lightbar. What LED's did you use? Looks bright enough to me.

[motopreserve]

Thanks man. I was going to drill holes for individual LEDs, but then I ended up trying some LED sticky-backed strips I have from Hobby King for the Multirotors. They are damn bright and are fine handling up to 12V, so I can run them direct off my batt instead of having to mess with the Rx.

Now that I ended up with the strip lights I can probably make another that is more shallow and even lighter. But I think the size of this one seems to fit ok with the Yeti dimensions on the roof.

[motopreserve]

I had seen a video online showing how to make simple snow chains. Once the snow kicked in here in Vermont, seemed like it was time to hit the hardware store....

These shots are from when we were gearing up to head down to the woods for some bashing. When they're spinning quick, the chains almost look like LEDs of the sun hits them right. Not exactly my cup of tea, but maybe I should embrace it and get the under-carriage glow lights going

[motopreserve]

Didn't take very long owning the Yeti to realize that it's performance outweighed my driving skills! I had found myself becoming VERY intimate with a few of the trees on the woods track - and also recognized that the front bumper seemed to catch grass, small trees and anything else it could snag on the cross-bars.

So I decided to try my hand at fabbing a custom front bumper that would be both strong and have a tighter angle for the cross-bars to avoid getting hung up. Making it fit with the bumper plastic "spring" was key, since that seemed to be a good precaution for my tree-hugging exercises....

A little silver solder brazing:



Little bit of crinkle paint:



And mounted to the Abominable Snowman....

[ribaja]

front bumper looks great

[motopreserve]

Thanks Ribaja! I need to make some changes to accept a winch I got. Need to either add tabs, or start from scratch. Now that I've gotten more comfortable with the brazing I could certainly do a nicer/neater job of it

[ribaja]

I need to got out in the shop and try my hand with some fab work

[motopreserve]

It's definitely fun. This stuff is all so damn small though. I make custom motorcycle tail lights - and now realize how easy that is compared to the parts made for these things

[802coma]

About time you made of of these!! Hahaha

Should throw up a parts list of what you got going on.

I need to start fabbing I got some great ideas just need to put them into action (mostly on the scx10) where did you get your brazing items??

Can't wait till winter is over (I know it just started) but I'm already itching to get out to the woods! You going the 11th right?

[motopreserve]

I'm definitely planning on the 11th. Looks like it could be a really good time.

I'm actually working backwards on this thread. I did the bumper probably by the 3rd run, which would have been after the 19th tree there are a couple scrapes and even a dent on the steel bumper that I'm sure would have cracked the stock plastic.

I snagged a cheap Oxy/Mapp gas kit at Tractor Supply that came with a rudimentary regulator and torch. You just buy the refills when you need it. I did a roll cage and this bumper with one tank set. I wasn't sure if I'd dig working with this stuff - and I'd still rather figure out an alternative for my TIG ( way cheaper), but I could see getting a better torch and regulator and have proper tanks. It's super fun and easy. Only issue is cost of the silver solder (priced competitively at Airgas locally).

[802coma]

I've seen people use the little butane torches. Seems like it wouldn't be hot enough? Yeah I still need to make it in there for some silver solder

[motopreserve]

The silver solder is crazy expensive. I think you'd waste more butane trying to get the heat up, and the oxy/Mapp is cheap. The TIG would be cheapest - but I have not found a definitive way to do it reliably. I need to set aside some time to experiment.

What I really need to do it build a jig for things I want to make. It would make the whole process painless, and more repeatable....

[802coma]

I've been eyeing some small hobby sized tig welders. I can use it with my 1:1 stuff (toolboxes and dash pieces etc.) but that won't be until spring. I need to fab up some stuff for the scx10 this winter. Also want to build a bumper for my yeti and such.

So you have regular access to a mill?

I see you did up the interior a little on the yeti as well!

[motopreserve]

I'm pretty fortunate - I have a shop where I make the parts for the motorcycles, and work on the bikes. It's a little overkill for the RC stuff, but it works!

The mill I have is a Burke Powermatic from the early 70's. The lathe is a South Bend from the 40's. They both work just fine. I have more grinders, bandsaws, power hacksaw (from the early 1900's!!!), drill press, etc than you know what to do with. The TIG is a "decent" chinese made - has been working for me well enough. Couldn't justify the expense of a good Miller for the little I need it for the bikes. You are welcome to come by to fab up anything you want, anytime.

Here's a shot of the inside with some bad paint. First time I've painted something like this since I'm 10!



Here's a shot of the mill...



SouthBend...



And this baby from the early 1900's will cut literally ANYTHING!

[802coma]

The older the machines the better!! The newer ones aren't built like the older ones were.

You know I could of helped ya with the paint. I could of wrote numbers on everything so it would of been paint by numbers for ya! Hahaha

Very cool stuff you got there. Nice being able to be able to do just about anything when needed.

[opie]

Nice work. I like the led bar. Love the old machines. Now that deer season is done. I need to get moving on yeti and crawler projects.

[motopreserve]

The old machines are where it's at for sure. But then you slap a modern VFD (and vari-speed as bonus!) on there and you're off to the races! And it lets me run 3-Phase off whatever I need, so I was able to buy better machine dirt cheap.

Sounds like we will need to do a bashing-machining-more bashing testing the machining day down here

[motopreserve]

Lights, lights, lights. Where would we be without them....

I didn't know if I'd be jazzed about lights on this thing - but after a few runs in the near-dark (in the late afternoon here in Vermont!) I knew I needed something. So that's where the LED bar came in. A couple quick JST connectors to get power from the battery and allow for disconnecting and removing the lid/roll cage easy. I even installed a DC on/off switch I had so I don't need to drain the battery in the daylight. It fit right in the console between the drivers.

But why, for the life of me, I decided to install the damn rear lights from an Axial kit is beyond me.

This Yeti has the spaces for them on that rear thig-a-majig attached the the roof. Slapped the LEDs in there using the clips provided in the parts bag and all seemed easy and right with the world.... Unless you ever want to remove the lid!!!!!! So instead of relying on the patience needed to snake a bunch of wires around, and then leave the lid dangling every time I wanted to work on the truck - I opted for MORE connects.

Seemed like the sensible thing ( sense had been thrown WAY out the window with the choice to install these!) would be to put the controller in the fuel cell. No biggie. Snip the proprietary wire lead in the middle, run the wires up through the cell top, and crimp some servo connectors I had.



I then put the cell top back on, connected the servo plugs and went about running the leads down to where it will enter the Rx box.



All done, and it doesn't look too crazy back there.

[802coma]

Very nice. That servo crimper you pick up locally? I've been wanting to buy one at some point here to make my wiring jobs cleaner.

The lights and painted cell looks great!! Speaking of which I still need to paint mine!