NEW Chassis for Micro Crawler

[JatoTheRipper]

Cool chassis! And the price is great. My only concern is the durability of this thing. Those torsion arms are very thin! I'm sure we'll soon hear feedback regarding that on this site.

[TIMBERDOVII]

personally with my experiences with delrin, its not like other plastics. it don't have a memory where it bends so it rebounds good. where regular plastic always bend and stresses over and over to the breaking point. yeah if a human where to bend it over all the way by hand it might suffer but the articulation on this truck and flex wont be enough to stress the delrin, should last forever.

[Mortimer Snerd]

I've just ordered one, along with some much needed wheel weights. I'll post up some thoughts when I've had some time to tinker with it.

[D-ran83]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

Cool chassis! And the price is great. My only concern is the durability of this thing. Those torsion arms are very thin! I'm sure we'll soon hear feedback regarding that on this site.

I said the same thing when I got mine in, damn these arms are thin. It's taken some pretty good tumbles already and holding up ok

[mrtimbologna]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

Cool chassis! And the price is great. My only concern is the durability of this thing. Those torsion arms are very thin! I'm sure we'll soon hear feedback regarding that on this site.

I've crawled about 20 packs with my DP Torsion Chassis. In that time I have taken about 10 falls ranging from 1' to 4' and the chassis is holding up great, not showing any signs of wear. My flex and COG vastly improved over stock. I'm running about 15grams in each wheel and my entire rig still only weighs 199.5 grams. It crawls great but I will soon run tests to see how much more weight I can add to the wheels before becoming counter-productive.

My only complaint (whine) would be that I bought early when there was only white and spent another $6 to dye it black.....

[TXJeeper1]

Dang I want one of those things now

[Flud unlimited]

"I asked Dogbreath on another forum about a longer wheelbase version and he mentioned something about a 10mm longer one being made for him to test, or something along those lines, I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, my point in posting. That extra 10mm still won't net me the wheelbase I'd like so I had a thought. What if you used the torsion chassis as it's sold, but made the upper link mounting points farther towards the tranny, in conjunction with longer lower links. That way you could use the available chassis and get the longer wheelbase. I'm sure it would effect the springrate of the torsion, but not sure how much. "





if thay added some extra space to drill your own holes thay could make one chassis
fits all

[BOZINATOR]

I have yet to get mine to work well. Just how much weight do you need in the wheels and how tight (or loose) do you adjust the torsion bar ends? I do have the 3.7v lipos on the way to try next and I plan on doing the 4ws thingy. I won't try and convert the losi servo again because the wires are so fragile....I have tried the hi tech 65's and the the wires and access is much better not to mention a better servo.
Thanks
jim

[Jamus]

Originally Posted by Mortimer Snerd

I've just ordered one, along with some much needed wheel weights. I'll post up some thoughts when I've had some time to tinker with it.

You must have got one of the last ones. I went to order last night and both black and white are out of stock. Unless anyone knows for sure about an extended version being worked on I'm going to get a stock WB version. Then I'll make some new upper axle-end link mounts that add the extra wheelbase in. All of this once the next batch is made of course.

Both white and black are back in stock. That was quick. Got a black chassis on it's way to me.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by D-ran83

I said the same thing when I got mine in, damn these arms are thin. It's taken some pretty good tumbles already and holding up ok

Originally Posted by mrtimbologna

I've crawled about 20 packs with my DP Torsion Chassis. In that time I have taken about 10 falls ranging from 1' to 4' and the chassis is holding up great, not showing any signs of wear. My flex and COG vastly improved over stock. I'm running about 15grams in each wheel and my entire rig still only weighs 199.5 grams. It crawls great but I will soon run tests to see how much more weight I can add to the wheels before becoming counter-productive.

My only complaint (whine) would be that I bought early when there was only white and spent another $6 to dye it black.....

My question isn't whether or not this chassis can take a fall. My question is about the fatigue life of the chassis. That is, how long the torsion arms will last before they break due to the cyclical loading and unloading of the arms.

I looked up Delrin and it has a "outstanding fatigue endurance" listed as one of its properties on Dupont's website so the chassis should last a pretty long time in this light-duty application. I was aware that Delrin is pretty resistant to abrasion, because I had pistons for displacement pumps custom machined out of Delrin at my last company, but I was unaware that it's also good at resisting fatigue.

[Orgnoi1]

Got mine ordered this morning... along with my new micro... cant wait to try it out on our new course!

[D-ran83]

Just for the final outcome, I dyed mine in one of those disposable casserole pans, 2.00 if you dont have a pot to waste!. Worked fine...just keep stirring for about 10 mins at boiling like others said and it comes out fine. Thanks for the input from others.

Edit: from previous posts, since I boiled mine, it flexes much better....maybe softened it up a little I dunno, but now i'm happy with it!.

[mrtimbologna]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

My question isn't whether or not this chassis can take a fall. My question is about the fatigue life of the chassis.

My experience with it so far is that 1) boiling it while dyeing made the torsion arms softer and more flexible and 2) the more I crawl it, the softer and more flexible it becomes, slowly. So to your point, yes I think the Delrin is softening and becoming more flexible with use.

Whether or not it will reach a point where it's too soft and provides too much flex is yet to be seen, however I am running it currently with the arm screws extremely loose, so my plan as it softens is to simply tighten down the screws to create more rigidity.

[mrtimbologna]

Originally Posted by BOZINATOR

I have yet to get mine to work well. Just how much weight do you need in the wheels and how tight (or loose) do you adjust the torsion bar ends? I do have the 3.7v lipos on the way to try next and I plan on doing the 4ws thingy. I won't try and convert the losi servo again because the wires are so fragile....I have tried the hi tech 65's and the the wires and access is much better not to mention a better servo.
Thanks
jim

I leave my screws on the torsion ends extremely loose, literally only about 4 turns in, just enough to hold it in solid. You hear the little 'click' of the arm ends moving around on the screw when flexing it back and forth.

I would suggest a bare minimum of 20 grams to each wheel for better traction and to reduce lift, closer to 40 is probably optimal.

This chassis is so smooth!

[btoungette]

I changed over my chassis last night. Initial impression was positive. It is smoother, no flopping. I set mine by tightening the arm screws tight then backing them out a quarter of a turn. I'll start with that setup and tweak it from there. I'll see how is handles the rocks later this week. I left mine 'first-run white' as I use a comp setup.

My body fits somewhat awkward with the current configuration, it looks like it angles down in the rear. That is just my OCD creeping in. I can correct that with some time. (The body, not the OCD.)

It gets five power circles on my JD Power and Associates ranking of initial quality, and in overall performance and design.

[BOZINATOR]

Thanks for the reply mrtimbologna on the inital set-up
jim

[Mortimer Snerd]

You know, I just thought of something. Technically, this isn't a torsion chassis. Its a leaf sprung chassis. A torsion spring twists to provide reactive force and this chassis doesn't do that. Doesn't change the chassis design any, still very cool. Got mine in the mail yesterday, hope to get it installed tomorrow.

[Jamus]

Originally Posted by Mortimer Snerd

You know, I just thought of something. Technically, this isn't a torsion chassis. Its a leaf sprung chassis. A torsion spring twists to provide reactive force and this chassis doesn't do that. Doesn't change the chassis design any, still very cool. Got mine in the mail yesterday, hope to get it installed tomorrow.

I can see that. Reminds me of 1/4 elliptic suspension, but with top links missing. I have actually seen this on a real rig. I think it was on the scary steering page. Guy had 1/4 elliptical leafs and was 2 links shy of a 4-link. Was expecting the leaf springs to help locate the axle. What works for a 6 oz crawler might not be the best thing for a 1:1.

[Mortimer Snerd]

My thought exactly, except that these are way more able to act as a link due to greater lateral stability than any 1:1 leaf would be.

[Jamus]

I'm liking this chassis so far, though I haven't got the tranny back in to run it. I modified the upper link mounts to allow for a longer wheelbase on the rear, stock front links. I wonder, given the right material thickness, if you could build a 1/10 crawler chassis like this. I know there have been delrin torsion chassis before, but pretty sure none of them replaced the upper links like the DP chassis.