Mary Shelley's MRC

[RICrawler]

Oh yeah! That inspires me to get back to work on it... Took a break this week from making any progress, but I better get to work so I can keep up with you at NENQ!!!

[chris.martell]

Merc will you please test that UD axle. Please please please!

[winnerone23]

Get em Chris!!! I'll help...

Merc, please, please, please... ;)

[MRCrackhead]

Been to busy building your rig Chris.

When am I supposed to find time to work on mine?

I'm lurking, in the shadows, biding my time....waiting to strike when the EPARCCrawlers least expects it.....moohoohahahahaaa!

[Jslick]

Bring it my friend, we have all stepped up our game. MRC included.

[winnerone23]

Oh Shizzle!!! He dun called you out Kevin! ;)

I guess there's no keeping it hush hush now.. (I think John posted ur last post on EPArccrawlers.com!!!) Uh oh.....

[Jslick]

LOL. I am so glad that you and Chris will be back Kevin. See you when the snow melts.

[chris.martell]

Since you are finished with my rig now just slip that UD axle in the box with the rig and ship it all to me. I'll test it out for you.

[chris.martell]

Originally Posted by Jslick

LOL. I am so glad that you and Chris will be back Kevin. See you when the snow melts.

I still live in GA Jon. Sorry wish I was joining you guys next season.

[Jslick]

Originally Posted by chris.martell

I still live in GA Jon. Sorry wish I was joining you guys next season.

Bummer, I was looking forward to hanging out and driving. I hope things are going well for you. You could come up in July for the Northeast National Championship at Rausch Creek. ;)

[chris.martell]

Update please

[MRCrackhead]

Umm, it's freezing here in PA, but I wanted to spend Valentine's Day with my love......haha

I took the mini out for a half dozen packs to test out the underdrive axle in the rear. Seems to be working fine.






I still need to cut the axle stubs down, but after moving, I can't find my dremel anywhere. When I do find it, they've got to go. Hung up on the stubs a couple times today.




Loving the head on approach this new axles gives me. No more servo horn in the way all the time.



Chris will recognize a few of these lines. We set up 2.2 routes on some of them. Not saying my mini is at that level, but it did stick some stout stuff.



It seems to downhill really well. I think the weight setup is very close.



Cold rock, tires, shocks, etc......not a bad run today.

[MRCrackhead]

As much fun as I had the other day, something has been bugging me.

I've never been a fan of the body-less setup I've been running forever.

It's awesome on the trail, but sucks when you want to do the simplest stuff.

Just changing a pinion, for example, can be quite an affair by the time you remove all the panels, do the work, and replace the panels.

Most of my panels use screws that hold other critical components such as the lower links. Once the panels are removed, my car looks like a half torn apart rig.

Anyway, I've had enough.

So I removed the topper and started cutting. I still don't like the way the BWD chassis leans the rear shocks in. I made a few cuts to the topper to salvage the rear shock mount area. The hole pattern matches the BWD exactly, so I can move these "mounts" up, down, forward or back depending.

Before



After



Then I fabbed up a front body mount out of some UHMW I had laying around.



Here's the body as it will look mounted.



I still have to make the rear mount, which is mostly done; but it's late. Tomorrow is another day...

Still looks very sleek and low profile. I'm interested to see how it does.

Hope it works well cuz I cut the topper to get to this point, and I still can't find my dremel....

[MRCrackhead]

Finished up the rear mount last night. Simple, but effective.

BEC is just laying in there for a test fit. See below as to why it's there and a BR-mini is laying on the bench nearby.



I only wish I could find the nylon in black, white is so darn ugly. No style points for this rig...lol



Reworking the electronics next. Been having some issues with the FXR. Twitching a lot, and the voltage cutoff seems to come on and off whenever it pleases. Full throttle shuts the car off for a moment, and then back to normal. Full speed wiggle of the steering also shuts everything down, then resets.

I thought it was the servo drawing to much power, but tried a whimpy 645MG on it with the same results. Doesn't make sense being the servo anyway since punching the throttle kills the car.

BEC seems to be working fine (no good idea how to test it other than ripping it out for another one).

Don't think it's the motor because the steering kills the car.

I'm assuming it's the esc.

Anyone else had this issue or know of something I could try before a full electrical rebuild?

[chris.martell]

Das Auto Merc! I love the bug body. Let me know how it affects recovery please

[winnerone23]

I have some black nuts for ya Kevin.. Since white nuts aren't your thang... ;)

Sending them in ur package..

[MRCrackhead]

Wired in the new electronics since it's snowing outside.

In the spirit of having fun, instead of working on this thing all the time, I've decided not to chop all the wires up and hard solder things as usual.

I'm digging the removable body. It's just so much nicer to work on the rig.

Along those same lines, I've decided to keep everything plug and play. This way I can change stuff in the field, instead of having an electrical breakdown ruin the day.

Soldered a Deans micro plug on the BEC.



Got a matching one on the BR.



Everything back in the rig and running again. I've had the Holmes y-plug sitting here forever. Wired that in while I was at it. Now the servo is powered directly from the battery.

[MRCrackhead]

Originally Posted by chris.martell

Das Auto Merc! I love the bug body. Let me know how it affects recovery please

Chris, unfortunately the bug does not recover as well as the topper I had before.

Before, I could drive it upside down on the carpet, steer it wherever I wanted to go.

I noticed the huge nylon nuts I'm using were dragging on the carpet hindering efforts.

So I shaved about half of it away and that seemed to help a lot.

Still not as good as it was before. That bums me out a little, gonna haunt me at the next comp, I suppose.

I'm not going back any time soon, though. I'm more interested in having fun, and that topper was just no fun to deal with.



Working on getting the rig balanced. I moved some of the electronics around and of course swapped bodies.

It's balancing decent already. Won't need much tweaking after all.

[RICrawler]

Little rig is looking better and better... Like the chassis setup now! I plan on reworking mine a bit soon as well.

[89redranger]

Got a link to the batteries you're using in this rig. Considering going to a smaller 2s pack like yours. Using Thunder Power 3s 325s in my Infectious rig, but they are still a little big and heavy, and even at 64/9 gearing the motor still runs a tad warmer than I'd like.