The "Real" TLT-Stick

[RC Guru]

I have seen many of stick type chassis in this forum. But most were angled sticks, nothing like the "Stick" chassis for CLod. I designed my own chassis to have straight centered solid stick with 2 rod-ends linked to front and rear axles, same concept as the Clod's stick. My stick's shape had room for center transmission from Tamiya Dyna Blaster.

The chassis was made from 1/2 inch stainless steel tube. It was only about 1mm thick and not heavy. My stick chassis had 12.5" wheelbase with 3.5" belly clearance. It works great.

[RC Guru]

This design use only 2 shocks like its big brother, the "Stick". So, say goodbye to torque twist.

[RC Guru]

Articulation is great and limited at about 50 degree.

[RC Guru]

Transmission cage made from 2 mm aluminum sheet. The electronics set up plate made from 1.5 mm thick, put everything as low as I need for the lower CG. Have you ever dream about the chassis like this?

[yukon635]

that is awsome. great build and use of your imagination. that design was tried once before but failed. everything looks to be very clean. do you have any crawling pics yet?

you also might want to try to lowers the angle of your drive shafts and maybe use some bent high clearance links. other than that, it looks great.

[RC Guru]

Thanks, yukon635. Just finished last night No pics on the rocks. Even the 4 links were temporarily made from M3 threaded strut. Tonight this crawler will have solid aluminum rod for the links. Crawling pics will be taken this weekend.

[rcmankamil]

Now that my friend is one sexy TLT.

Makes me realize how far from actually being a crawler my nylint is..:-P :-(


But, yeah. NICE!

[gone_wheelin]

Nice work, let us know how it performs on the rocks? I'm curious how having the tranny hanging there will perform.

I knew if I didn't get a move on someone else would beat me to this. I had almost the exact same thing in mind. I have the backbone bent, not quite as extreme as yours, but have not had a chance to cut down the heim joins or re-work the ends of the rod to fit the heim.

[run2jeepn]

I would think torque twist would be worse. Also get rid of those bogbones and get some real driveshafts. I'm sorry I just don't see anything good coming out of this design. I just don't see how it would out preform any other plate style chassis. Even the stock one.

[clodstall]

nice start on that rig.

[somedude]

Looks cool but you need to lose those dogbones. The cog can't be much lower than the average tlt as the tranny is mounted under the main chassis but it's not much lower than usual. I would say cool unique build but not much better than the rest. I can't really talk though, my tlt's only an intermediate tuber but whatever pulls yur hair back.

[RC Guru]

Yeah!... Thanks for all good comments. This is my third 2.2" cralwler. My first one is on a very stock TLT parts, transmision and extended to 12" WB. The second is the 12.5" SW2 chassis with stampede tranny and slider shafts. On larger scale I have made 17" WB stick Clod with materials from local hardware store. I'm from Bangkok, Thailand. Very hard to find hop-up parts or even some of stock spare parts here, only import or do it myself.

SW2 is a very great chassis, but I still want to try the performance of solid stick type, then try to make this stick-TLT. This is the first stick version, need a lot of improvement. The bent backbone is about 3/4 inch too high, a lot of space over the gearbox, lower it will make in look better and a little lower CG. Upper shock mounting spot is too low and makes shocks too flat. The Dyna Blaster tranny hang firmly with the backbone just like it fixed to the twin-plate type chassis. I did not calculate the gear ratio for this tranny, but it is running at the same speed as the stampede, both have 55 turn lathe motors. Dogbones were extended to 110mm and worked great, but I am going to change to sliders, the Jato driveshafts and need some mod with the yokes.

I do not have any chance to try it on the rocks, it rains heavily here. The advantages of this chassis I found after climb over everything in the house are the articulation movement is very firm and smooth because it had less moving parts. The car have no swaying up-and-down movement which we found in the 4-links type because the stick was fixed to the himes and it alway keep 3.5" ground clearance at all time. The wheelbase also fixed at 12.5". The 4-links can bounce up-and-down which can effect the length of WB to stretch out. With this stick type chassis, no way to stretch it and the dogbones will never fall out. Another thing that I have noticed was the torque twist. Single sided shocks only allow the car to twist to one side, opposite of the torque twist force. Then, there was no more ugly torque twist when it goes forward, but, in reverse it still tilt to the shock side.

That's all the things I've found about the effect from stick chassis. I think drivetrains, ability to move the wheels and tyres, turning the car left and right are the same as other chassis but there must be something a lot different with the articulation effect, fixed and solid stance of stick type and torque twist effect when it is climbing the rock. Better or worse, I will try it on the rock this coming weekend and will report to this thread.

Please apologize my poor English, hope you all understand what I am trying to explain.cc

[RockDragon]

I like it and can't wait to hear the result of it's performance on the rocks ...

Go Go Go .... 5 5 5 5 5

[rockwerks]

Originally Posted by RC Guru

Yeah!... Thanks for all good comments. .........

Please apologize my poor English, hope you all understand what I am trying to explain.cc

Nice work and dont worry about the english, HELL you could teach half the kids on here a thing or 2 about the language!

[BENDER]

Nice work Parankoon, definitely different. I do agree, the shocks are too flat. I would also lower the ride height a little. 3 1/2" of belly clearance on a 2.2 is more then needed IMO. Sparky built a TLT similar to this a while back. He used 4 shocks mounted 1/2 compressed, so the suspension could still cycle. Using 4 shocks might help your torque twist in reverse.

[RC Guru]

Hi, Bender. Thanks for your helpful comment. I searched for Sparky build and found it, very nice and innovative crawler. Four shocks will really help but I will first try with 2 shocks setup to see how good it work. Will adjust the shock position tonight.

My office may be closed today. There's a coup by military force, tanks and machine guns were all over Bangkok. I'd better go back home and enjoy my further modification. :-P

[andres-tavares]

looks prety coool, i like the sticks tlt

[RC Guru]

Update for more mod. I have cut 1 inch off the top of backbone which make it a lot lower and in better shape. Both shocks were mounted where they can work properly. Change links to bent solid aluminum.

[RC Guru]

I put 7.2 volt 80 turn LRP motor, Futaba MC330 ESC and 2 cells of 1300 mAh Thunder Power Lipos. Crawling performance on the rocks is great. No more twist or chassis tilted to any side when powered forward. Once the motor and gear delivered torque via extended dogbones, no torque ran away to do the undesired twist action, the stick chassis was firmly stable with no tilt or bouncing up and down. All 100% power went straight to the wheel and crawl. IT WORKS.

[Scattman]

Very nice. I really like it.