Sunday 27 February 2011

2008, going brushless

The Yuntong Lipo Stick Pack, Notice i couldnt use the original stick pack holders, cause they wouldnt fit, so i used double sided tape.
After a year hiatus in 2007, i decided to come back into TC with my Alcyon II, becuase the BL technology kind of stabilised and came down in price. At the time most people were using the Speed Passion GT1.1 with the SP 11.5T motor. The 11.5T was the only accepted motor at the time in MNC, versus the stock 23T. Keep in mind at the time, there was no boost or timing nonsense for BL. I bought the combo set, costs me Rm1000, so did my friend OSA, bought the same thing. I also bought a Yuntong 5000mah 20C lipo, and 2 Lipo stick packs from HK, the Yeah Racing 25C 3200mah lipos, and a hot power lipo charger. The price was wuite ok for these stuff. I was completely amazed at how much longer runtime i got out of a pack. 22 minutes with the YR 3200, and 27minutes with the Yuntong 5000mah ! That is like 300% runtime than i ever got with my Ni Mh and brushed motors, and whats best, no need to change brushes and true motor comms. It saved a lot of my time, and i could spend more time setting up my car. It was also at the time, i decided to buy TRF shock Absorbers becuase they were threaded bodies, and would save me time and effort to set ride height and tweak. It was kind of a mistake buying the TRF shocks , and i only found out in 2010, when i decided to sell it off to Ezme. The TRF shocks use black rubber diaphgrams, and you cant see through them, that means when you build the shocks, you have to build by feel. Also it uses a little sponge urethane in the top cap to keep the thin diapghram from going up when you compress the shocks. This resulted in shocks that had a great amount of rebound in them. Suffice to say, i struggled every now and then with the cars handling with these shocks, there were times when i didnt have any traction at all! For a while i went back to the Kawada clip on shocks. At the time also i was still using double one ways , and everyone switched to front spools a year earlier.  I tried and tried with the one way , yes it did work, but only with the stick packs, cause eventhough the lipos were lighter, the overhung weights through the sides kept the hard springs i used from my NiMh days still useful.
I had my spirits up high, and wanted to join MNC race in 2008, i placed myself in the race, a day before the race, i went for a practice session at titiwangsa, everyone was there, unfortunately my Alcyon II handled horribly, i was using the TRF shocks again. The car didnt have any traction, and it pitched side to side and front to back too easily. I tried and tried but couldnt get the car to handle, even with the front ball diff, thats when i decide to pull out of the race.  A newbie friend of mine was there with his Yokomo BD, which i help him set up. It was planted, and i was thinking to myself is this then end of the line for the Alcyon II ?  Again after a few months later, i quit TC again, and left my car laying around somewhere. At the time, the LRP ESC had more puch and top speed, and everyone was getting rid of their SP 1.1, again sensing being outclassed equipment wise, now owning a worthless ESC, i decided to call it quits. My friend OSA stayed on, and bought a new ORCA Vitra ESC which had new upgradable firmware, it was even faster than the LRP. That was the beginning of the software boost and turbo wars between ESCs, and i was sick of it, every few months a new ESC would come out in the market rendering your old one useless, as the new one has more punch and top speed.
I embarrased myself at rctech forums. I was trying to suggest to keep the cost of racing down, but instead got lambasted by the go all out racers who want to be world class. Being world class is ok, but you gotta spen world class money too. I really put aside my Alcyon II and was pissed at everything, and couldnt get my car to handle well.

No comments:

Post a Comment