Next project...1/5 scale truck

[Steeldrifter 0]

Decided to make my own steel headers for the 1/5 scale build today. Used 5/16 steel brake line worked over with the tubing bender. Heated flattened a piece of round stock to make the strap plate across the tubes. Made a the collector and turn down out of some copper plumbing pieces that I worked over a bit with a Dremel tool. Happy with how it came out. One down, other side left to go. Gonna put that one off till later next week now. Got a few rod blanks I had been waiting for finally showed up so got to do some real work now.
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[mikechell 0]

Wow!  That's some pretty metalwork, Steve.  You'll have to get some of the tablets for Lionel train engines.  The ones that make "smoke" come out of the stack.  Put some in there while you're running it.

[Steeldrifter 0]

lol don't tempt me, you know how ocd I am.

Awhile back I saw one guy that rigged up an orange led inside a pipe on his truck and had it set to flash when he let off the trottle so it looks like raw gas burning off inside the tube.

[xterrabill 0]

headers with collector ...awesome.

smoke generator? they use scented oils now-a-days.

 

[Steeldrifter 0]

A big part of the current 1/5 scale build finished up tonight. This is something that has actually been worrying me because it's such an important part of the build. Fabricated the motor mount for the 780kv Castle motor over the past couple days and finished it tonight. Made it out of some 3x3x1/4 6061 angle aluminum, cut and trimmed, drilled with some cooling holes and chamfered the edges then polished it. Very pleased with how it turned out. This is pretty much the final hurtle I had so now I can simply finish up the rest of the final braces in the chassis and then take care of the few odd & ends and then get it all assembled and batts in for a test and then it'll be ready to take apart and send the chassis to powder coat after that.

Headers finished up as well...

[vicente 0]

Looking good Steve.

[redietz 0]

What battery configuration are you planning on using?

[Steeldrifter 0]

Pair of 4s lipos (120c 9700mah) wired in parallel.

[redietz 0]

2 hours ago, Steeldrifter said:

Pair of 4s lipos (120c 9700mah) wired in parallel.

I was guessing you were going to say something like 6s2p, but 9700 mAh is a serious capacity, and 120c is a higher discharge rate than any battery I've seen.

Do you use a separate battery for the receiver?  I guess the failsafe isn't as important in truck as it would be in a 1/5 scale airplane.

[Steeldrifter 0]

Yup it'll have some pretty serious punch to it. Basically 8s at 29.6v. Gonna need it though, takes a good amount of power to move 43-44lbs. The modern ESC's now have a built in BEC (battery eliminator circuit) as well as cut off for the lipos, so there's no need for a separate battery for the RX like there use to be. It will run full power till the lipo gets to the low voltage cutoff level, then the power will cut off on its own leaving the truck with just steering but no throttle.

[Poopdeck 0]

A hundred bucks for a powder painting gun. It's a simple process assuming it will fit in an oven. I am super impressed with the workmanship in that thing. 

[Steeldrifter 0]

I've got a local place that did my other one for me that's extremely affordable. $50 and they blast and powder coat. Hard to say no to that

Thanks, it's coming along really well so far. Had a few issues along the way but nothing yet that caused too much trouble. Biggest thing is that it's starting to get heavy, with the axles/tires on it's getttin' hard to lift & move around with my bad shoulder. Gettin old sucks.

[mikechell 0]

Very nicely done fabrication, Steve.  Impressive.

[Steeldrifter 0]

Lipos came today. Had a bit of an issue, but disaster averted. I went with some of the most powerful 4s I could find which were the smc 9700mah 120c graphene plate lipos, and they are BIG as you can tell in the first pic lol. So the battery trays needed to be revamped. So I ended up cutting off the back of the chassis, making a poly plate which I cut and extended/mounted the battery trays too. This will be bolted to the chassis but ran out of 1" steel flat stock so had to stop for tonight. Once that's in then I'll weld the rear of the chassis back on only 1" longer and grind the weld down before powder coating so it won;t be noticeable. Not fun but not as bad of a issue as I thought it would be when I first saw the batts. Just one of those things you run into with a custom build.

 

[mikechell 0]

Mo' powahhh !!!  It's all about the POWAAAAHHH !!!