TOPIC:

I would put a big engine in the hornet more than inside a SRB. Be carefull with the motor you will put in the SRB. I only can put vintage silvercan in mine. I am not sure about the sport tuned inside the SRB box

Ok, I interrupted the discharging process as it takes forever. I set the "A" to 5.0A in the Nimh-program. I cannot set the "Man" to "Auto" for some reason, but I started it and it stopped about 00800 on the counter, after about 10 mins.

So, now I've set the A to 2,4 just to trick it a bit, and started charging, see what it does.

Sting, what do you mean, that the SRB can't handle slightly stronger/faster motors? Is overheating the problem?

Regarding the Hornet I am not inclined to put alot of resources on it due to its crippled design. It is good for experimenting, but not for driving. The split body design with the motor mounted on its separate rear section that is lose from the main body, it jerks ni a weird way when going over small bumps, is not a good design. Its front suspension with simple springs is a cheap joke, and the rear suspension is bad joke even with good oil filled shocks. Only good thing about it was me learing to put together a gear-diff. And the wheels are pretty good, I will be using the black rims on my scorcher later.

I apologise up front to anybody who cultivates nostalgic feelings for this type of 'quality', and I seriously and kindly point to other designs within Tamiya, or other brands for that matter. Sorry if I'm breaking hearts here.

Update on my chargning here!
My "5000mah" pack is now on its 36th minute of charging, and at "1356" on the mA (as I've set it on 2.4A now). I am beginning to suspect that my Maxam 5000 mAh High Quality stick is not a 5000mah at all.

It's this one tamiyaeurope.co...a0103.html

And my local hobby store Hobbex has removed the battery from its sortiment. Something's fishy! I've been had.

The motor fixations on the srb are molded in the gearbox and I don't know if it supports a big power. And the srbs arz jewels for me. My majority of tams are plastic ones. And to have hornets grass and lunchies, the gearbox supports power. You can put harder springs on the front and make like my dad made on my madcap, put a lead part on the front .

I see your point about the Hornet, Sting. But putting harder springs on the front would mean changing the car properties to that of an F1 or a roadster. I like the suspension soft and flexible.

About my charging: Last night I interrupted the charge process at about 2800mA full. It was charging with 2,4A very well. The battery became warmer. Now this morning I tried to charge it at 4000A, but it stopped again after 10 mins at about 400mA. I've now bought a B6v2 charger from Hobbyking, to check if it's my charger. In any case I will probably be returning it to Hobbex. And this 5000mah nimh, I don't know...

The gears in the Hornet may be plastic, but they are some of the toughest Tamiya make, thanks to their chunky pitch - ant they're used in so many different cars I don't think you'd ever be stuck for replacements. If you want to be picky, the large side of the spur gear can wear out (especially if the pinion is also worn), the small side of the spur gear can lose teeth (especially if there's been decades of eposure to automotive sprays & greases), I've also detonated an old outer diff gear (same exposure) - but overall I stand by the gears being tough ... it's the gearbox, & chassis as a whole that are the problem...

It was a poor design in 1984, but holds a lot of nostalgia, especially if it was someone's first car - the Grasshopper was mine, eventually upgraded to a Hornet, but I'm not blind to its faults. If you want the best, genuinely vintage 2WD platform then you ought to be looking at an early Associated RC10, but fasteners & tools are a faff it your toolkit is metric, and good luck getting spares at a decent price from the "wrong" side of the Atlantic .. even then, it's not going to be much use as a test bed for Tamiya cars...

For 2WD testing, a Tamiya DT-02 or DT-03 chassis is pretty competent, get a Holiday Buggy or Sand Rover re-hash & put oil shocks on it (and upgrade the motor) if you want a vintage look, or one of the plastic whizzy buggies if you don't mind them.

A word of warning though - a boxed, barely used re-release Hornet is going to sell for around half of what you paid for it. I'm not sure an FAV is going to "fix" you're problems either - there's a lot of painting to do, and the shocks are undamped. The Wild One at least has oil shocks on it - but again it's not a modern design (also see DT-02 ref above).


I'm not convinced there's anything wrong with your battery, or charger - you're not going to get a full capacity charge in after a short drive and/or abandoned discharge. It's like driving 450 miles in a real car & filling the tank up, then driving to the shops & back & being surprised when the pump clicks off af a litre or two - and being surprised again when you'e left the car unused overnight and can't get any more fuel in. The mAH figure on the charger (the one that rises during charging) is a estimate of the charge that's gone in, not a report on the capacity of the battery. If you don't have the patience to complete a charge or discharge at the settins you choose, then you are going to see results that need some interpretation. From what I can see you used some battery power in a run, discharged another 800mAH, then put 2800mAh + 400mAH in ... 3200mAH into a part discharged 5000mAH pack is a very plausible figure under the circumstances.

Chargers and batteries will get warm using use, especially at higher charge rates. When discharging, the energy has to go somewhere & is "burned off" as heat inside the charger - I have mine sitting on a 120mm computer fan (with wire guards) to cool it. 1A is the maximum discharge rate on the 4-button chargers, so a 5000mAH pack will take 5 hours to discharge fully (if it was fully charged).

5 hours.. !? .. I'm in the wrong business. I thought no more than 1, or 2 tops!?

I understand about the gears of the grasshopper chassi. They are pretty solid, and for the vehicle's weight I would think they're very sufficient. I google the "Associated RC10" and that one does seem impressive. Similar to Kyosho's Scorpion, right? Would the rear tires fit the vintage Holiday Buggy? The tires look very similar. What about size?

As for the DT-02 chassi type cars, I have been thinking about getting one, preferably the new Holiday, just that in this case I'd rater get a Traxxas Slash RWD truck type buggy. It's a bit bigger than 1/10 (my impression) and has about the same 'evolved' design that is required for a small vehicle to take on a big terrain. It also has this on-board audio thing. Totally super. I got to feel it last week in the shop, really awesome vehicle in all the modern aspects. Definately a good example for my collection to show the contrast between a vintage design of the SRB, and the modern RC-design. Don't be surprised if I get one in the end of the week. I'm *so* tempted.

About my batteries and the mAh, and filling up petrol driving to the store to buy more RC cars, and all - I hear you, just that there's this small filter in my brain relaying the info as; "I've got a 5000mah battery, now give me 5 hours running time or I will get a 10000 mah battery and a nuclear powerplant to charge it!", which I guess is a rather nooby attitude about it, but it's just a phase that will pass, I hope. So, this wonderful evening I'll be out hopefully making one hour or so, driving my Hornet on the 5000mah pack, charged to a timmid temp at 2,4A last night.

Alright! I've just returned from my outdoor adventure, and I must have been driving well over an hour because... well I'm freezing! It's -1C outside. But I'm happy. I got to drive a longer time than I expected, and now I am charging my 5Ah battery, again. This time I set the charger to 3.5 A, see what it does. Hopefully it won't interrupt the charging after 10 minutes saying "battery is full", as it did when I'm charging it at 4-5 A.



Can some one just please confirm how the car tells you the race is over? After a long drive my car starts to not responding to acceleration. It sort of skips commands when I 'floor the gas pedal'.


...

AAAH NO!! Charging just ended, after 10 minutes! And battery, nor charger are even slightly warm. So now I've set it to charge with 3.2 A, to see if that's too much juice for my 'high quality' battery.

Whew! OK! It's now charging 26 mins, and charger is getting warm. Battery is not warm yet.