Slowing down a Tamiya truck for the kids....
Discussion
...So... I've (by virtue of being lent a pals loft find 90's Tamiya Madcap to bring back to life for his son) got headlong back into RC after a 20 year plus hiatus.
Have bought a couple of TA02-T trucks, and still have the restored Madcap
Having not ventured down the li-po route yet (they seem pretty fast to me without!) - and ironically getting them tweaked (ballraced, 20T motor, slightly bigger tyres) - they are now both running like a dream, (we'll, they were for a brief while - until i stacked one and )
Couple of things I've noticed (bear in mind one is a brand new re-issue & the other is an 90's original)
1) The plastic seems very low quality (relative to the Schumacher type stuff I used to run in the 90's)
2) The buggy 'bogs down' easily (in anything but the shortest of grass)
Ideally, I'm looking for a way to take the edge of the speed of the trucks - such that my kids (6 & 3) can race them without busting them by running straight into a wall at full speed.
Does there tend to be any settings that allows, say 1/2 to 2/3 power?
Alternately - is any of the RTR stuff that seems crazy cheap by comparison any good?
I loved both the tinkering element when i was a lad and really want to have the kids enjoy racing them - but dont want to keep on the nostalgia route with Tamiya if it's going to require special deliveries from Hong Kong every time something lets go.....
any thoughts?
Have bought a couple of TA02-T trucks, and still have the restored Madcap
Having not ventured down the li-po route yet (they seem pretty fast to me without!) - and ironically getting them tweaked (ballraced, 20T motor, slightly bigger tyres) - they are now both running like a dream, (we'll, they were for a brief while - until i stacked one and )
Couple of things I've noticed (bear in mind one is a brand new re-issue & the other is an 90's original)
1) The plastic seems very low quality (relative to the Schumacher type stuff I used to run in the 90's)
2) The buggy 'bogs down' easily (in anything but the shortest of grass)
Ideally, I'm looking for a way to take the edge of the speed of the trucks - such that my kids (6 & 3) can race them without busting them by running straight into a wall at full speed.
Does there tend to be any settings that allows, say 1/2 to 2/3 power?
Alternately - is any of the RTR stuff that seems crazy cheap by comparison any good?
I loved both the tinkering element when i was a lad and really want to have the kids enjoy racing them - but dont want to keep on the nostalgia route with Tamiya if it's going to require special deliveries from Hong Kong every time something lets go.....
any thoughts?
What type of controller do you have? If you have a trigger type then this way might help.
I bought my son a scalextrix and wanted to slow the cars down on that. I put a tywrap round the trigger and it stopped the trigger bottoming out on the handle.
You might need to play about with it a bit to get it right but it does work on trigger style controllers.
I bought my son a scalextrix and wanted to slow the cars down on that. I put a tywrap round the trigger and it stopped the trigger bottoming out on the handle.
You might need to play about with it a bit to get it right but it does work on trigger style controllers.
Composite Guru said:
What type of controller do you have? If you have a trigger type then this way might help.
I bought my son a scalextrix and wanted to slow the cars down on that. I put a tywrap round the trigger and it stopped the trigger bottoming out on the handle.
You might need to play about with it a bit to get it right but it does work on trigger style controllers.
Unfortunately - got old school 'sticks' on all of themI bought my son a scalextrix and wanted to slow the cars down on that. I put a tywrap round the trigger and it stopped the trigger bottoming out on the handle.
You might need to play about with it a bit to get it right but it does work on trigger style controllers.
Ah you've done what I did, massive long gap then before you know it you've built a pair of Schumacher SV2s and are racing at your local club again.
To answer your main problem, it depends how much you want to spend, the 2 mechanical ways to slow it down are to gear it down with a pinion for acceleration rather than speed or to use a high turn motor say a 27 turn standard silver can or something designed for rock crawling to go even more extreme. Although another option as has been suggested is to limit the end point either mechanically on the controller or on the speedo depending what it's fitted with, if it's mechanical then mounting the linkage further in on the servo horn will reduce movement so you don't get full power.
However there isn't much you can do about the cheap plastic on a Tamiya although they tend to be fairly robust and bits are easy to get.
They will have to learn to moderate power at some point, may as well be now I suppose!
To answer your main problem, it depends how much you want to spend, the 2 mechanical ways to slow it down are to gear it down with a pinion for acceleration rather than speed or to use a high turn motor say a 27 turn standard silver can or something designed for rock crawling to go even more extreme. Although another option as has been suggested is to limit the end point either mechanically on the controller or on the speedo depending what it's fitted with, if it's mechanical then mounting the linkage further in on the servo horn will reduce movement so you don't get full power.
However there isn't much you can do about the cheap plastic on a Tamiya although they tend to be fairly robust and bits are easy to get.
They will have to learn to moderate power at some point, may as well be now I suppose!
wildoliver said:
Ah you've done what I did, massive long gap then before you know it you've built a pair of Schumacher SV2s and are racing at your local club again.
To answer your main problem, it depends how much you want to spend, the 2 mechanical ways to slow it down are to gear it down with a pinion for acceleration rather than speed or to use a high turn motor say a 27 turn standard silver can or something designed for rock crawling to go even more extreme. Although another option as has been suggested is to limit the end point either mechanically on the controller or on the speedo depending what it's fitted with, if it's mechanical then mounting the linkage further in on the servo horn will reduce movement so you don't get full power.
However there isn't much you can do about the cheap plastic on a Tamiya although they tend to be fairly robust and bits are easy to get.
They will have to learn to moderate power at some point, may as well be now I suppose!
They've both got electric speedo's in now (replaced the old mechanical one in the older truck when it stuck on top speed and ran into the fence.... (remember that happening quite a bit back in the day as well)To answer your main problem, it depends how much you want to spend, the 2 mechanical ways to slow it down are to gear it down with a pinion for acceleration rather than speed or to use a high turn motor say a 27 turn standard silver can or something designed for rock crawling to go even more extreme. Although another option as has been suggested is to limit the end point either mechanically on the controller or on the speedo depending what it's fitted with, if it's mechanical then mounting the linkage further in on the servo horn will reduce movement so you don't get full power.
However there isn't much you can do about the cheap plastic on a Tamiya although they tend to be fairly robust and bits are easy to get.
They will have to learn to moderate power at some point, may as well be now I suppose!
Trouble is with the TA02T's as that coz they share a platform with the TA-02 touring - they are already on the smaller end of pinion gear (i think it's a 17T & the min on the motor mount is a 16T)
Rock crawler motor could be a shout - are these significantly slower?
that said - may just be a case of getting them used to moderating the power!
They are slower but you need to ask where you want to throw money at the project, the suggestion of a better controller isn't a bad one, to put it in perspective, I've got a pair of radios up for sale on Oople at the moment which have the ability to set end points and limit everything the model is allowed to do, so you can set a maximum "speed" in forward or reverse, maximum steering input and adjust the rates they operate, so you could slow the steering down for instance. Those radios cost me brand new £55 each, that's a bargain for that level of control, they are quite easy to set up too. That might be a better option as if they get in to the hobby they will transfer between models far better than a slow motor will.
wildoliver said:
They are slower but you need to ask where you want to throw money at the project, the suggestion of a better controller isn't a bad one, to put it in perspective, I've got a pair of radios up for sale on Oople at the moment which have the ability to set end points and limit everything the model is allowed to do, so you can set a maximum "speed" in forward or reverse, maximum steering input and adjust the rates they operate, so you could slow the steering down for instance. Those radios cost me brand new £55 each, that's a bargain for that level of control, they are quite easy to set up too. That might be a better option as if they get in to the hobby they will transfer between models far better than a slow motor will.
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