orcusomega
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 653
- Location
- Royersford, PA
Since I have a Hellfire roller sitting on the shelf, I decided to put it to use and convert it over to brushless. I am trying to get my son (Alex, who is 9) more into racing, and I need a platform he can learn on that won't make him (or me) too nuts when it comes to reliability, tuning, etc.
So, that said, I started with a bone stock Hellfire, and removed everything from the chassis and removed the upper plate for modification. When it was removed, I cut it down to keep as much material as possible to maintain the structural rigidity by tying the front bulkhead, steering servo assembly, and middle diff together.
This will be the main support "spine" with supplemental supports added further in the process.
With the main body of the chassis opened, I needed to find a place to mount batteries. I want to use 3S and they tend to be fairly big. I needed to find a way to mount them securely to the chassis - and I didn't want to have to make mounts. After pouring through some options, I settled on a set of Vorza battery boxes that I picked up from eBay for $15 or so. In looking at the chassis when stripped down, the center diff is slightly offset to the right side, so I decided to mount the battery trays to the chassis on the left. The nice thing about the Vorza battery boxes is that they are slightly raised, allowing for the use of fasteners from the bottom of the chassis up without the fasteners hitting the battery. I put them CLOSE to the driveline, since I was trying to keep the weight centered as much as possible. In the future, I may end up mounting the battery on its edge, which will move it inboard even more, but we will see how well the balance is as is.
With the battery boxes mounted, and being able to leverage the stock steering layout, now its time to address the motor. I picked up a brushless Savage at the World Finals, and in it came a Feigao 2080KV brushless motor and a Castle Phoenix-80 ESC. These are not exactly true racing components, but they are MORE than enough to help my son learn how to race, etc.
In order to mount the motor to the chassis, I used a motor mount I picked up from eBay that was intended for electric model airplanes (I think). It is nice and beefy, light, and leaves a lot of material to be able to create adjustable mounts to the chassis for different pinion sizes. I decided to start with a 12T Mod1 pinion, pretty much because it is what I had on hand. One thing to remember with the Feigao motors is that they do not have any flat surfaces to line up the pinion set screw with so you will need to make one (I used my handy-dandy Dremel). I lined up the pinion and spur, and drilled the necessary holes to mount the motor to the chassis. I drilled the holes in the chassis just a tad larger than necessary to allow for a little adjustment - I will be adding slide holes to the mount later once I see how well this solution works.
So, this is has far as I have gotten so far, more progress to come in the next few days.
Comments and suggestions always welcome!
Bob
So, that said, I started with a bone stock Hellfire, and removed everything from the chassis and removed the upper plate for modification. When it was removed, I cut it down to keep as much material as possible to maintain the structural rigidity by tying the front bulkhead, steering servo assembly, and middle diff together.
This will be the main support "spine" with supplemental supports added further in the process.
With the main body of the chassis opened, I needed to find a place to mount batteries. I want to use 3S and they tend to be fairly big. I needed to find a way to mount them securely to the chassis - and I didn't want to have to make mounts. After pouring through some options, I settled on a set of Vorza battery boxes that I picked up from eBay for $15 or so. In looking at the chassis when stripped down, the center diff is slightly offset to the right side, so I decided to mount the battery trays to the chassis on the left. The nice thing about the Vorza battery boxes is that they are slightly raised, allowing for the use of fasteners from the bottom of the chassis up without the fasteners hitting the battery. I put them CLOSE to the driveline, since I was trying to keep the weight centered as much as possible. In the future, I may end up mounting the battery on its edge, which will move it inboard even more, but we will see how well the balance is as is.
With the battery boxes mounted, and being able to leverage the stock steering layout, now its time to address the motor. I picked up a brushless Savage at the World Finals, and in it came a Feigao 2080KV brushless motor and a Castle Phoenix-80 ESC. These are not exactly true racing components, but they are MORE than enough to help my son learn how to race, etc.
In order to mount the motor to the chassis, I used a motor mount I picked up from eBay that was intended for electric model airplanes (I think). It is nice and beefy, light, and leaves a lot of material to be able to create adjustable mounts to the chassis for different pinion sizes. I decided to start with a 12T Mod1 pinion, pretty much because it is what I had on hand. One thing to remember with the Feigao motors is that they do not have any flat surfaces to line up the pinion set screw with so you will need to make one (I used my handy-dandy Dremel). I lined up the pinion and spur, and drilled the necessary holes to mount the motor to the chassis. I drilled the holes in the chassis just a tad larger than necessary to allow for a little adjustment - I will be adding slide holes to the mount later once I see how well this solution works.
So, this is has far as I have gotten so far, more progress to come in the next few days.
Comments and suggestions always welcome!
Bob