Boring Brick

[mrsam]

After many, many years of having an interest in this hobby i've finally found the balls to give it a go. I'm not going to try and make anything too spectacular for my first one so it is going to be as the title suggests...... a boring brick .
Specs at the moment are as follows..

Nylon chassis and baseplate probably 10mm with 10mm hdpe around the sides to hopefully suck up the worst of the damage.
4mm stainless wedge at the front, will probably change to hardox at some point
2 Gimson GR02 18v gearboxes with 70mm wheels
TZ85 speed controllers
2 8.4v 3700ah NIMH batteries in series to give 16.8v

Any comments or suggestions please feel free i'm here to learn after all
Pictures to follow when i start the build

[maddox10]

A good base to start with. Lots of practice, and you have a machine that can give you a lot of fun in the arena.

But a better name is a must. Boring Brick is a generic name for the class.

[mrsam]

Yeah the name needs some work, it's just until i can be bothered to put my mind to it but thanks very much for your comments

[mattsdragons]

All sounds good, will this be invertable?

If so, you might want to change the 10mm Nylon baseplate for a 10mm HDPE one, will take the hits better when flipped over and look at 2x 9.6v batteries instead, be running the motors at slightly over rated voltage to make sure it's not underpowered plus its nothing the TZ85's can't handle

And finally, welcome to the forum

[mrsam]

Thank you and yes it will be invertable so maybe as you said hdpe would be a better way to go, also i've been looking and pricing and maybe the tz85's are something for the future but would the 30amp botbitz be up to a GR02 running at 19.2v?

[mattsdragons]

Should be fine but if you buy decent esc's the first time round then you can transfer them from bot to bot, I made the mistake of going for cheap esc's first time round and they don't leave room for upgrades to drive trains etc. If you can afford it or are willing to wait just that little bit longer, go for the 85's but the 30's should be upto the job with that spec

[mrsam]

Yeah i see what you're saying, i guess i'll have to think on it, also is this a good transmitter http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...x_Mode_1_.html
i've been looking around for a half decent one that doesn't completely break the bank, can anyone see any problems with it and if so can you recommend an alternative?

[maddox10]

It works. I won't say it will be great or so.

Only the failsafe function can be a problem.

This reciever should solve that issue, but I don't think it's compatible with the RX you propose.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...Failsafe_.html

[mrsam]

Thank you, i'm not too savvy on transmitters and receivers so if anybody could recommend a system that isn't incredibly expensive and that will fail-safe i would be very grateful.

[maddox10]

The Orange RX/TX series from Hobbyking ain't to expensive, and do the job fine. Only disadvantage is the hidious appearance.

[mrsam]

Yeah the orange seems like a great piece of kit, comes in at about £70 with postage from Hobbyking so i guess i look at it as an investment that can be used on other bots in the future, and yes i agree clear orange plastic looks horrible

[plargen]

might be worth checking your local model shop i managed to get a dx5e for £45 without the rx, i then bought a orange rx for £6-8 off ebay

[Max]

For £80 you can get a spectrum dx6i:
http://www.f1hobbies.com/shop.php?id=6990&level

I say these are pretty much the best radio set people use (some will use slightly better sets but very few). These are high quality and used by feather weights and most heavyweights. Have lots of different settings and unlike some of the cheaper transmitters won't get 'drowned out' when there are lots of other radios around.

[mrsam]

Managed to find a spektrum dx5e for £45 but also a dx4e for £30, would the dx4e still bind to the orange rx? i'm presuming it does but i'm just wanting to make sure

[mrsam]

Scrap that last post, after much deliberation i have decided to go for the dx5e, its not really that much more expensive and other people seem to have success with it. Also the design and specs of the machine have changed slightly, parts will be on order as from friday so pictures will follow.
The new design is as follows..
Going for a 10mm hdpe baseplate and top lid instead of nylon as recommended
Sticking with the gr02's for now although ive spotted 3 cordless black and decker 12v drills on ebay, two of them are identical which could be used for the drive and the other i would use as spares and also use the gears to change the other two to all metal gearboxes.
4-5mm stainless wedge, at some point will switch to hardox if necessary.
Decided that a nylon chassis could be prone to cracking if hit by a powerful spinner, and i don't really want to use hdpe as a structural material, so the sides and back will be 10mm ali or steel with hdpe and polycarb on top of that, it might seem like overkill but i'm planning on making this thing as small and as strong as possible.
Still undecided on whether to use the botbitz 85a or 30a speed controllers.
And finally sticking with the two 8.4v 3700ah nimhs, for no other reason than i already have them kicking about and it seems a shame not to use them.

Phew that's a long one, once again all suggestions and comments welcome