Gotta love brushless upgrades

[Frozenshade]

So for those of you who know me, you've probably seen photos and/or heard me bragging about my awesome little 1/18 Duratrax Vendetta buggy.  Well the final stage for it is in place.  Since the demolition of the closest nitro track, I'm going to spend more of my RC time and money trying my hand at electric racing, as a track for electric vehicles only is now quite a bit closer than the only nitro left for me.

Basically, I just wanted to create a post to make a small document of the changes to the buggy and post some pictures, and then give a short review of the new products and post some video if it in action.  I've been working on my Vendetta for a decent bit of time and have made several changes and upgrades to it, one of my favorites is the new aluminum body shocks I built for it, but the final stage is here.  My new Novak Mongoose brushless motor and ESC is currently in the mail, along with a couple new dean plugs and the Novak .6 mod pinion gear pack with aluminum 11T, 12T, and 13T gears.  The Mongoose motor is 10.5T (7300Kv) and has a sensored system for optimal smoothness in acceleration and braking.  It was quite a steal from Tower, $99.99 minus $10 for a promotional discount and it qualified for free shipping, so $89.99 out the door.  I've got a couple final pictures with the original electronics still on and then hopefully in a week or so I'll have the new set up operational.  I want to try it out with my 1200mah NiMH first, but then I'm going get an Turnigy Accucel-6 charger http://www..com//store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=7028 and switch over to 2S Lipo.  The Lipos for these minis are so small and inexpensive, that same site as the link to the Turnigy (Hobby King) has Lipos I can use in the Vendetta for only $8 each.

More info about the Mongoose if anyone's interested: http://www.teamnovak.com/products/brushless/mongoose_micro/index.html 

And some pictures of the detta before I gut the old electronics and give it the final upgrade.  Can't wait to try out the new system and get it going on the track 









Any of you guys also into minis? 1/16 or 1/18 seem to be most common mini scales for actual track use.  Anyone feel free to comment, and to those who do own the scale I encourage you to post a couple pics of your own ride.

Enjoy! 

[Khraih]

I love that buggy man! Awesome! It looks almost like a 1/10. That would be awesome if you make a video with all the upgrades and stuff. I want to ge a Traxxas 1/16 E-Revo.
Oh and Happy Birthday.

[mc4798]

Looks good, Let us know how it handles brushless power.

[Frozenshade]

I love that buggy man! Awesome! It looks almost like a 1/10. That would be awesome if you make a video with all the upgrades and stuff. I want to ge a Traxxas 1/16 E-Revo.
Oh and Happy Birthday.

Agreed.  It's quite a detailed build for such a small car.  It has proper oil filled front and rear differentials and all that blue is legit anodized aluminum.  Those shock bushings are aluminum too, just silver polished instead of the anodized blue.    Duratrax's big boast about it has always been that it has all the features of a 1/8 buggy just downsized, and quite frankly I'd agree with that.  And yeah I'll definitely get a video once I get it up and running. 

And thanks.  Now I can vote and buy lottery tickets haha 

Looks good, Let us know how it handles brushless power.

Yeah I'll let you know.  It will be fine though, the detta is built to be able to take the heat.  Another popular choice are the Castle Creation's Mamba brushless combos and those are even a bit rougher than the Mongoose because they aren't sensored.  The acceleration and braking should be extremely smooth.  The pinion gears I've got are plenty low enough tooth count to keep the temperature at good levels, so unless I send it flying into a wall doing like 40mph or something it should be alright haha

[Frozenshade]

Alright, I Got it all hooked up today and gave the Mongoose its first run. All I have to say is, wow. Very smooth, excellent control, and pretty impressive speed;  Easily 35-40mph and I only used a 6-cell NiMH. Temperatures were fine with the 12T gear and it was fairly easy to install and program. Couldn't be happier with this purchase.  It's going to scream once I put a 2S in it. 









I'm thinking I'll get a couple Lipos and that Turnigy charger in a week or so.

[mc4798]

Novak speed controllers are great. I have a havoc 3s and preordered a kinetic.

Got any video of the car ?

[Frozenshade]

Not yet.  I'll get one posted on here soon. 

[mc4798]

I have zippy batteries and a turnigy charger. They work great.

[Frozenshade]

Alright!  Finally got the rest of the stuff and tested it out today.  The Lipo is so much faster than the NiMH.  The buggy is 4WD, but it pops wheelies it has so much power.  I can make it do a back flip from standing still.  I also picked up a carbon fiber battery cover for it, and I'm going to paint the wing tomorrow and then it will be completely done. 

Also, I must give credit to the charger I purchased.  For $55 the Thunder AC6 is very impressive.  It charges and discharges NiMH, NiCD, Pb, LiPo, LiFe, and LiLo.  Uses AC or DC power and comes with several different plug adapters for charging different batteries.  Besides your common plugs though, that also includes gator clips to charge bigger units like a 12V, and an adapter to charge glow warmers.  It also comes with a balancer and a temperature probe that will stop the charge if the pack becomes too hot.  They even include a USB hook up and software for it.  You can create and save your own programs for specific battery packs and download updates for the charger.  Hard to beat that for the price.  I can't comment on the durability of it just yet, but overall the RC community seems to have given it favorable reviews, and right now I'd agree. 







Video of the new and improved car coming soon...

[chris.7935]

i have had my tc6 charger for a year now and still works lile the day I got it. I would guess I have put at least 4000 amps through it charging different batteries for the helis, boats, trucks..

[harmanan]

yah i have a sportwerks chaos and i'm converting it 2 brushless

[mc4798]

Here is my newest toy 

So how does that Mongoose do in the vendetta buggy. I was thinking of putting one in the tc.

[Khraih]

That`s sweet MC. I want the Vendetta SC, I saw it in RC Driver and it looks soo cool.

[mc4798]

The vendetta sc does look pretty awesome. I would like to have one come tax time

[Frozenshade]

Here is my newest toy 

So how does that Mongoose do in the vendetta buggy. I was thinking of putting one in the tc.

Great.  It is quite the little monster.  With a 2S lipo the power to weight is quite impressive.  My friend recently got a B4 pro Kit and he's got the Novak Havok (13.5 turn I think, I've got the 10.5) and a big 2S lipo for it, like 5000mah and 30C, but the little detta runs circles around it.  It does back-flips and wheelies on command for me from a standstill, but despite all the power, with a steady hand its quite stable and handles pretty well.  I'd definitely recommend the system, and its a lot cheaper than a lot of the others, like the Castle Creation's Mamba brushless combos for example.  Where you really win with the mini scale is battery costs.  Great mini lipos run like $20-$40, rather than like $60-$180+ that the batts for their big brothers cost.