Jeff Hoy, American » how-to

5 tips for better soldering…

Jeff Hoy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:44:49 +0000

If you can afford it, get an adjustable temp soldering iron. If you can’t afford it, get a few cheap soldering irons at different wattages. Also many of the adjustable soldering irons have replaceable tips. Get a selection of different sized and shaped ones to go with your iron for different soldering tasks.
Keep your tips clean and tinned.
Control your heat. Use no more than necessary. This will help to protect sensitive components from getting overheated. This will also allow your joints to solidify and cool faster. The smaller your solder joint, the less heat you’ll need to use. You can also use alligator clips and such as heat sinks between your joint and any sensitive components already attached to the wire.
Use a high quality solder. Solder with high silver content is more expensive, but is also stronger. Solder can also be found in different sizes. The smaller your joint, the smaller the solder you should use.
Get a third hand. If you’re having trouble finding a doctor that will oblige, consider a trip to El Salvador. Kidding. You can pick up what we call in the hobby a third hand for cheap. A decent one will have have a couple movable grippers, a magnifying glass, sponge, and iron holder. Or you can make one with an old wire hanger, a small piece of wood, some alligator clips, and a couple screws. This simple tool will dramatically change the way you work. You’ll solder faster, with fewer mistakes, and most important of all, fewer burns on your fingers.

Setting the fuel timer on your Futaba 4PK

Jeff Hoy — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:15:24 +0000

Here’s a simple step-by-step guide. This is the first in a series of guides that will show you have to use some of the advanced features of the awesome Futaba 4PK hobby r/c radio system. Click on the read more link below to get to the guide.

This step-by-step guide uses Menu Level 2 on the 4PK, it’s the default out of the box. The timer setting is not available in Menu Levels ALLOFF, 1, and BIGCAR; it appears on page 1 of Menu Level 3.

This is the home screen for the 4PK.

Press a direction on the directional pad (d-pad) to get to your menu then press the + button to get to menu page 2.

Use the d-pad to highlight TIMER and click the center of the d-pad to enter the RACING TIMER application.

With the arrow on TYPE press the + button once to select FUEL DOWN TM

Press down on the d-pad to put the arrow next to ALRM

Use the + and - buttons to adjust your time setting, up to 99 minutes.

Press right on the d-pad to move the arrow to PRAL (pre-alarm). Use the + and - buttons to set the pre-alarm at 1 to 60 seconds. The pre-alarm audibly counts down from your setting until the timer reaches 0:00 and the main alarm goes off, giving you up to one minute of warning.

Once that’s done, press the End button until you return to the home screen.

You then activate your timer with whichever button you have assigned to the task.

If you don’t have a button assigned, then stay tuned, I’ll be doing another quick step-by-step guide for that soon. You can also customize the home screen to display your timer in place of the Futaba logo, a guide for that is upcoming as well.

How to set proper gear mesh on your r/c car…

Jeff Hoy — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 06:01:00 +0000

This quick article uses electric vehicles as the example, but it also applies to nitro cars.

Setting proper gear mesh between your motor’s pinion gear and spur gear is crucial to efficient and trouble-free running. Improper mesh will cause your gears to wear out much more quickly and cause your motor to run hotter than it needs to by working harder through the poorly meshed gears. If your motor is running hotter that means it’s drawing more power through your ESC. So now your ESC is running hotter and since it needs to supply the motor with more power then that means it’s taking more power from your battery faster. Guess what that does to your battery. Heat is the enemy. If all your stuff is running cooler then you’re going to run longer and faster.

The common trick to setting gear mesh is to use a slip of paper between the gears, push them together tightly so the paper is creased into the teeth, then tighten down the motor screws and pull out the piece of paper. The problem is gears come in different pitches (or mod for metric people). Paper also comes in different thicknesses and weights. Toilet paper isn’t the same as construction paper and your local newspaper isn’t printing on the same stuff as your favorite magazine. So here are some general guidelines on what type of paper to use with different types of gears.

For you on-road and micro guys you’re likely using 64-pitch or Mod 0.5/0.6 gears. The teeth on these are much finer than all the other types, and gear mesh is much more important on these than any of the others. To set a proper mesh you’ll want to use a light weight paper such as newspaper or some paper from your old phonebook.

1/10th electric off-road cars and trucks typically use the next step up, which is 48 pitch (I’m not sure of a metric equivalent). The teeth are a little bigger on these, and the gear mesh needs to be a little looser than 64 pitch gears. For these gears try using notebook paper or a Post-It Note. These types of papers are a little heavier and will leave a little more space between the gears.

For a lot of older 1/10th scale electric cars, some 1/10th monster trucks (the Traxxas E-Maxx and HPI E-Savage in particular, though there’s others) and most of the new 1/8th brushless conversion cars you’re likely to see 32 pitch or Mod 1 gears. They are the big boys of the r/c gear world. The teeth are massive and as such the spacing needs to be loser still than 48 pitch. For these you’ll want to use some type of heavy paper like construction paper or maybe a page from an old hard cover book (paperbacks are usually printed on lighter paper than hard covers, so don’t use one of those) that you don’t need any more.

Following these general rules will help get your gears set where they need to be. If your mesh was set wrong before you’ll notice a few things beyond just the cooler running electronics. Your car will run a little quieter and it will be much smoother at low speeds. Your gears will last longer as well. There’s all kinds of great benefits when you have proper gear mesh.