Jeff Hoy, American » tips

Did you get a new R/C car or truck for Christmas?

Jeff Hoy — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 23:00:08 +0000

Christmas has come and gone. The presents have been unwrapped with joyous glee. If you’re one of the lucky ones, then hopefully you unwrapped a nice, new radio controlled car or truck. Here’s some of my older articles about how to upgrade and hop-up your new R/C car.

Did you get a Losi Highroller for Christmas? Then you might want to check out a couple of my articles about it. I have written about mine a few times, highlighting some of the ways to make it faster and stronger. Check out my first article about upgrading the speed control to make your Losi Highroller ready to use LiPo batteries. I have also written about upgrading the motor to make your Highroller faster. And finally I’ve shown you three hop-ups to make your Highroller ready for a brushless motor.

If you got yourself a Tamiya Baja King then I’ve got you covered there, too. I’ve suggested some ways to make the Baja King handle better and more durable. I’ve written about how to make your Baja King faster by installing a better motor. And I’ve demonstrated some cheap or free upgrades to the Baja King that you can do with some common house-hold materials and tools.

I’ve also offered Highroller troubleshooting tips and suggestions in the comments to my Highroller review.

Now get out there and have fun.

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.

Quick and easy masking tips for painting your r/c car’s new body…

Jeff Hoy — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:01:00 +0000

There may come a time when you want to paint a portion of your r/c car’s body a dark color. Dark colors should be painted first so that they don’t bleed through the lighter colors. It can be a pain in the butt to try and mask off a large portion of the body using just masking tape. Instead of struggling with that, just use the masking tape to mask off the dividing line between the colors. Leave the edge of the tape that will be toward the lighter color pealed back about a quarter inch or so and then go to the kitchen and get your Saran Wrap or Cling Wrap or whatever you call it. Pull enough out to cover the part of the body you aren’t painting yet and tuck the wrap under the masking tape. Push the tape down to grab it and that’s it, a large area of your body is covered with only a little bit of tape. Quick and easy.

If your design calls for having little circles or bubbles. Go back to your kitchen and get the wax paper then go to your den or office and get your paper hole punch. Stick your masking tape to the wax paper and start punching holes in it. Use the circular punch leavings for your mask, just take the wax paper off, it’ll come off pretty easily, and stick them to your car body. If you want to be even more creative go to your local craft hobby store and pick up some scrapbooking hole punches. Those come in a variety of shapes and sizes. There are special scissors for cutting fancy edges and precut vinyl stickers that will work great for paint masks as well. There are plenty of different products that you can find at any office supply store to use as masks, too. Stick on tabs, paper reinforcing stickers, unprinted mailing labels, and a lot more if you just take the time to look around.

Not every car needs to have flames, skulls, or other eXtreeeEEME(!!!!!) stuff on it. Get creative, it’s your ride.

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.

DIY Home Improvement…

Jeff Hoy — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:01:00 +0000

For those planning on installing real hardwood floors in their house by themselves, I have just one tip: don’t. Hire a pro, they’ll do it better, faster, and by the time you factor in materials and all the tools you’re going to have to buy or rent, it’ll probably cost the same.