So you want moving pictures?

The last set of pics were actually 'stills' in more ways than one, the camera automatically generates a single image file each time you begin shooting a video (for easier later identification of the clips in a folder perhaps?), and the Arachnid was waiting for the camerawoman (Heather) to say 'go' each time we started filming one. So nothing was moving in each of the pictures that I've already posted further below.

This next set of images are (IMO) the best individual frames extracted from the (moving) video footage we shot:

Arachnid caught on film!

Two quick clips of the Gmade Spider-axled Arachnid:

Scorpion Spider gets out!

I had a trip to the rocks at Weston sea-front today with the Scorpion Spider. Actually it isn't exactly that, scorpions are not spiders and spiders aren't scorpions. Both are arachnids though, that's what it'll have to be. Andy's Arachnid.

First Savöx

The winter fuel bills are paid, spring is here, and I finally had enough money to get the first Savöx SC-1256 TG servo for the Spider/Scorpion. That's 'TG' for 'Titanium Geared'. It's rated at 20Kg/cm @ 6.0v, which is somewhat better than the last attempt with 17Kg Power HD HD-1501MGs. These ones have orange centre cases and labels as well, which all fits in very nicely with the overall colour scheme!


I've also put the 'Zilla's wheels and Giant Trac tyres on it, I think the slightly excessive width of the Gmade Ultracs had something to do with the premature failure of all its earlier steering servos, although to be honest the Pro-lines aren't much slimmer. Rumour has it that fitting the Gmades to Maxx-sized offset wheels narrows them by as much as an inch, so maybe that's something to think about later on.


I'm still in two-wheeled steering mode though. I still have one spare HD-1501 here, but I suspect that if I put it on it won't last very long, which is a bit of a waste of a perfectly good servo that will be fine in a less demanding truck. I'm going to try a couple of runs out like this and think about possibly getting a bit of weight into the wheels before I go any further. In the meantime I'll have to save up another £53.99, or even more if I want to go to the heights of something like a Hitec HS-7950TH (35kg @ £100+).


Hopefully I'll get some outdoor photos done very soon!

Up the rock-path!

First test run. Let's see how well it can climb a pile of rocks.


I haven't yet fitted any wheelweights and I didn't trim the foam inserts in the tyres to allow them to flex a bit more. I had intended to use the 35t Integy motor that was bought for Army Truck but when I came to fit it to the new gearbox it turned out that the motor shaft was a bit too long, and consequently it fouled on the countergear. Rather than trim it down, which I feel I might end up regretting being as I do a lot of swapping of parts between trucks, I decided to fit a normal silver can RS540SH motor instead.



I don't think it did too badly. Please excuse the gaps where I fetch the truck from the top each time - there's no room to turn around up there right now and I didn't want to drive it back down the slope because the tyre cleats just get filled up with moist dirt and this then costs me grip going back up the rocks next time around.

Direct link to vid:

http://youtu.be/6rjXPmK3aFA

Introducing TL-01 'Black Truck'

I now have another running (or should I say - crawling) TL-01 truck:




The HPI Wheely King gearbox conversion works fine, although there turned out to be one complication I hadn't foreseen. The mounting holes on the gearbox are not diametrically opposite relative to the output shaft. This means that, as it turns out in practice, the motor shaft is closer to the spur gear by the equivalant of four teeth on the drive pinion.

The effect of this is that with gearbox fitted to the 23 tooth mounting holes on the chassis, the drive meshes perfectly with a 19 tooth pinion fitted to the combined motor and gearbox assembly. This is in fact very good for this particular conversion because it gears the truck down even further.

I did the build with the 'speed tuned' gear set incorporated into the rear gearbox, this combination now gives me very good wheel-speed for the low speed driving that the truck is intended for. This set-up also means that I still have the option of swapping out the speed-tuned set for the standard items if I want to gear it down further again.

The bodyshell comes from a Nikko 'Street Beast' (see picture in sidebar), as found at a car boot sale minus its controller for £1.50. I'm going to need to reinforce the truckbed where the bodyposts come through it because the material is a bit thin here, but otherwise it's a pretty good fit. The wheelbase of the chassis is a bit longer than that of the shell, which possibly spoils the aesthetics slightly, but at least this keeps the whole thing as short as possible to reduce hangups caused by the rear of the body grounding out etc.

I'm also going to need to do something in the front bumper area. The original item locates and retains the 'U' shaped bar which holds the front arms on (on TL-01B Baja's only - narrow track touring car TL-01's have screws here - just like on the back ends of all of them). As it stands the bar is free to completely pull out in a forwards direction if it gets caught up on something whilst driving in reverse. I did though have a pair of Baja chassis end plates kicking about, so these are now mounted on both ends.

(If you haven't come across these bits before (maybe because you've only seen TL-01 cars and they don't have them) they look a bit carbon fibre-ish and they clamp the major chassis/gearbox halves together on the rear of the buggies - they fit the fronts of any TL-01 just the same - if you trawl down the page a bit you can see one in the photo below the one of the cracks - it's lying in the box in front of the chassis.)