Redcat Racing Sumo in the Mud!

Well, we decided to splash around in the mud a little and decided it was the perfect occasion to get the little Sumo all dirty!  

Oh, and we took a video of it too!

Redcat Sumo with bearings.

Ok.  Sorry for not updating more recently, but we've been busy around here testing out a few products and just playing with our cars!  

A quick Update on the sumo. We burned out a motor, destroyed a pinion gear, and melted a plastic bushing or two. This was sad, but expected when you drive any rc through mud and sand and ponds especially an itty bitty like the sumo.  

No worries though, we've rebuilt it, and now it is better than ever!

Here's what we did:

We replaced the motor, we put all new gears in it, including differentials, and we tossed out the plastic bushings and put in bearings.  I had a video, or thought I had one, of us doing the work to the truck, but, unfortunately, it didn't turn out well at all.  

Anyway, after the work was done the truck is better than new.  From a standing stop it will lift the front off the ground now, which is awesome.  The wheel wobble is also totally gone.  It is almost like playing with an entirely different toy now.  

Oh yeah, in case you were wondering, we are using an 8t pinion and the same stock spur gears and differentials. All the gears are new, but same as stock.  You know what I mean.  

Here's a short video that the Pizzmeister directed to show it off.  Before there were no wheelies from a standing start.

Introducing the Mad Gear 1/16 Short Course Truck!

I bet you are wondering about what we have been messing about with for the last couple of weeks...well, probably not really, but I am going to tell you about it anyway.

We gave the Pizzmeister a new truck to play with, a Mad Gear 1/16 SCT.

He loves it!

I think it was too expensive, but still a lot of fun.  We've already had to put some work into it.

The very first thing I noticed was that the Servo, ESC, and Radio receiver were all in the same box on the car, which I thought was weird.

Then I noticed a fatal flaw in the design.  The pinion gear is not protected at all, and it stripped  by theout  within a half hour or by the end of the third battery run through it.  What happened is a stone got caught up next to the pinion and ground the gear down to nothing quick. When you couple the unprotected pinion and spur gears with the chassis tendency to pick up stones and debris like crazy you have one of those irritating toys that spend more time getting cleaned out and fixed than played with unless, of course, you are lucky enough to have an indoor space to play with it.

So, by the end of week one we replaced the plastic pinion gear with a metal one made by traxxas.  That helped a ton, but still there was the problem of the car catching stones and other crap.  To remedy that, we're experimenting with various shields/splash guards.  All that means is that we are sticking plastic pieces on the sides in an effort to protect the gears.

So far, it isn't great, but it is better.  When we come up with a better solution we will show it to you.

The other work we did was to tear apart the 3 in 1 box that houses all the electronics so we could "waterproof" it.  it was pretty easy to do.

First, we unscrewed the box from the chassis, then we disconnected the servo horn, and, finally we took the box apart water proofed the servo like you would with any servo, and we covered the circuit boards with liquid electrical tape.  

After that, we just let it dry and put it all back together.  Easy peasy!

Here's a quick video of it's second run.  This is after we waterproofed it.  

It's a fun little truck, but for the money I would probably skip over it and get a Redcat racing Tremor instead next time.