Re: When an Engineer… Part 2

Whilst trying to nut out seemingly impossible steering problems with the awd project, I came across an “X-TRECK-2” reading the info’on the box seemed to good to be true…alas it was more orrible’ than anything you could imagine, you can understand why they need a track to run on, but why so sophisticated the transmitter ???..curious thing the “X-TRECK”.
But arf’a mo’-push aside the awd and nut this one out…much cad work followed but in the back of my mind (just like the Roman Philosopher SENICA told us)I was prepared for failure. But it didn’t and it does’.Jesus wept how good can micro racing get when you have PROGRESSIVE THOTTLE and VARIABLE STEERING that allows you to steer around any obstacle course you desire at a speed of 1km/h or scare yourself stupid on a race track with a top whack of 9 km/h, not only that, drive in reverse with almost equal control and have the same turning commands (in forward motion left turn is left in reverse left turn is still left!!!) From a standing start give it full power and watch those front wheels spin like crazy but don’t panic for you have complete steering control and 9 minutes of absolute bliss ahead of you.
I guess you want to know it works, simple really, image a normal front wheel drive/front wheel steered chassis but have a separate variable speed motor driving each wheel…and thats all there is to it! Under a hideous PT Chrysler shell I managed to squeeze in twin motors and 8 to 1 crown wheel type gearboxes, the shaft of the alloy crown wheel drives a cv joint with a ball dia of 1.6 mm onto a stub axle of the front wheels, the gearboxes are adjustable from 0 degrees to 7 degrees trail and the usual toe in/out eccentrics on the steering link, a centering spring is fitted with an alignment cam as well.This unit is suspended from the top with a PVC stip that also allows changes in wheel base length. A centre section carries the shell mounts/pcb/batteries/front suspension strip and rear suspension mounts. The rear wheels are mounted on trailing arms either side of the batteries and are sprung by a .4mm piano wire sring. All up weight is a crazy low 26 grams.What I thought would be an insurmountable problem related to the fact that one motor spins forward whilst the other spins in reverse and no two motors have the same characteristics in this situation, however the good folk at xtreck fitted a power balance adjustment to the transmitter and so no problem exists, it also boasts 3 power curve settings, GADZOOKS what more can these things do?