disscussion about Xpress’s Mini X

[rcs2die4]

Hay all,

I thought I’d get a topic going about the MINI X and see if anyone has any stories to tell about there Mini X

I do and it ain’t good !!! LOL it’s from quite a few years back but it has bugged the shit out of me ever since !!! you’ll see why !!! here we go…

I got a MINI-X here in Aus from an old hobby store in Penrith called Penrith Toy and Hobbies (you may remember them)… I got it, as I later found out ! before the full release version came out and it cost me $200aus for a complete chassis with all electronics bar the TX !!! it looked cool so I thought I’ll get that…

I take it home, Started charging the AAA batteries which come with it and decided to have a good look at the chassis… I quickly noticed that the ball diffs didn’t work at all, so apart it comes !! I discovered that the balls didn’t even touch the two plates on either side !! So after alot of sanding of the center drive cog I got them both working fairly well !!! I put the car back together without the motor installed, For those that haven’t seen a Mini X the motor sits in the center line of the car and the motor shaft is extended in the rear which becomes the center drive shaft !! Anyway, with the motor out I rolled the chassis along the table and notice the it rolled but it was very notchy !!

So apart it comes again !!! hmmmm, this time I discovered that with the chassis at it’s full height (standard) the front drive cups at the wheels caught on the adjustable ball ends !!! so I had to file the nut shape on the end of the ball ends smaller and also lower the car a little to get them to clear !! and back together it go’s for the second time !!!

I tried rolling it again with no motor and it seems OK, well much better anyway !!

I then ran the motor in, in a glass of water as I do to all my motors, add a little oil to the brushes once done and installed it and all the electronics back in the chassis and waited for the batteries to finish !!!

A few hours later I put the batteries in for the first time, switched it all on, setup the ESC as per the manual (if you could call it that) then place it on the floor and crossed my fingers !!

I gave the trigger a half pull, heard the beep ! but the car didn’t go anywhere !! I picked the car up to have another check, seems to roll OK if I push it, both with the motor in or out so I tried again ! Same thing !! so I gave it full trigger for a second or two and it sorta stalled up then took off across the floor like a flash !!…. If I didn’t let the car stop it would keep going and you could even make it go at a very slow speed but, if it stopped the only way to get it going again was to full trigger it then let off !!!!

I kept checking the ESC and motor for heat it seemed OK so I used about half the battery life then decided to stop and check again to try and find out why it wouldn’t take off correctly… I spent an hour or so stuffing around with it to no avail… so I thought “bugger it ill use out the rest of the batteries and go from there….” Bad mistake number two !!! (the first one was buying the car in the first place!!) after about a minute and a half it stopped working all together….:huh:

It shat the ESC and I hadn’t even painted the WRX cover yet !!! not happy …:gatlin:

tried a few thing with it but it seemed to roll OK and I couldn’t seem to find anything else that could have been the problem, chassis wise anyway !! so I pulled the motor apart and noticed that it was a very poor quality motor and that this was more then likely the problem…

I took the car back to the shop and asked them to sort it out !!! they said that they would give it a go and try to get it replaced from the supplier !! (Which I later found out was RCM@!T, at the time they were called D#nB#@L).. After about three weeks and endless calls on my part I gave up trying to get them to sort it out as they just had one excuse after another.. I got the car back and started casing it up myself !! I firstly contacted Xpress about the problem and I was told that it’s not there problem as it was a pre production car and that it shouldn’t have been sold to the public !! They said they gave D#nb#@l these cars to give away to people to try out for them !!!! so I have to contact the people I purchased it from and get them to contact D#nb#@l to sort it out !!! Not happy !!! all this took a few weeks waiting for replies and so on and once I went back to the store I got it from they had closed there doors and shut up shop !!! Pi$$ed off !!!

I then tried to contact D@nb#@l about it and they just did nothing, no replies, nothing… so I tries Xpress again !!! They ended up saying that If I send it back at my cost, they will fix anything that was wrong bar the ESC and that I would have to pay for a new one and that I would have to pay for them to send it back to me !!! this was going to cost me about $90aus so I thought “stuff it, it ain’t worth it” and it just sat on the shelf for a few years !! I now had a $200 piece of junk !! Sweet !!

Anyway, it was still playing on my mind about this and I ended up finding a replacement electronics kit on Ebay US for the Mini X for about $60aus and I thought I may as well get it and give it another go !!

9 Days later it turned up. I went over the car again and installed the new kit which was much higher quality as this was a full release version and gave it another go, I also installed a BB can on the motor in hope of help !! The car was much better then before but it still stalled a bit and was very under powered, I then installed an extra cell which made it 5 as the full release version was a 5 cell setup and this got rid of most of the stalling, made it a little more powerful but it then didn’t handle at all !! it just wanted to do donuts all the time, no matter how I setup the chassis up !!

I then saw some of the not long released chassis only kits on RCMART and thought “should I get it” as I have already spent a S#!T load on it and it was a piece of crap !!

I decided to remove all the electronic, place the chassis in the middle of the floor in the garage and smash it to bits with a hammer !!!… hehe… God it felt good !! lol… So now I have $260 invested into a set of Mini X electronics that have sat on the shelf ever since !! Cool hay !!!

Anyway, thats my story and I’ve probably bored the crap out of you all but, I hope others only received the production model and have good stories to tell !!!

Mini X :gatlin:

[z-beam]

!!!sounds !!! annoying!!!

ill stick to my mini-z and x-mod. thanks for the story of your misfortune.

[Dangerous Dave]

CHEERS for the heads up on these (via a bump in another post..)

I still plan on getting a chassis only kit (motor is the only electrical bit included) but it will be made into a slot car running on 12V..

I’ll give it a f’n hard thrashing on your behalf…

[rcs2die4]

LOL Excellent !!!

Let us know how you go !!!

[Dangerous Dave]

rcs, me ‘n’ a mate ended up getting the full chassis/electrics version, as we already had 27MHz AM radios.

took some time to sort the radio setup, but now it’s running fairly well.
Mate’s car had a split front pinion, so is 2WD only :s

definately needs bearings

suspension is uber hard

I modded mine into a long wheelbase version by reversing all 4 lower wishbones, to fit 1/24 Tamiya model kits.

I also threw small washers inside the front diff drive cups to prevent it spitting dogbones at full lock.

ball diffs seem to be a nice bit of gear

not too bad for the money, if ya got some knowledge/skills to sort out small problems.

Then again, a MicroT with Tx doesn’t cost much more..

pics to come when I get my camera back!

[rcs2die4]

Thanks for the update !!!!

Your twisting my arm to get another one !!! LOL

but I may wait a little longer to see how your turn out after a little more use !!

Mine had the dog bone pop out thing too !!

keep us updated hay ??

L8R

[Dangerous Dave]

so far so good!

as my kitchen is the only hard floor and pretty small, I went for the PVC taped wheels..

HELLO drift mobile !

motor still gets a bit hot, but holding out so far.

Am actually learning to rc drift properly 😮

The soft body is a big plus, less damage to car and/or furniture.
Have also added a foam bumper to the chassis front.

Reversed wishbones (for extended wheelbase) aren’t causing any problems either.

I dunno what an AWD MiniZ or XMod is like, but this is fun in a small space.

It will never be a bullet like some of you guys have, but it’s providing entertainment for now.

Still waiting for camera to get pics…

[rcs2die4]

You’ve really got my arm up behind my back now !!! LOL

I’ll have to have a look on RC Mart and see what a chassis only kit is going for these days !!!! I still have all the current version of the radio gear so I only need the chassis kit !!! Hmmm, see what happens !!!

L8R

[Dangerous Dave]

last I looked the chassis kit was US$16, plus US$12.50 postage from Dungball.. this is through ebay, cheaper than his RCMart site.

[Dangerous Dave]

can you guys fill me in on the bearing sizes for MiniZ’s, Iwavers and XMods?

the Mini X uses four 8×12’s on the diffs, and six 3×6 for the axles…

[rcs2die4]

Hay dave ,
Do you know if the Chassis only kit has BB’s in it or just the plastic bushes ?

[jollyboss]

chassis has plastic bushing.
xmods gen1 should be 3x6x2mm and 3x6x2,5mm if widetrack
xmods evo should be(I’m not sure) 6x10x2mm the diff and shaft bb,and 3x6x2 the AWD axle bb.

[rcs2die4]

@ Jolly Boss

AR ok !! Thanks man…

@ Dave

Bummer, If the chassis kit came with BB’s, I was gunna give ya the BB’s out of my first chassis that I cut up !!! Sorry dude …

HMMM … Cutting up the chassis was so much fun after the crap that it gave me … hehehe

[Dangerous Dave]

thanks jb and rcs 🙂

looking for the cheapest bearing upgrade.. might be worth getting an XMod set, plus the 8×12’s separately.

let’s see what ausmicro.net has 😉

[jollyboss]

walawala store on ebay sell bb for cheeeeeeeeeeap 😉

[Dangerous Dave]

thanks jb

I found a set specifically for the Mini X on rcwart..

that’s after checking ausmicro.net, woulda bought from Aaron if he had them 😉

[Dangerous Dave]

here’s the latest on my Mini X Files..

been through 2 motors now – they get pretty hot, but it’s not the arm windings that are failing. It’s the front motor bushing :s

seems having a pinion all the way out there (dual output motor) aint such a good idea, seems to be transmitting a fair radial load to the motor bushing and wearing it out prematurely.

That, or somehow it’s arcing on the bushing and eroding it…

At least the first motor failure was a good test for the speedy. The rotor had almost locked against the can, stalling it and drawing mega current from the 5 cell pack – enough to melt the battery holders and surrounding chassis. Speedy still works fine after this 🙂

Either way, need a bb can – who can tell me the overall dimensions of the standard Z motor cans, incl shaft diameter? The armature stack height and dia. would be even better.

Still waiting for the chassis bearing set to turn up.

I was running reversed A-arms all ’round, but have since returned the fronts to the stock config, due to the castor angle affecting the steering travel.

Other than that, it’s still not such a bad little car, but as mentioned before, if it was your first rc you’d be really p*ssed off if ya didn’t know how to repair it.

It drifts around nicely with taped up tyres with a bit of practice has reasonable control.

I’d still recommend getting an XMod RTR with AWD mod if ya can find one at a good price over these. But I find fun in making dodgy things work better than they ever should 😉

[rcs2die4]

Yeah my motor bushes did the same thing !!!

I just used a standard Mini Z bb CAN which did make the car a fair bit faster !! Mine also as standard had a stally in it !!! it would stall up till you put a heap of throttle in, then it would unload and take off !!! The BB CAN fixed this too !!!

But yeah, I think the idea behind the extended shift motor is cool but in practice it’s crap !!! I even installed an extra bearing support right behind the motor just like the one on the drive shift near the front diff !! This was a little better again but still not perfect !!!

HMMM, Sounds like there not much better then the one I had so I think I may give it a miss with getting another one !!!!

Keep us updated but !!!!

L8R

[Dangerous Dave]

cheers rcs

yeah after a bit of reading I’ve figured out it’s just a 130 motor with extended shaft, so I’ll either get some 5x2mm bearings for the can, or a whole bb can…

[jollyboss]

bb can search on rcmart,for the atomic one.it costs $12 and includes carbon brushes and neo mags
anyway…there was a ph2t eview about mini-x..one of the weak point highlighted was the position of the motor,very difficult to cool down an the bushings,very easy to wear down…

[Dangerous Dave]

ta jb

yeah I’ve spotted the atomic bb can /mags 🙂

got the bearing set, but am only running as a 2WD using a slot car motor!! Awaiting a new 4WD motor and bb can..

Just for “fun”, I got an old 9.6V NiCd battery (AA cells!), hooked it up and taped it to the car. Was quite surprised that it went quite well, even with the extra weight. Speedy was barely warm. Rx still ok..
Now I’m getting silly ideas like 3s lipo packs hehe

Speaking of the Rx, they are CRAP, car loses signal even if ya turn your back on the car while it’s near you……

currently looking into XMod combined PCB’s…

[rcs2die4]

I ran mine as a 6 cell setup as the first ones were 4 as stardard and had a 6 cell as a hop up !! I think the new ones are 5 cell standard !!!

Wih the RX’s My very first one has a little short range but nothing like what your is doing !! and the second one which should be the same as yours is perfect !! I’ve even used it in the Xray M18 just for testing and it’s got perfect range !!

[Dangerous Dave]

both cars we got have major range issues, even with my mate’s higher end Tx.
He just de-cased a standard AM Rx to use instead.

Yep, 5 cell standard issue (700mAh).

motor bearings aren’t 2×5 either – I’ll just get a BB can to save the hassle.

Also, the soft body sold with these is not polycarbonate (Lexan), it’s just clear PVC. I know this cos I do my own vac forming with the same materials.
Most sellers/buyers wouldn’t know or care anyway.
For reference, polycarb is tougher, clearer and way more expensive..

[Dangerous Dave]

another thread I missed from here..

http://www.ausmicro.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14010&highlight=xMod

my Mini X is now in slot car mode with a Parma 16D motor in a butchered chassis. Yeah at 16V it goes ok, but not as much fun as RC.

[Dangerous Dave]

I’ve found some XMod Evo pcb’s, do they have a standard 3 wire servo output?

[Dangerous Dave]

more of my own rambling to read.. maybe useful to someone in a similar situation.

got hold of the Atomic bb/Neo can, all good except the bearings are an extremely tight fit on the shaft. Tried polishing the shaft a bit, but still very hard to install. Glad to say it makes a big improvement though. Not hard considering the included motor comes BRAND NEW with a FLOGGED OUT endbell bushing. You can see the bush/shaft gap in the pic, about 0.5 to 1mm, and this is an unused motor :angry: The can bushing is fine, how the f%$K did they screw this up?

The pinion gears are total crap, one of ours was split from new, Dungball (RC Fart) wouldn’t even respond about a replacement. I got some new ones and split another one. Currently running a STEEL slot car pinion on the back. That’ll f%$k it .

Wiring is very fragile on these, have resoldered most wires, and ditched the on/off switch.

After alot of frustrations, this thing runs and actually goes ok. Here’s how I’d do it if I could..

1. Don’t buy a Mini X. If you want AWD for cheap, get an XMod.. or get a Firelap Nanoracer (2WD) with a really nice Tx for the SAME PRICE.

2. If you’re as stubborn as me and do buy a Mini X.. get the rolling chassis only. The XPress rx isn’t worth peeing on, the ESC is useable. Grab an Rx from some other radio set. Maybe use a PCB from some other Mini scale car with suitable Tx. To give you an idea, when driving in my kitchen I have to SIT on the floor next to my Mini X for it to be in range, don’t even think about getting range behind me either. When outside, away from possible interferences, I can drive it about 2m away. This was the case with BOTH cars we got.

3. YOU WILL NEED TO GET A BALL BEARING MOTOR CAN FROM NEW! As already stated, the original bushed can is useless out of the pack. At best you might get 2 runs, but they usually just smoke the commutator straight away. My car pulled enough current to melt the chassis at the battery terminals because of this. Thankfully the speedy survived. You will need an undamaged armature to install in the BB can.

4. Install full bearings throughout the chassis. Best upgrade in any rc, but especially important for the Mini X. RC Fart has a bearing kit listed in the Bearings section.

5. Buy a set of drift tyres. This is not necessary, but it’s about the most fun you’ll have with a Mini X, and probably the reason you wanted AWD in the first place. Unless you want to wind your own armatures, you won’t get any more speed out of these cars.

6. Buy a full pack (or 2) of replacement pinions, or find a suitable 8 tooth replacement.

7. See point #1. Unless you’re hell bent on making something work, are on a budget and have alot of patience.

My next challenge is to get the Firelap NanoRacer working well, after a Mini X it should feel like a dream 😀 .

[rcs2die4]

it will feel like the difference between an iwaver and a kyosho !! if not, more so !!

Thanks for keeping us updated too !!!

[Author]

Posts