Keyence Mad Tune with pics
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- This topic has 27 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 21 years, 8 months ago by
Racer9.
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April 24, 2003 at 12:36 pm #10263
Ok here are a few shots of my Keyence Mad Tune Toyota Celica GTR.
These little cars are fully digital proportional control and come in 4 frequencies all around 27MHz. It feels a little strange to drive a car this small and have full digi prop steering.
A close up of the car. They have reasonable detail in the bodies. They are not painted, this is the colour of the plasic all the way through. The windscreen is a seperate piece of plastic glued in from underneith. The aerial is a piece of fine spring/piano wire about 120mm long, pushed into a tiny hole in the back corner of the car. You can see the hole in the nearest rear corner.
They arent as high as a BCG (only 2mm ground clearance)and can tend to pickup any dirt and dust on the driving surface. So the “track” needs to be clean for this car.
Internals all sit very low, the battery is the highest part. The cell is an N50AAA, same as an original BCG cell. The car plugs into the controller to charge, but unlike the BCG, the controller will first discharge the remaining current in the battery, then fully charge it. (So you cant ‘double charge’ this car) The whole process takes about 2&1/2 minutes. The car runs for about 7 – 10 minutes now with a new cell depending on how it is driven. The controller is also capable of trickle charging the battery if it is left connected.
The electronics are all mounted on film circuit boards that are stuck into the chassis with thin double sided tape. This is very secure but does tend to give dust somewhere to collect on the exposed tape. You can see the black tape under where the battery sits.
The motors have a tendency to loosen and the steering picks up fluff. This is probably why a tiny screwdriver comes in the box with this car that fits perfectly all the tiny phillips head screws that hold the car together.
With all the fluff cleaned out, a shiney new cell was soldered and stuck in place, it was back to brand new again
The performance seemed to improve with the cleanout of the chassis. And runtime increased with the new cell. Previously I would have said that the speed was like a BCG with a 2.2 motor. After cleaning out the gears and lubricating the motor, gears and axels it probably runs more like a 2.6, and more quietly now too. It is a whole lot more torquey than a BCG, being easily able to accelerate up a 30 degree slope.
The large motor (in comparison to a BCG) is screaming out for a higher voltage, but I am too scared of frying the elctronic in this little car so it will remain unmodded. I will just enjoy this one the way the maker intended.All back together, this is how the Mad Tune is charged, by plugging it into the controller using a plug under the door in the front of the controller. The controller has a telescopic aerial about 80cm long and takes 6 AA batteries, 3 for the R/C and 3 for charging the car. The range is about 5 to 7 meters indoors, but my batteries weren’t fresh so it may be more, the instructions say 10m which sounds about right.
The controller does look a bit dorky but it is from about 7 or 8 years ago. Well ahead of their time given the current micro R/C craze. As far as I know Keyence stopped making them in about 1996. There arent many around (for sale at least), and not many articles on the net for them either.
Here’s the two together, Mad Tune and BitCharg, controllers and cars. You can see how much larger the Keyence controller is. It is almost the same size as a regular ‘stick controlled’ R/C transmitter.
Edited by – micro_Amps on 24 April 2003 12:19:37
Edited by – micro_Amps on 19 June 2004 00:05:29
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April 24, 2003 at 1:01 pm #33140
can you post some pictures of the controller?
you are currently at: http://www.ausmicro.com
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April 24, 2003 at 1:36 pm #33141
Absolutely Mad micro! Can’t wait to have a play of this on Saturday! Have you taken out insurance on this beast? lol…
:approve:
ph2t.
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April 24, 2003 at 2:21 pm #33145
cool car man
its like this one at tinyrc formum
how much did that car set you back??
Smoke em up!
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April 24, 2003 at 5:26 pm #33113
Controller pics now posted.
Re the price….
Lets put it this way, I paid less than the guy who got the one at auction in the link you posted.
Very cheaply considering how unusual it is
:)uA -
April 25, 2003 at 10:26 am #33029
Cool car
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April 25, 2003 at 2:28 pm #33006
goddam I Envy you micro_amps.
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Go Fast, Be Free with Low CCUndisputed Post Pimp
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April 25, 2003 at 4:47 pm #32978
yeah thats a pretty funky set of wheels…
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April 26, 2003 at 4:56 am #32968
Nice car micro. can’t believe how small the wheels are on that thing. Thanks for the pics.
Impreza :smiley16:
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April 26, 2003 at 4:51 pm #32879
omg dats the funky $hit.
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April 27, 2003 at 3:13 am #32866
I want one now more than ever!
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April 27, 2003 at 4:09 am #32858
We got some video today of the thing in action so as soon as PandaBear can dump it to his pc we might have some video for you as well.
:smiley16:
ph2t.
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April 27, 2003 at 3:04 pm #32839
drool…
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April 28, 2003 at 8:37 am #32791
sweet!
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April 28, 2003 at 5:24 pm #32674
OMG i would give my kidneys, liver and lungs to own one of those…….The BCG looks ridiculusly goofy next to the Mad Tune.
If life is a waste of time, and time is a waste of life, then let’s get wasted and have the time of our lives!!
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April 29, 2003 at 11:49 am #39647
Yeah!
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April 29, 2003 at 3:33 pm #32551
Saw the thing in real life, fellas… and yeah, its a real cute gadget.
However do keep in mind that it also looks very delicate (compared to a BCG!!) and probably won’t accept the usual rough abuse a BCG would see. Then again, you probably won’t wanna abuse Keyence’s current semi-trailer truck anyway…
😀 -
April 30, 2003 at 8:23 pm #32390
It still looks awesome lol, Shame its Expensive…
woudlnt Mind an Epoch tho:D—-
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April 30, 2003 at 11:17 pm #32397
It is a bit delicate. The steering gears are tiny. The max. speed is 5.6km/h so it can move but I wouldnt slam it into a wall too often.
Also you cant get parts if anything goes wrong.
So it gets driven with kid gloves….
:)uA -
May 1, 2003 at 10:44 am #32249
Yeah but I want to get an Epoch too!
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May 1, 2003 at 12:46 pm #32220
Hmmm an epoch is 1/43….still a bit big, i think ill just stick to my mini z.
If life is a waste of time, and time is a waste of life, then let’s get wasted and have the time of our lives!!
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May 2, 2003 at 11:12 am #32163
That is about 3 1/2 – 4 inches long!
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May 2, 2003 at 8:20 pm #32112
Jamie: the epoch is smaller than Z lol
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May 12, 2003 at 2:58 pm #31515
Here’s some video of the thing in action.
http://www.prahranpianos.com/bit_g/bitheads/bitheads.avi
It’s the last part of the vid…DivX 5.02 format.
🙂
ph2t.
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May 13, 2003 at 3:04 pm #31145
Shypo i do know that, but i said ill just stick to my z rather than wast more money on toys.
If life is a waste of time, and time is a waste of life, then let’s get wasted and have the time of our lives!!
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May 13, 2003 at 10:40 pm #30899
Yes I am pretty much finished with building my R/c collection except for a couple of the new Bits…
I am gonna actually enjoy it and work on other things now:smiley16:—-
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May 30, 2003 at 2:21 pm #28619
hmm, i was looking at bitmod.tk today, checking out there pics. I stumbled upon this and remembered the mad tune. i dont know if any of you have seen this already but look, its a keyence HELICOPTER!!!
very interesting
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May 30, 2003 at 7:24 pm #28526
Yeh Ive seen some video on the net of one of these “Revolutors” flying indoors and dropping a cube of sugar into a cup of coffee.
These are real expensive tho.
:)uA
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