Q-Steer. the new Digi Q

[Admin]

I’m not sure if anyone else has seen these, so I thought I should finally contribute and inform the world of these wonderful little cars.

First of all take a look at this:

http://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/qsteer/

They’re basically a new version of the DigiQ line of cars from Konami. They are the same size, same IR control system, but there are a lot of changes. The DigiQ cars have a lot of downfalls:

1. Have to charge the battery on the controller
2. Poor handling
3. Annoying little IR receiver showing on the top of the car body
4. Too much speed for such a small car
5. High price

Thankfully these have all been fixed with the new QSteer cars. The QSteers are put out by Takara and are selling for about $15.00. They have small replaceable batteries in the car and controller so you don?t have to recharge constantly, the IR receiver is hidden in the car body, the car has two speeds, and steering is good. The controller is small and basic but gets the job done. The range is good, but you do have to have a direct line of sight to the car, even more so due to the fact that the receiver is inside the car body.

The only think left to say is that these look like they will be customizable in the near future. The motor, rear axle, and gears can be removed easily. The packaging hints that there will be some sort of sport model and upgrades, but that?s just speculation at the moment.

[merc-blue]

I have had both digi Qs and the digi Q R (which had steerable front wheels)
These look like a improvement over both as the QRs were bad aswell
Is there still got 7 steps in throttle/turning?

may have to get me a super min hornet

[Admin]

i dont know about the 7 steps part as i dont really know enough about it. i do have one though. i got a lan evo VIII.

[Pork_Hunt]

Nah no steps, just on/off. The controller is like a miniture Char-g controller.

[z-beam]

these rock. im in love with my pair honestly. its like all the annoying factors of bcg have been illiminated (except the lack of a diff heh).

no interference between 2 of them, going to have to test 4 at once when i get a few more.

range is just perfect for its size.

wont take old bcg motors by the looks of the thing, but its been a long time since ive looked at my bcg motors so i might be wrong.

will take bcg pinions, so some custom ratios are possible right now.

copious body shells available from supermarkets. penny racers e.t.c are cheap. the aussie q-steers have been glued on from what ive noticed unfortunatly. easy to fix though.

http://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/qsteer/products.html

the calsonic skyline at that link looks like it has 2 axles in the set. might need some help buying these in japan 🙂

cant wait to get em home and revive the old bcg tracks

[z-beam]

http://lifedrive.wordpress.com/category/hobbies/

check out the embedded youtube vid in the middle of this blog… driftoooooooo 😛

upcoming buggy q-steers…

http://item.rakuten.co.jp/mrmax/izu-290133/

cant see if they are articulated and have any suspension in the rear. im hoping for to much there heh, but one can dream.

found a choro-q knockoff in safeway tonight of an ambulance. body fits nice and snug 🙂 last one left but ill be on the lookout for more of these on my travels, there are some nice bodies available, and at less than $3 and available from supermarkets makes moding these easy.

read some nice info about people using bcg motors in these by shaving down the pinion gear. after opening one of mine up the motor is grey on the end, denoting it in the old bcg colours as a 1.0. some of the upgraded sets have an orange end motor (the old 2.6) so will go faster. cant wait to get home and mod these little suckers!

the return of the gold/silver bodies!, and check out the detailed 24 set.

http://www.rakuten.co.jp/marionet24/999196/1037558/#1029763

[z-beam]

picked up the yellow lancer and the silver wrx on my lunch break today.

the lancer was last one on the shelf, there where at least 15 of these on saturday at the big W i went to. must be pre christmas binge and any car thats yellow must be bumblebee syndrome.

plenty of all the other cars left and after getting them open over a coffee i noticed the silver wrx was just a little faster. i checked the motor colour and its a green end instead of a white end like the others.

if i remember the greens are 1.6 in the old bcg scale…

so just a heads up, if your thinking of picking one up, grab the wrx even if you think the new design is a little shite.

[dgs73]

Ta for that info mate, now i’ll be doing just that. Will grab one on Thursday, i’ve wanted to get one since this thread started, the price is too good to be true. I like the look of the Initial D set too, good that it comes with two cars and controllers too

[z-beam]

i found myself the corvette stingray on the bay tonight for under $30 delivered. comes with an orange gear set and an orange motor and looks pretty cool.

my 41 ford is coming along nicely… the second layers of putty went on tonight over the plastic frame i had to build to keep the front nice and tough. ive learnt a lot of sculpting tricks during my sabatical from r/c’s.

had to buy a second gravedigger micro monster body today, along with some new body shells thanks to some cheapy “kids r cool” plastic toy cars at coles. picked up an mx-5 and a wedge style mclaren i think it is for $4. i seriously love how its possible to find new bodies for these qsteers just about anywhere if you put in the legwork.
thats if you can be bothered fabricating mounting clips so they fit on the r/c chassis.

[dgs73]

ok, got it today. Nice packaging. Silver WRX, about $20. Was only two left, would’ve goten the RX8 as well but the box was a right-off and i could’nt trust the contents to be different… anyways, time to play. No charging, cool!! This could be fun… Needed a trim out of the box (no suprise there; after aprox 30 Bits i’m used to this and dont mind; it takes all of half a second…), but as expected, as a trade-off for straight travel, i now have a 5cm turning circle left, 25cm going right. Fair enough, i’ll fix that later. About 1.0 Bit speed out of the box, but that was till i hit the “turbo’ button… oooh. Now it’s a 1.6. Almost. Hmmm. Responce to sirAbe; Your comparing DigiQ and Qsteer is a little unfair in some areas, its like comparing a Mini Z and a Palm Runner. The price difference) would be mainly due to one being proportional (Mini Z, DigiQ) and one being “on/off” (Palm Runner, Qsteer). Which brings me to the “too fast” reference; back off the throttle!! (Do you even own a DigiQ?) Plus, they have a technical/speed switch to tame them as well… Last little thing (and im not having a dig) is i’d rather charge my DigiQs on the controllers than shell out for 4 more LR44 batteries for the Qsteer every time it dies (which i will admit wont be often.) Overall, happy with it, but it’s just a Bit to me

[dgs73]

dont get me wrong though guys, i think they’re cool as, and no doubt i will have about 6 by years end… Zbeam; race ya to the Initial D… 😉

[TallduDe]

cool dave!

i got me a blue wrx ill race ya! hahahahaha

[z-beam]

bugger! i thought id have that no probs considering the mispelling dgs. jooo sark.

dunno what your driving on to get that much of a turning circle difference, ive found mine are running true and turn pretty evenly.

[dgs73]

mate, smooth timber floor. Clean, etc. Will do some surgery this arvo… good to see one of us got that Initial D set, too… lol

[z-beam]

beat you by $1…

found a bcg motor in some toy i bought and it interferes with the reception 🙁 dunno if thats going to be the same wit all bcg motors.

i needed to trim the pinion a lot to get it to mesh right.

[dgs73]

hey hey… you’re here!!! Cool!! (lol, never trust anyone who calls himself overchar-g!…) you pulled yours apart yet? Trying to figure this steering issue without a dismantle. Any ideas, my ideas man?

[z-beam]

driving technique perhaps 😛

i dunno, i bought 2 at a time and now have 5 of the little buggers now.

mind you big W decided to give 2 of them to me for free 😀
(long story short, i bought 2 shirts with the first 2 cars and they were to big. went back to return the shirts and wanted to buy 2 more cars and some books for emma and a toolbox for storing cars in. got to the checkout and the lady looks at the receipt and decides ive allready payed for the 2 cars with the shirts! i thought well if yor that stupid i wont say no as she put it all in the bag )

they all seem pretty balanced to me, as balanced as a car can get without a diff that is. they run streight ahead but without power slides turning will never be even.
slightly slipery surface gun full throttle and let go of the power as you press the steering. without momentum it wont work but if you have the right surface (vynal flooring works good) they turn on a dime in both directions with practice.

[dgs73]

just grabbing mine noe. Hang on a mo. … … … … … … . OK, i’m back. Trying it now on Lino, as opposed to polished timber. Both clean of course. Nah, still the same. Not as bad, but still a bit wider turning right. I wish there was more than one at BigW ’cause i was ready to grab two or three…

[TallduDe]

did some1 ask for drift!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NlmtUVnNS4&eurl=http://lifedrive.wordpress.com/2007/10/

[dgs73]

going to try to get a couple more today when i head out, hope they’re not sold out this time… TD; pretty cool.

[z-beam]

target kids “magazine” catalogue thing has pics of q-steers in the back with a different controller. dont think they have any supplies however. christmas shopping is madness and trying to find a few more q-steers will be tough, make sure to look for them in th secured lock up cabinets as the packages are small and thieves will probably have a feild day.

bad news is pretty much all big bcg motors interfere with reception. unless you want to build a drag car that doesnt need to turn i think the old motor collections are useless.
any tech heads around care to speculate on how a motor would be interfering with the cars? any idea for a fix?

[dgs73]

no joy… checked everywhere again, Big W and Target, sold out. Probably have a better chance after Christmas

[z-beam]

aye dave hard to find now, from what i can glean out of google translated japanese they are in the same position also mass sellouts all over.

its good and bad for the hobby, i like knowing things are not hugely mass produced so it floods the market but not being able to buy things easily can be frustrating.

ebay is your best bet dave, not to expensive either if you have a good look 🙂

[z-beam]

@dgs73 226616 wrote:

hey hey… you’re here!!! Cool!! (lol, never trust anyone who calls himself overchar-g!…) you pulled yours apart yet? Trying to figure this steering issue without a dismantle. Any ideas, my ideas man?

after a little gathering here last week all the q-steers got opened and used and the trueno from the initial-d set had completely dodgy steering. no matter how much yo fiddled with the trim it wouldnt turn properly.

unfortunatly dave im thinking a few here and there will have stuffed wiring in the steering coils. its the same micro thin copper as bcg’s but mounted flat under the magnet of the steering arm.
also the same super fine wires are in the way of dismantling the steering.

a freind in osaka japan sent me a grasshopper tamiya/tomy buggy. worked great for about three days and suddenly carked it. im pretty sure the battery is a dud (these buggies use a rechargable system). was a little underpowered considering the car its trying to emulate. not enough speed to get air of small jumps but the suspension was terrific and it has good clearance for a stock micro.
if someone with the skills to rework micros with a propo board 😉 and fit some small lipo into this chassis would really have a wonder car. mini-t stock would still be a better car so i dont think it’d be worth the bother unless someone was after a challenge.

[ph2t]

z-beam, I got a couple of these fellas and really like them. There’s a few cheap on ebay at the ‘mo so Ive got more comming in, lol….

here’s some info I found out: http://bitpimps.lixlink.com/pages/phpForum/viewtopic.php?t=9709

cheers.

[z-beam]

i see you got the wrx. its the only one out of the 4 avialable here in oz that comes with the green end motor, the rest have a white ended one. the green is faster…

got any bcg gears still? they work in these just great. and has betty seen the q-steer yet?

[betty.k]

yep! got a silver wrx from big w for $20. it was the last one on the shelf and i haven’t seen any more.

strangely mine comes with a white endbell motor. what i love is the tx is the size of a regular bcg car!:smiley14: :8ball:

[z-beam]

@betty.k 226727 wrote:

yep! got a silver wrx from big w for $20. it was the last one on the shelf and i haven’t seen any more.

strangely mine comes with a white endbell motor. what i love is the tx is the size of a regular bcg car!:smiley14: :8ball:

that is strange.

especially since i picked up 2 of the silver wrx’s from victoria (one in ballarat) so i was assuming they’d all be like the one i got.

give a 6 tooth pinion gear and a normal orange bcg middle gear a go on it betty. pretty much all the bcg middle (spur?) gears work with the q-steer axle and a bcg 6 tooth pinion.

[z-beam]

my reebok skyline finally arrived today from japan. comes with the orange ended motor and it flies.

one thing that interests me is the box said high speed type AND fast motor type on it. when you get one with a faster gear set (the corvette and police rx-7) they say normal speed type and fast gear type.
could this mean the pcb’s have built in differences perhaps?

still got 2 more on the way: the special paint job Bb and rx-8 that do not come with controllers. this is good as i have about 10 now heh.

[TallduDe]

dude got any pics of your collection?

i bought the mazda rx-7 patrol car man its qik out of the box had to put the speed motor in my wrx so it could keep up.

if these things had the turning circle of bits they would be the best mico ever. i mean they can go on carpet climb stuff and dont have to be charged all the time. im a convert!

[z-beam]

awesome to hear talldude!

plan was to get the camera out today but the batts where flat while the sun was out…

i suppose i do have a lamp 🙂

what colour is the “speed motor” your talking about? i also bought the patrol rx-7 and it came with orange fast gears but only a pair of white end motors…

[z-beam]

@TallduDe 226733 wrote:

dude got any pics of your collection?

i bought the mazda rx-7 patrol car man its qik out of the box had to put the speed motor in my wrx so it could keep up.

if these things had the turning circle of bits they would be the best mico ever. i mean they can go on carpet climb stuff and dont have to be charged all the time. im a convert!

heres the collection! group shot and another showing all the bodies off.

have you tried them on your track yet talldude? give it a lash, they go hard. the steering is way better on a decent surface like my track its a little like a chalk board smooth with a little texture.

the gear ratios as standard on a q-steer are lower range than the old high power bcg gear set. this is partly why they have more ability.

[z-beam]

a few techy info pics…

firstly motors currently available.

L to R: green 1.6 (found in an aussie wrx)
orange 2.6 (reebok skyline)
blue ? ( tamiya/tomy buggy)
white 1.0 (found in all standard q-steers)

white is slow but has reasonable power. green is faster than white and orange is even faster still. blue seems to have more power than all of them.

i havent done the right thing by ausmicro and its fantasic technical data standard yet and tested the motors on the speed checker using fresh bats and the same gear setting to get some hard data. something to keep checking here for i guess if your interested.

the second blurry shot was an attempt to show the gears im using up close. while the teal high speed bcg gears do fit with a bit of fiddling they dont mesh with the standard axle as well as these set ups.
due to the difference in the middle gears center hole size and the axle they fit onto there is a little play allowing for some unconventional set ups compared to bcg where everything needed to fit perfectly.

L to R: 7 tooth pinion (enertech micro?)/ standard bcg orange middle gear.
6 tooth standard bcg pinion/ high speed super bcg middle gear.
8 tooth pinion with its matching pink middle gear (came from an oem micro bought years ago, tallest gear ratio ive seen in micro cars)
6 tooth pinion with matching middle gear (high speed gears from q-stter sets. the ratio is still lower than bcg normal gears)
5 tooth pinion with its matching middle gear (standard q-steer gearing)

[z-beam]

usually double posting is frowned apon. i really am not a shypo and dont give a rats arse about post counts honestly. just seems tidier doing it like this.

heres a pic showing the difference in offset between the Bb’s rear axle and a normal q-steer axle.

and second pic is the buggy with the lid off. you can see a little bit of green under the pcb. looks like tomy are using the same battery in these as the old bcg’s had.

quick question for tose in the know about motors+gears.

what would be the best combination of motor/gearing from those listed above for racing performance? matching the high speed motor with the pink 8 tooth pinion gears has resulted in a demon but if you hit a wall its really slow on take off. should the tallest gears be matched with the most powerfull motor rather than the fastest one?

i could experiment more, but im hoping someone actually has the experience with this kind of stuff.

hope all these posts make for a nice bit of weekend reading for the ausmicro crew. if your reading this and never posted here please do, i find it encouraging. if you wish to use these images on another website please ask permission first. thankyou.

[TallduDe]

thanks for all the info man!

the rx-7 came with two white ended motors but with orange gears.

plan to get a buggy soon enuff these things are fun!

btw not many peeps would remember shypo lol

[z-beam]

we are all listed as apprentice post pimp, suposedly under the mastery of the old shapiro.

your welcome talldude. im sure the lurkers will increase a bit with this stuff here but oh well. i guess ive never attempted to post on the japanese q-steer sites so far.

i did have a crank with fresh batts on the silver suby tonight. i use this as the high speed test subject car. the 8 tooth pinion with he orange motor from the reebok and it was almost uncontrolable. without boost its as fast as the fastest bit i ever drove. with boost well….

carefull of the buggies. they look great and all, but even with the nostalgia factor a nice q-steer will smoke it speed wise. im positive a monster zip zap like the supra i painted for you ended up on would be more diverse terrian wise also.

the buggies look cool but are way to underpowered. the control sucks. the batteries suck. the front suspension works but the springs are as much for looks as performance.
like i said you could mod one to take a propo i-waver board and make the ultimate micro buggy or just fork out for a micro-t and be very, very happy.

[z-beam]

@TallduDe 226744 wrote:

the rx-7 came with two white ended motors but with orange gears.

if you put the same white gears on both the motors do they perform the same?

[tim93au]

im not a really into micros but check out what i did to my r34 qsteer, lame but it looks alright.

I just used white sticker. RACING STRIPES YO!!!!

P.S Does any1 know where you can get mods (some1 said you could) Please email me if you know?

[z-beam]

nice racing stripes 🙂

i think lots of people have tried modding these cars, what mods are you looking for exactly?

ive made custom shells (bodies) from other choro-q pullbacks personally, and a scratch built hot rod body. have a look for the thread called zbeams customs.

theres a japanese page showing how someone tried adding 3 smaller batteries in for more power but the run time was significantly lower.

ph2t here and at pimpimps has mentioned the possability of boosting power through adding fets to the pcb. im not to good with a soldering iron personally.

through the use of available motors and gears its allready possable to get a q-steer going fast enough that its uncontrolable. i dont think speed is an issue really.

about the only mod i could really sugest giving a try is making a track to race on. a clean table with objects is a nice thing to race around but a track with walls makes things a little safer and makes racing more challenging.

[blurrc]

BUMP! hehe

Anyways I just wanted to make sure i get this straight.
The orange motor can only be found in the reebok skyline and there is no stock motor that is faster than it at the moment.
And the the orange speed gears (which are the fastest gears that come with Q steers) only come in the Rx7 patrol and the corvette.
Lastly the reebok comes with faster motor but the gears are just the normal white ones.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Thanks. Blur.

[z-beam]

spot on blur.

there is a blue ended motor that is available in the off road buggies. a little visitor took home my speed testing hot wheels car (couldnt take no for an answer i guess) a while back so i havent done any proper testing if it Vs. the orange end cap.

[Author]

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