Mother of Invention…

It’s Canada Day long weekend, I had a broken RC truck… and all the hobby shops were closed. How could I have some fun until the shops opened up again? Well, only one of the two camber arms on the truck were broken, so I took off the good one and sized it up against some square poplar dowels: 3/8″ on top and 1/4″ on the bottom.

 

 

The 1/4″ inch one fit with no further trimming, success!

 

 

 

 

I ran 2 battery packs through the truck and nothing broke. Then I brought it back inside to swap to some street tires for goofing around. But with more grip on pavement the front tires were taking more of a beating on hard cornering… and eventually the little wooden camber arm broke 🙁

 

 

Luckily I still had the larger 3/8″ piece: with a little trimming on both ends it bolted right on… and lasted until I made it to Advance Hobbies on Saturday, hooray!

 

 

Next up: turning it into a dune buggy with a VW beetle body. First step: ribs on the front and something a bit knobbier on the back: stay tuned!

 

 

Not too shabby…

Today puts me half way through my 3-week stay in Regina: if the Air Canada strike doesn’t change my plans I’ll be back in Toronto the last week of June. I wasn’t able to stay in the same hotel the whole time, since the entire city seems booked for one event:

The Western Canada Farm Progress Show

For 4 days I had to move into alternate lodging: a place that rented “suites” for longer term stays. Compared to checking into a Comfort Inn the sign-in process was a bit dodgy: get to a gas station in a certain part of town, call a guy, and wait for him to show up to lead you where you’ll be staying.

So I made the call, and followed the black SUV that came to meet me. When we first turned off a residential road onto an unpaved back lane, and stopped behind an older 3-story house… I was a tiny bit apprehensive. My room as at the top of those peeling wooden stairs, behind that tree branch? OK…

 

 

It turns out it was really nice inside: basically my own apartment with laundry and everything: with nicer furniture that I have back in Toronto.

 

 

 

 

So here I sit with my laptop, nibbling on Subway and sipping on a drink after a long day at work. In 2 more days I have to move back to my old hotel… and I think I’ll miss this place 🙂

Shakeycam…

The truck body that came on my used Stampede RC truck doesn’t owe the world anything, and won’t be winning any beauty contests. Which is why I started to look at it… then at my ContourHD helmetcam… then at an Exacto knife. A plan was formed!

I cut a hole in the windshield and crazyglued the extra plastic to the roof to make it a bit stronger. Then punched 4 narrow slots in the lid and threaded some velco through. TaDa!

 

 

 

 

It was just starting to spit rain out and it was getting dark, but I just had to test it right away:

Body rattled a lot, and the helmetcam battery kept dying, but you get the idea. Perhaps next time with the body held on tighter… and when it’s sunny out… some creative editing may capture some good clips that aren’t vibrating so much you get a headache watching it. I want to get 2 RC cars together and film one chasing the other!

[Arnold] Get to da choppa!!! [/Arnold]

Almost a month ago I ordered a RC helicopter that was the next step up from the flying-around-your-living-room models I’ve played with so far. It arrived quickly… but didn’t work.

Replacement parts arrived yesterday and went in this morning. Success!

 

 

You don’t have to be a helicopter expert to see that it’s a bit… um… unbalanced?

I flew around in the underground garage with the training gear on (orange balls)… until I plowed it into a wall. My fault: I had gotten lazy with the small heli when taking corners… by just turning it in a new direction and sliding around a bit wide (it’s light, so turns quickly). However this new larger and heavier heli when I saw it was heading towards the wall I did successfully turn it 90 degrees…. but that only left me with a heli travelling the same speed towards the wall, but sideways. You’re also supposed to bank it towards the inside of the turn so it starts to pull itself in the new direction instead of just continuing on its merry way in the direction it was pointed before you turned it. Doh!

Oh well.. time to order more parts 🙂

So long, old friend…

Last weekend I sold my shiny yellow SV650S street bike. When I bought it 5 years ago I couldn’t imagine selling it… so I took good care of it because I was in it for the long haul. But as others have said when you start with this hobby: “Think of it as your first bike, not your last”. And so it was… a couple weeks ago at the Spring Toronto Motorcycle Show…. that I decided to upgrade. Last Monday my sister helped to deliver it to its new owner in Mississauga (a fun ride in the rain (not)). So the yellow beast lives on as someone else’s “first bike”.

I’m in no rush to get the replacement, as prices are better in the fall, and I’m hoping to keep busy with the dirtbike this summer. But some of the low-cost options would be the Suzuki DL-650 V-Strom, or Kawasaki Versys. The pricier options include the BMW F 800 GS or Triumph Tiger 800 XC. For now it’s just a little bit of money in the bank…

Old Hobby Reloaded: Complete!

Earlier this week I got the final pieces of the puzzle: the radio and batteries from HobbyKing. Everything went together smoothly the first time… though I decided not to glue the tires to the rims before the first test drive (which was a mistake – the rubber started to pull from the rims almost immediately). 8 drops of crazy glue on each rim straightened that out…

 

 

That’s a picture of the lawn behind my apartment building. There was a bit of snow today, and I thought it would be fun to go make some tire tracks… but by the time I got outside it had already started to melt.

Now, if only the new speed control for my heli would arrive…

They Live!

The yellow one was a bit cranky to start (probably the last season for that battery) but the blue one fired right up!

 

 

Haven’t done any real maintenance yet: just put the batteries back in and will top them up with fresh gas. I have parts on the shelf for the dirtbike… but it can wait a few more weeks for things to warm up. The yellow SV really shows the dirt from living in a big underground garage all winter, so I’ll give it a once-over with the pressure washer, then hopefully take it out for Photo Tag today!

Old Hobby Reloaded: Phase Four

Almost done!

I received the ESC for my new RC buggy a couple of days ago, and today the motor arrived as well:

 

 

I came home at lunch to upload a support video for another RC toy, so I figured I’d post these as well. As soon as the radio arrives I’ll be on the road! XERUN 4274SD motor on the left, and 150A-SD electronic speed control on the right.