Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Skate Park Bashed

Well, here's another video taken fairly recently. A friend and I went out to the skate park early in the morning to have some fun before we had to leave for work. We had a blast playing around. We had some good races and then I had the silly idea of putting my VXL in the regular sport mode. Last time I did that, I broke a bearing carrier. Not bad but still, I broke something.
Anyway, I put it in sport mode and had a little too much fun jumping around. As you can see, it got up about 10 feet or maybe a little higher. It was a lot of fun. There's a shot where I lose a wheel but it wasn't the impact that caused it. The nut fell off mid air and it spun off itself. I think that one landing might have done in one of the cells of my 2S2P LiPo battery.
So, we jumped around a bit and then I saw that my Tx (transmitter) batteries were low. Generally, it's not good to drive it like that and I had bad glitching problems before but this time, everything was still great so being dumb, I took it out for a few more jumps...four to be exact. The last four you see are the ones. I was about to finish playing around but then as you will see on the last jump, I landed kind of funny. I tried to turn up the sound some over the music so you could get an idea of what happened.
The music on this one is a little more well known. Maybe you can guess that as well.
I thought my battery was gone because it got all banged up after the crash. So, I called around to see if anyone would be able to take it apart and most of the companies don't work with Li-ion or LiPo so I thought I was out of luck. I considered doing it myself but knowing that if there was even a small accidental short while I tried to unsolder and solder it back up, the whole pack would be dead and in the worst case, it would possibly explode (not likely but they can blow up in certain cases).
Luckily, I got online and posted on one of my forums I read and someone said they would fix it for really cheap. I sent it off to them and now it just needs to be tested out to make sure the remaining three cells work and then I'll have it back in an even better configuration, three cells in series. It'll only be a 3200mAh pack but since it's a 15C rating, that's 48A continuous and about 72A burst which is pretty good as I have it geared down some. I doubt it will be a problem since I'm usually in training mode to limit the amount of things I break.
The ESC (electronic speed control) will definitely need replacing and I actually have a Mamba Max on order. I'm excited to get it as it shouldn't keep coming apart like the other three VXL-3S ESCs I have had to send it for servicing.
Alright, there's the story behind the video.
Enjoy!



http://youtu.be/Y9cW2YqmRII

Length: 3:55

VXL Rustler Fun

Alright, it's been a while since I took these videos but I finally got them all put together. It's from two different takes but they're pretty good nonetheless. I tried to do a couple of different effects this time to make things a little more interesting. I also added a little music to it as well. 5 points for whoever guesses correct on who the band is.
Enjoy!



http://youtu.be/PM2sAUvXZHQ

Length: 3:10

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Two-Way Stryker View

Well, I finally got around to getting this video made. I took the two videos and put them together. I really like the second view I got and it shows the propeller and the elevon moving. It's the first of this kind of view for me. I'm sure I'll be doing it some more from now on. Until I find another good location, this may be the last video for a little as it's kind of the same with the videos now. If there's something really interesting though, I'll post it. I have another cool idea which the picture before gives a little hint as to what it may be. I even got an illuminator to try and help out with the camera.
Enjoy!



http://youtu.be/6RZRZILVdS0

Length: 3:13