in which i cant leave well enough alone and mod a Reflex before i've even run it.

[Matisse]

ordered in may, arrived in october, cheers Covid!

more details soon, but here's a first look.

[Matisse]

I quite like this, but me being me i'm already looking at how i can fiddle with it. A few hop ups had turned up before the buggy its self, Alloy drive hexes and Alloy shock bodies.



Std AE blue, not the best colour. Also grabbed a Carisma Sensored brushless motor, just because really. Of course this meant finding 0.5m pinions with a 3.17mm bore. usually heli pinions are fine, but the reflex mount appears to be hella tight on space. By chance Ox was building an LC12B and the pinions for that appear to be the answer.

[Matisse]

Next up the servo, i get the stand up servo thing, but it's a pain in the arse if you don't have a small rx, which i dont. so in the long run i'll try to get all of the servo etc flat on the deck. But first the actual box itself makes it a real pain to change over the servo, so i just cut the side off it, much better.



I've actually gone even further and cut the long fin to the left off as well, couldn't see what purpose it served. Much easier access for cables and the servo.

[Matisse]

MOAR MODS!!!!

the whole thing is pretty flexible tbh, would love a chassis out of stiffer plastic tbh. it flexes so much that the end of the drive shaft cover makes contact with the back bearing of the centre diff, this will eventually lead to failure of the bearing. So i did what any right minded person would do and chopped 5mm odd of the end of the over. someone take my hobby knife away....

[Matisse]

About that layout. its a mess. this weird ESC platform that sits above the drive shaft, a massive space for a heavy battery on one side and everything else squeezed in on the right.

Two things strike me,

1) the weight balance is odd, you've got 80+g for the battery on one side. yet 100+ on the other and then another 50 odd mounted pretty high. feels like it would be better to have a smaller battery mounted further back and then use the space at the front to equal out the two sides. you'd them also have the two heaviest things (motor and batt) at similar positions on the chassis. this make sense to me.
2) that servo box is an inefficient use of space. i mean, its silly.

So the obvious solution is to lay the servo flat, thats easy enough, some tape or small mounts will hold it. But in its current position the drag link might foul the centre tunnel when turning right. Whilst i figure this out, I thought id see if i can switch over the steering link posts and move the servo to the other side. Turns out you can, but remains to be seen how effective it will be.

[Matisse]

Lets pick this up where I left off.


Bearings for smoothness and some better ball-ends. Not only are they beefier, but they move a lot more freely. The stock ball ends are very stiff, and don't really have the range of motion needed to lay the servo flat. and as you can see zero issues with clearance over the drive shaft cover.


Last piece in the puzzle is to change to a smaller servo saver, but i was always going to fit an X-Ray micro servo saver anyway as they are the best. Gonna grab an M2x20mm grub screw to shorten the link, but the servo will end up here...

drop in the ESC and RX, and even with the lipo turning up 12mm too long, its all gonna fit fine (if i trim the mounts off the servo).

[Matisse]

next up, diffs and all i can say is, mmmmmmm plastic.


May well end up getting the metal gear parts as its gonna be easy to warp the plastic when rebuilding them. But in the meantime, filled the diffs with Kyosho Grease, 3k Rear, 15k Centre, 5K Front to start with. Also fitted the 70T spur.



Building the centre, it became apparent that there is space for another bearing. as stock its not there and the centre diff has a lot of play fore and aft, add it and its still very smooth but much more stable.
Possible that this play is part of the cause of the bearing failures that have been reported.

[Matisse]

Didn't really need to do the shocks, but when have I ever taken a short cut? Nicely built units, but i'll be swapping the bodies out for the FT coated alloy ones.
Rebuildable seals and guide, but only one of each so a little wobble in the shaft. Cap is emulsion style, with a big o-ring to seal. Pistons could benefit from slightly bigger holes perhaps, 3 x tiny holes front and rear.




Built up easily enough, plenty of green slime ans super esy to set the rebound. Went with 30wt AE oil front and 25Wt rear. (350/275 CST)



The look pretty good tbf.

[Matisse]

Alright, back to making this steering work. Grabbed some M2x20mm grub screws, but they we're a tad too long, 15mm is perfect. after a trim we have the correct length linkage.



Using servo tape to mount, it should be fine if we set the end points right and dont stress it too much.

trimmed one set of the mounting tabs off to fit the lipo in, et voila.




So the key to this is the X-ray servo saver and an M2x15mm grub screw.

[Matisse]

I really, really hate soldering, until Cosie and Harris hooked me up with my issue, the wrong solder. Now i still hate it but it's easier.

Last thing to tidy was the motor/esc wires.



Please feel free to judge my soldering, i know its crap and I dont care.



But, it's done. and about as tidy as it will ever be.





All thats left is the body, Phat Bodies Turbo as soon as lockdown ends.

[TezDog]

What a great read, did you manage to get a drive in before Lockdown 2.0

[Matisse]

Thanks to @si from Phat Bodies I’ve fitted the Turbo shell. Like all shells it’s a little short for what is quite a long tub, but the square shape fits perfectly at the front so all you need to do is trim the rear a bit and have the corners stick out.

I think it really suits it tbf.

[Matisse]

Next up is some Carbon Towers. Craig Harris has mocked up some 3D printed test towers which I’ll test fit soon.