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MT410 Build -- Lots of Upgrades and Stuff
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- Messages
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- Tekno RC's
- MT410
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- #42
Hey @jan.ci1! It's Steel rod welded together by VG Racing...or that's what I recall. Yep, checked my email. Seems to be strong.
Oh, I absolutely agree about the tangents you chase after deciding to wander off on an idea and try something a little different. What seems like a straightforward, simple alteration seems to turn into a time consuming task that takes several attempts to come up with a solution. Those EC5 connectors are a good example of that. The tool I ordered to allow seating the connectors in the housing arrived yesterday, although I haven't used it yet, it should make that task considerably easier. I probably messed around with that for a full day just getting one properly assembled.
I managed to solder the wires for the Castle BEC to the battery leads on the ESC, and attempted to fire it up last night. I now have steering, but no motor activity. It's a step in the right direction, but there is still an issue of some sort to work out. Fans start on the ESC, the controller is paired with the receiver, and like I mentioned, steering works. I'll swap the connectors on the motor to see if that makes a difference.
It's getting close.
Oh, I absolutely agree about the tangents you chase after deciding to wander off on an idea and try something a little different. What seems like a straightforward, simple alteration seems to turn into a time consuming task that takes several attempts to come up with a solution. Those EC5 connectors are a good example of that. The tool I ordered to allow seating the connectors in the housing arrived yesterday, although I haven't used it yet, it should make that task considerably easier. I probably messed around with that for a full day just getting one properly assembled.
I managed to solder the wires for the Castle BEC to the battery leads on the ESC, and attempted to fire it up last night. I now have steering, but no motor activity. It's a step in the right direction, but there is still an issue of some sort to work out. Fans start on the ESC, the controller is paired with the receiver, and like I mentioned, steering works. I'll swap the connectors on the motor to see if that makes a difference.
It's getting close.
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Just curious as to why you went with the ESC you are using?
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Someone I know suggested the MGM/Lehner combo, Looked like good equipment, thought I'd give them a try. The ESC can handle far more lipo cells than this truck will see, and it has data logging and some other stuff that I ordered such as a battery temp sensor and a motor temp sensor which can be used to shut down the truck based on limits set -- I haven't dug into that yet, however.
And I've worked on the ESC problem a bit to find that there's some funkiness going on between it and the receiver. The receiver is a Traxxas 6533 (IIRC). I had a few of them for another project, and while I'm planning on buying a better transmitter/receiver in the future, the Traxxas combo should suffice for what I'm doing now.
Or so I thought.
Graupner might be what I end up with sooner than later.
There appears to be some sort of a calibration sequence the ESC uses to set up the motor. Twice, perhaps three times it was able to fire up the motor and spin the wheels. However, there is a set of steps I need to take in order for that to happen, such as pushing the throttle full forward and reverse. It doesn't seem like what should be happening, and the last time I ran it for a bit on low speed and found that the wheels slowly turned on their own, like there's crosstalk on the receiver between the throttle for the motor and the steering servo.
When the motor doesn't fire up at all, throttle input will slightly turn the wheels.
Dunno. I have another receiver. Might pair that with the transmitter and try again. I'm getting a light on the BEC, so it's getting enough power, which in turn would indicate that the receiver is probably getting enough power too...maybe. I need a Castle Link to adjust voltage. Its default is 5.1V, I'll have to check to see what the receiver needs.
I know you said you "paired" your transmitter and receiver. Did you calibrate your transmitter to the ESC?
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- #47
@TBuggy I'm glad you asked that. Dug through the manual (I'd followed their quick-start instructions) thinking there must be more the setup. I had connected the ESC to my computer and set the defaults, which should have been good enough to get started, anyway.
I then saw a link to a video, watched it, and found that every time you fire up this ESC, you have to set the throttle limits. You pull the throttle wide open, then reverse wide open, it does its beeping thing on both procedures and that's it.
There's a mention of this in the body of the ESC manual.
The reason the tires were turning on throttle is the stability management that Traxxas doing that. I put it on the floor while hanging on to it and swung it back and forth while on throttle, and the front tires would steer to correct what was perceived to be a slide.
So I do have a functional vehicle after all! w00t!
Need to do some cable management. They're hanging out all over the place. Need to figure out how to mount the battery/motor temp sensors.
And I need to figure out the FPV camera stuff too. I think that's gonna be pretty cool.
I then saw a link to a video, watched it, and found that every time you fire up this ESC, you have to set the throttle limits. You pull the throttle wide open, then reverse wide open, it does its beeping thing on both procedures and that's it.
There's a mention of this in the body of the ESC manual.
The reason the tires were turning on throttle is the stability management that Traxxas doing that. I put it on the floor while hanging on to it and swung it back and forth while on throttle, and the front tires would steer to correct what was perceived to be a slide.
So I do have a functional vehicle after all! w00t!
Need to do some cable management. They're hanging out all over the place. Need to figure out how to mount the battery/motor temp sensors.
And I need to figure out the FPV camera stuff too. I think that's gonna be pretty cool.
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- #48
Here's the manual, for anyone that wants to take a look.
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- Tekno RC's
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- #49
Spent the weekend designing a few housings for lights on the truck. Haven't taken pictures yet, but that'll be within a day or two. I will be driving this primarily at night, and really need to have lights. I'd picked up a few sets of lights for another project, and thought I'd use them for my MT410 instead.
I installed a three LED headlight and a two other single LED headlamps in a housing I 3D printed. I also designed a housing for the brake lights that I ordered with the MGM ESC, and drilled some mounting holes for them in rear mount bar for the roll cage. The last thing I need to tackle, which will be the easiest of the three to design, is the housing for the tail lights.
I'm considering buying a Graupner battery charger. Need something better than the Tenergy charger I have presently. It's just a small charger, and the batteries I bought for this truck might be pushing it a bit. I'm not trying to push the charger, it's just at what it's capable of doing, it takes time.
Also ordered some wire management products as I think I'm pushing the limits on heat shrink. Bought some braided sleeving, flexible conduit and associated items. When you start adding lights, wires end up all over the truck. I want to make sure I manage that side of it well.
I installed a three LED headlight and a two other single LED headlamps in a housing I 3D printed. I also designed a housing for the brake lights that I ordered with the MGM ESC, and drilled some mounting holes for them in rear mount bar for the roll cage. The last thing I need to tackle, which will be the easiest of the three to design, is the housing for the tail lights.
I'm considering buying a Graupner battery charger. Need something better than the Tenergy charger I have presently. It's just a small charger, and the batteries I bought for this truck might be pushing it a bit. I'm not trying to push the charger, it's just at what it's capable of doing, it takes time.
Also ordered some wire management products as I think I'm pushing the limits on heat shrink. Bought some braided sleeving, flexible conduit and associated items. When you start adding lights, wires end up all over the truck. I want to make sure I manage that side of it well.
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- MT410
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- #51
Yo.
SainSmart - Creality3D CR-10 Mini 3D Printer
I have been using FreeCAD for design.
FreeCAD is pretty good, but I designed tooling for a long time and worked on some pretty advanced parametric modeling software like Catia and Pro-E among others. It's not going to compete on that level, and I don't expect that.
But.
I was trying to calculate a radius based on two points on the diameter I had measured. Had to remember how to do that via trigonometry, which after a bit of thinking I remembered. It involved swinging a radius tangent to the hypotenus...yadda yadda yadda. I have FreeCAD, I should use that! And I did. And it made a simple, straightforward process that shouldn't have been a big deal a big PITA. So if you're looking for something that's going to be easy, that might not be the best one to use. Its parametrics can sometimes handle upstream changes, sometimes not, and it gets a little flaky when applying radii to edges. I find that the more complex (of course) the more you have to work around its idiosyncrasies.
It's free. It's CAD. Gets the job done for the most part.
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I've spent the last few weeks laboring away at coming up with installing lights on my truck. It's been a labor of love, and I do say that with a certain tinge of sarcasm. I went the hard route, and it took a while.
I'm not overly enthusiastic about how it turned out. The headlight assembly is pretty good, but I didn't like how I ended up gluing it in place in lieu of mounting it with screws. I've encountered the long reach with short tap problem a few times along this part of the project.
Then there was the wiring. I didn't do what many do and mount the lights in the area of where a windshield would be. I wanted headlights mounted on the front of the vehicle and red tail lights at the rear. I also have a set of brake lights as I'd mentioned that I ordered with the MGM ESC.
Tail lights/brake lights
The brake lights are the outer housings. They are a board with the LEDs sticking out one side so you have to deal with that. The housings I came up with came out ok, and the lights themselves, both the tail lights and brake lights are protected by the cage fairly well.
And with the tail lights on.
Should do the job. The brake lights work fine as well.
I don't like how the light housing looks like an afterthought -- and they are. They don't look integrated into the vehicle itself whatsoever.
Headlights
I came up with a different design for this housing and had it mounted on the bar at the front of the roll cage. However, I realized that there was nothing to keep it aligned properly and had to resort to moving it back and mounting it on the mounting plate for the cage. The center light was in an aluminum housing. Found that trying to print a housing to contain that was a waste of time and effort, so I took it apart and used solely the LED panel in it.
Didn't like how I had to glue it to the roll cage. It's well adhered, but I used some gorilla glue so when I need to take it off, it won't be too difficult to remove.
I'm just glad the LEDs all work still after the mangling they went through when I was putting this all together.
When I was looking at the front housing I had printed a few days ago I realized that I completely missed what I should have done. The lights should be incorporated into the roll cage mounts. I hadn't even thought about the lights at the time I designed them. Would be much easier as I'd not have to come up with hokey ways to mount them. I'll consider doing that later. I'm too far into this part of it to go back and redo what I've already done.
I didn't really show the way I handled the wiring. I'll show more of that later, but it turned out ok. I used some plastic conduit and mounted it on top of the center/rear braces, and then put sleeves on the wires themselves. There's two sets of lighting wires running from the headlights to the receiver, the brake light wiring runs through it, there's also a switch to turn off the center headlights, which also had wires in that conduit.
Something I thought about was to run one set of wires for power to the front and back of the vehicle and then connect whatever needs power to that one central power feed. Still might do that. Would cut down on the rat nest mess.
And, of course, I have yet to tackle the FPV thing. Yet MORE wires. And more printing of housings.
I soldered EC5 connectors on four 2S batteries a few days ago. Should be good for just regular runs. Need to make a parallel connector for them. I've gotten a fair amount of time on my soldering iron of late.
No proofreading. There'll be mistakes.
It's time for an adult beverage. Or two.
I'm not overly enthusiastic about how it turned out. The headlight assembly is pretty good, but I didn't like how I ended up gluing it in place in lieu of mounting it with screws. I've encountered the long reach with short tap problem a few times along this part of the project.
Then there was the wiring. I didn't do what many do and mount the lights in the area of where a windshield would be. I wanted headlights mounted on the front of the vehicle and red tail lights at the rear. I also have a set of brake lights as I'd mentioned that I ordered with the MGM ESC.
Tail lights/brake lights
The brake lights are the outer housings. They are a board with the LEDs sticking out one side so you have to deal with that. The housings I came up with came out ok, and the lights themselves, both the tail lights and brake lights are protected by the cage fairly well.
And with the tail lights on.
Should do the job. The brake lights work fine as well.
I don't like how the light housing looks like an afterthought -- and they are. They don't look integrated into the vehicle itself whatsoever.
Headlights
I came up with a different design for this housing and had it mounted on the bar at the front of the roll cage. However, I realized that there was nothing to keep it aligned properly and had to resort to moving it back and mounting it on the mounting plate for the cage. The center light was in an aluminum housing. Found that trying to print a housing to contain that was a waste of time and effort, so I took it apart and used solely the LED panel in it.
Didn't like how I had to glue it to the roll cage. It's well adhered, but I used some gorilla glue so when I need to take it off, it won't be too difficult to remove.
I'm just glad the LEDs all work still after the mangling they went through when I was putting this all together.
When I was looking at the front housing I had printed a few days ago I realized that I completely missed what I should have done. The lights should be incorporated into the roll cage mounts. I hadn't even thought about the lights at the time I designed them. Would be much easier as I'd not have to come up with hokey ways to mount them. I'll consider doing that later. I'm too far into this part of it to go back and redo what I've already done.
I didn't really show the way I handled the wiring. I'll show more of that later, but it turned out ok. I used some plastic conduit and mounted it on top of the center/rear braces, and then put sleeves on the wires themselves. There's two sets of lighting wires running from the headlights to the receiver, the brake light wiring runs through it, there's also a switch to turn off the center headlights, which also had wires in that conduit.
Something I thought about was to run one set of wires for power to the front and back of the vehicle and then connect whatever needs power to that one central power feed. Still might do that. Would cut down on the rat nest mess.
And, of course, I have yet to tackle the FPV thing. Yet MORE wires. And more printing of housings.
I soldered EC5 connectors on four 2S batteries a few days ago. Should be good for just regular runs. Need to make a parallel connector for them. I've gotten a fair amount of time on my soldering iron of late.
No proofreading. There'll be mistakes.
It's time for an adult beverage. Or two.
Overkill
Well-known member
Love seeing custom work 
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Love seeing custom work
Thanks! Although sometimes it seems like a lot of work, I do really enjoy working on these things.
They are much more accessible now. It takes a bit of time to figure out your setup, but once you do you're good until you start wandering into other filaments where you have to figure out the process again. I was recently experimenting with thin layer printing, and completely failed. Need to do more reading on that. It's what the people do that print RC airplane parts.
I should also mention that I might have given FreeCAD a bit of a rough recommendation. I decided to check to see what version I was using as I use Debian Linux, and they tend to have older packages. Turns out I'm a few release cycles behind the most recent version, and there are a lot of upgrades/improvements/features added that should improve it quite a bit.
It's definitely worth a shot.
I use Slic3r to generate the code for the 3D printer. Cura is another that is available as I recall. I believe that is probably the most commonly used software for 3D printer code generation.
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- #56
Since I've got a few sets of 2S batteries, I need a parallel connector for them. Thought I'd make it myself.
That's 10 awg wire. I have plenty of EC5 connectors, and am getting used to soldering them.
Although they're not perfect all the time.
Blob!
Took a bit of effort with the solder wick to clean that mess up. I thought that I had honed my skills with solder wick recently, but I botched that one up a few times and took longer than it should have to get the solder off the connector.
Ended up with a good parallel connector. Worked out great! The tool I use to force the connectors into the housings is on the left. That thing makes it fairly easy to assemble them, and would be much more difficult without it. Supposedly you're supposed to use a hammer with it, but I use a vice to apply pressure. Works well and seems to be a better method for me. You can control the pressure and feel when the connector seats in the housing properly.
That's 10 awg wire. I have plenty of EC5 connectors, and am getting used to soldering them.
Although they're not perfect all the time.
Blob!
Took a bit of effort with the solder wick to clean that mess up. I thought that I had honed my skills with solder wick recently, but I botched that one up a few times and took longer than it should have to get the solder off the connector.
Ended up with a good parallel connector. Worked out great! The tool I use to force the connectors into the housings is on the left. That thing makes it fairly easy to assemble them, and would be much more difficult without it. Supposedly you're supposed to use a hammer with it, but I use a vice to apply pressure. Works well and seems to be a better method for me. You can control the pressure and feel when the connector seats in the housing properly.
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- #57
Bought some heat rated zip ties.
Gotta love the name.
Gotta love the name.
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- #58
The next step. Setting up the FPV camera.
I actually won't be using the FPV part of it. I'm just looking for a camera to provide something to record on a mini DVR rather than send the signal out to be viewed on a phone or tablet. From what I read the transmitters tend to get hot and I'd just as soon record it on the DVR anyway. There's also a GPS module there that I'll incorporate into the signal, which will be used to calculate speed and it will be added to the signal so you get a record of that on the video.
As to whether all this crap will work together is anyone's guess at this point. I'll put it together to verify that and then go about figuring out how what is to be mounted where. The camera in the upper part of the picture has a DVR built into it, but I haven't had too much luck figuring out how to configure it. The instructions were written by someone whose first language definitely wasn't English.
I also have a mic to add to the mix. Hopefully I can get this stuff to work.
I actually won't be using the FPV part of it. I'm just looking for a camera to provide something to record on a mini DVR rather than send the signal out to be viewed on a phone or tablet. From what I read the transmitters tend to get hot and I'd just as soon record it on the DVR anyway. There's also a GPS module there that I'll incorporate into the signal, which will be used to calculate speed and it will be added to the signal so you get a record of that on the video.
As to whether all this crap will work together is anyone's guess at this point. I'll put it together to verify that and then go about figuring out how what is to be mounted where. The camera in the upper part of the picture has a DVR built into it, but I haven't had too much luck figuring out how to configure it. The instructions were written by someone whose first language definitely wasn't English.
I also have a mic to add to the mix. Hopefully I can get this stuff to work.
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Sooo...I"m sitting here reading the various build threads....well, all of them, and saw something about batteries. It triggered something in my mind as to the parallel adapter I'd just made on Sunday.
I don't need a parallel adapter. I need a series adapter. The batteries I have are only 2S. Gah!
Eh, It's not as if I won't have a need for the parallel adapter at one point or another.
Looks like I'll be breaking out the soldering iron again in short order.
I don't need a parallel adapter. I need a series adapter. The batteries I have are only 2S. Gah!
Eh, It's not as if I won't have a need for the parallel adapter at one point or another.
Looks like I'll be breaking out the soldering iron again in short order.
jan.ci1
Member
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Ha, this will only improve your soldering skills
