Used Challenger Strip and Rebuild.

[zooma]

That receiver has I-Bus, which is the Flysky version to the Frsky's SBUS.
I dont have much experience with clark boards, but as far as I know they have to come prepared from factory to allow the use of that SBUS-IBUS

Thanks Rad - I can see the green printed info on the FlySky receiver that runs across the top of the sockets for the servos that reads I-BUS and underneath that two sockets one marked SENS and the other marked SERVO.

These two I-BUS sockets run across the top of the regular servo sockets inline with the top of the receiver.

From what I can see, if I want to have better control of all of the functions that are currently ganged together on the left hand stick, I will need to get the TX board modified to provide an S.Bus output with leads?

[zooma]

This is a joke, not magnets......
I have 20 mm rectangles

https://aliexpress.ru/item/100500199843 ... 4043OelwnT

I see these on eBay too Pavel.

They should be a lot stronger than the small round ones that are fitted in my used Challenger hull.

Available from UK stock, in Aberdeen.


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196201774944 ... R-S1nYWOZQ

[zooma]

The empty hull has had a bit of a wash and the battery box cover has now been glued down to close it permanently to strengthen the hull and to help stop the ingress of water and dirt when it is being run in "challenging" conditions.

With the hull empty, but still having the heavy metal wheels screwed on to it, the hull is very "floppy" and can be easily twisted with no real effort so for this hull that will be run with these metal wheels (and metal tracks) I am going to make a chassis brace to control the hull movement.

I have been toying with the idea of making a frame from marine plywood that when combined with bulkheads would effectively make this a well controlled monocoque chassis without adding too much weight. This is just an idea at the moment, but I have never seen it done before and I just fancy doing something different.....so I am very tempted to give it a go!

..........and if it doesn't work, I have plenty of angle alloy that I can use to make a brace from - along the lines of the type already used by Meter rat as that has proven to work very well.

[zooma]

Gearboxes need stripping and cleaning.

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Gearbox being stripped and cleaned.

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Both of the red Ultimate Edition gearboxes had plenty of excess black grease inside them, along with some strands of grass and other small debris, so I wanted to strip them both and clean away the excess grease as well as checking them both for wear as the tank had been run without any axle bearings before I got it.

I stripped one gearbox at a time after first taking a picture to help me remember which sequence the gears fitted together. Once everything was apart and cleaned, I was pleased to find that none of the small flange bearings that support all of the axles showed any signs of excess wear, and all of the teeth on every gearwheel was undamaged and also showed no signs of having any wear, so I was able to refit all the gears and screw the case sides back on.

With both gearboxes (and motors) now cleaned the gearboxes look very smart.

I will re-apply a small amount of grease to the gears when I have decided what type would work best and "cling" to the gear teeth rather than fling itself-off to smother the casings like this heavy coating had done. Grease is needed to lubricate and prevent wear, but too much can attract dirt and become counter-productive. Glueing the battery box door firmly into place will also help to prevent the ingress of some of the grass and debris getting in amongst the gears in the future as well.

As soon as I find a pair of those grey plastic "clip-on" gear covers I will fit a pair of them onto the gearboxes to cover the gears to help keep the grease in and the dirt out!

A Gaffa tape patch with placed over the two soldered terminals of the lower motor and another patch was stuck onto the opposing gearbox side in the area that this motor would come closest to try to prevent any electrical shorting-out. These RED motors run very close together (to the naked eye they actually look like they are touching) but I know that Meter rat has run his identical set-up for some time without any problems and he has only used the same type of tape as insulation between his motors, so I am hoping for the same level of success!

[Pavel]

3D printer prints a casing for a gearbox, too lazy to google.....
You just have to search...

[zooma]

3D printer prints a casing for a gearbox, too lazy to google.....
You just have to search...

I have bought a pair of the Heng Long gearbox covers to fit the Challenger gearbox from HAYA this morning.

[Pavel]

Seek and you will be given!
That's what the scripture says...

[Meter rat]

I will re-apply a small amount of grease to the gears when I have decided what type would work best and "cling" to the gear teeth rather than fling itself-off to smother the casings like this heavy coating had done. Grease is needed to lubricate and prevent wear, but too much can attract dirt and become counter-productive.

Motorcycle chain lube, from a spray can. Squirt a small amount into a jar, or other receptacle, let it evaporate off, and use a cotton bud, to apply to the gear box. It will spread on the surface of the gears, without it going every where.

[zooma]

I will re-apply a small amount of grease to the gears when I have decided what type would work best and "cling" to the gear teeth rather than fling itself-off to smother the casings like this heavy coating had done. Grease is needed to lubricate and prevent wear, but too much can attract dirt and become counter-productive.

Motorcycle chain lube, from a spray can. Squirt a small amount into a jar, or other receptacle, let it evaporate off, and use a cotton bud, to apply to the gear box. It will spread on the surface of the gears, without it going every where.

I will try that !

[zooma]

Snapped like a twig !

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I wanted to add a pair of axle bearings to this tank as although it had been run successfully without any (!) I think the bearings on the red Ultimate gearbox must have been working overtime, but the gearbox is a lot older now and I would like to reduce their workload by fitting some axle bearings.

The size of the hull openings around the axles was bigger than the alloy bearing adapters that I had, so I ordered a larger pair of flange bearings that had the 8mm axle in the middle to fit the axles and a larger outside diameter to fill the size of the hole in the hull.

When these bearings arrived, I noticed that the scribed lines towards the edge of the hole were about the same size that was needed to push these flanged bearings into. I had already knocked-out the plastic bearings on my new Challenger 2 build project, so armed with this experience, I decided to knock these unwanted areas to plastic in a similar manner. BIG MISTAKE!

The demarcation grooves moulded into the plastic that marked the area of plastic that I wanted to remove were decorative only (!) and when attacked the plastic snapped away in places that I needed to keep. Remembering how Meter rat had repaired broken parts of his Challenger 2 suspension with a metal reinforced epoxy I decided to rebuild this broken area with a similar product and use a round file to remove the excess plastic on the outer side of the hull (the side that I hadn't broken!).

Meanwhile I refitted the gearbox and the new flange bearing into the damaged side and used some 24 hour Araldite to hold the bearing in the correct position until the filler arrived.

Before adding the epoxy filler I taped over both the inner and outer surfaces of the flange bearing with some blue masking tape to protect it from any epoxy that may accidentally splash over when working in a confined space (on the inside especially.

I found something similar on Amazon and ordered it for "next day" delivery. Apparently "next DAY" delivery includes the dark night hours and it duly arrived last night just before 10pm, so I mixed up a small quantity and added some around the axle bearing flange area that needed to be replaced and left it overnight to set.