RC Fun

Many people have asked me " what did you do over your Christmas holidays?" And my answer has been simple; " about a 15 pound gain and modified an RC car".

For Christmas I had picked up a couple carrera copper maxx RC cars from a local liquidation center. They are very sharp looking and after some research on them, they looked very identical to the wltoys a959 - which happens to be a well supported and affordable 1/18 scale RC car with lots of available hop ups and replacement parts.

After charging up the batteries we were blown away at how fast these cars were out of the box, and the boy did a super job keeping it under control. With the whether being fairly clear (up to +4 some days) we got out quiet a few times before it snowed again. 

With the car sitting for a few days I began to get antsy (hey, I'm on holidays) and took it out one night when it was clear at about 12:30am. I burned through two batteries and then smashed it off a curb blowing apart the front control arm. Once inside I discected the car and began to CAD one up to print.

As soon as I had it apart I started obsessing on how I could fit in a brushless motor with ESC, as brushless motors are more effient, lighter, and typically longer lasting than brushed motors - and I really just wanted a rediculous amount of power in this tiny little car.

Insight: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor

I stripped everything out and took some measurements to do some part sourcing online and found this Surpass Hobby 45a waterproof ESC with a 4370kv motor and a very inexpensive Fly Sky RX TX 3ch controller. I knew right away that this was likely going to be too much torque for the current drivetrain and I would eventually have to upgrade them as well, but looking into the Wltoys a959B (the brushless version) it must have become an issue as there is a steel gearset already available.