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Hello everyone,

This is my new MOC, it is my third creation using non-Lego parts. Without the body was the fastest out of the three going over 20mph-32kph but with the body it only went 17.4mph-27.9kph which was included in the video. This project was started when I bought the 8880 style hubs from Efferman on shapeways and evolved to also use the non-Lego electronics. I also used the high torque differential, 550 motor mount, and the CV joints for the 8880 type joints, designed by Efferman. This was also my first creation to use my custom designed part, the 5x7 frame for bearings

31835629280_a44dd22b8d_c.jpgIMG_1130 by JJ2Sam, on Flickr

I went with a lime and black color scheme on this one to give it a pop of color compared to my other, more bland creations that are white and black.

31369970474_43d2715066_c.jpgIMG_1131 by JJ2Sam, on Flickr

I worked a lot on the front to make it look menacing like most real supercars often do.

31400842623_d21a85049b_c.jpgIMG_1132 by JJ2Sam, on Flickr

With the custom hubs I was able to make the gaps around the wheel very small but still have it where it does not bind.

31400839043_2e18d0585c_c.jpgIMG_1134 by JJ2Sam, on Flickr

I covered up the bottom to stop dirt and other debris from getting inside the gears and motor that would cause the parts to wear faster and also shorten the life of the motor.

31400824853_28fa8e2c5f_c.jpgIMG_1150 by JJ2Sam, on Flickr

Here is a picture with the tape and body removed. I mounted the motor and other electronics as low as possible to keep the SOG low for better handling. The gearing is 9:1, there is a 12T gear mounted to the motor and a 36T going into my 5x7 frame with bearings, along with lithium grease, that made the drive chain have almost no friction. With such low friction the motor almost never got hot and no drive parts were damaged even after me driving it on a bumpy road and some crashes.

32062543252_46288a7bd3_c.jpgIMG_1149 by JJ2Sam, on Flickr

The hubs seem to have blended into the background in this picture but here you can see the rear assembly, I made this creation modular where if you remove the two black beams connected to the two dogbone pieces on each side the entire rear axle could be taken for maintenance like regreasng if any was needed.

32211398805_7e13e84d85_c.jpgIMG_1148 by JJ2Sam, on Flickr

31400836103_23d82a2e6a_c.jpgIMG_1146 by JJ2Sam, on Flickr

The front axle was nothing special, just two wishbones with different lengths and so on....

The performance was good but it did tend to pull left or right dew to the slack in Lego parts, but there is nothing you can do about that...

Finally the video

 

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Love it! I really like the shaping and color combo. I am at a loss of words to describe how many non Lego parts I saw in the photos. Totally worth it when you see the speed and range! Incredible.  The back end is awesome. Never knew you could get that color green witht he 3x11 curved panels.

Edited by Lox Lego

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I agree witth Lox Lego on the looks. It is really aggresive and I totaly like the front lights - cool idea! And just look at it go! I guess only the turning radius is a bit on the larger side, but at this speed it is better/safer like this. Congratulations again on the bodywork! :thumbup:

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1 hour ago, Lox Lego said:

Love it! I really like the shaping and color combo. I am at a loss of words to describe how many non Lego parts I saw in the photos. Totally worth it when you see the speed and range! Incredible.  The back end is awesome. Never knew you could get that color green with he 3x11 curved panels.

Thanks, I count a total of 16 non-Lego parts, 8 of them are 3D printed, 3 are aluminum (all used for bracing) and 5 of them are electronic (not counting remote)

 

29 minutes ago, MajklSpajkl said:

I agree with Lox Lego on the looks. It is really aggressive and I totally like the front lights - cool idea! And just look at it go! I guess only the turning radius is a bit on the larger side, but at this speed it is better/safer like this. Congratulations again on the bodywork! :thumbup:

Yes the steering range is low, I did use a 20T-16T gear ratio to make is slightly larger but like you said the small radius made it much easier to control.

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40 minutes ago, efferman said:

Are you satisfied with the 8880 style wheel hubs?

Very, I over polished one but it still works as well as the others, they have much less slack when they have the lego CV parts but I only have 4 of them so I could not put them in the front.

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Interesting creation :laugh:.  I have two concerns though:

(1) About the pulling left/right - can be solved with about 11 or 14 degrees (i.e. 1 x 5 or 1 x 4 studs) caster angle. Also, including a worm gear between the servo and steering rack will help.

(2) And for the different length wishbones at the front axle - wouldn't that introduce increasing positive camber (i.e top of wheel is further out than the bottom) the more suspension compresses? Positive camber is not desirable as it reduces traction of your front wheels when you turn.

With these handling issues resolved, I'm sure you can go for greater steering angle.

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Reading this post makes me miss my collection so much...just a few more weeks and I'll be back to building, your builds have been great motivation and proof that taking on a project with non Lego motors will be worth the effort. I didn't have much luck with effe's custom hubs, I think that was because I didn't polish them enough before connecting them. Also I am having trouble deciding which direction to take with a future build:

1) Use printed hubs and deal with unavoidable slack, but solve as much as I can with geometry as porky suggested^

2) Use large turntables as wheel hubs somehow, and connect Non-Lego wheels. 

Edited by z3_2drive

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25 minutes ago, PorkyMonster said:

Interesting creation :laugh:.  I have two concerns though:

(1) About the pulling left/right - can be solved with about 11 or 14 degrees (i.e. 1 x 5 or 1 x 4 studs) caster angle. Also, including a worm gear between the servo and steering rack will help.

(2) And for the different length wishbones at the front axle - wouldn't that introduce increasing positive camber (i.e top of wheel is further out than the bottom) the more suspension compresses? Positive camber is not desirable as it reduces traction of your front wheels when you turn.

With these handling issues resolved, I'm sure you can go for greater steering angle.

(1) My next MOC will use some camber. what do you mean with the worm gear?

(2) No, having shorter upper wishbones adds negative camber when compressed which helps traction but I'm sure you already know that.

7 minutes ago, z3_2drive said:

Reading this post made me miss my collection so much...just a few more weeks and I'll be back to building, your builds have been great motivation and proof that taking on a project with non Lego motors will be worth the effort. I didn't have much luck with effe's custom hubs, I think that was because I didn't polish them enough before connecting them. Also I am having trouble deciding which direction to take with a future build:

1) Use printed hubs and deal with unavoidable slack, but solve as much as I can with geometry as porky suggested^

2) Use large turntables as wheel hubs somehow, and connect Non-Lego wheels. 

Awesome I'm looking forward to seeing more of your MOC's, also thanks, you were an inspiration to me also. What is wrong with the hubs? try disassembling them and adding healthy supplies of grease inside, it will soak in the part so you will need to re-grease it in a day then it will be fine, that's what I did.

Here are some spoilers to my next MOC but they will use hubs from the Traxxas rustler. Here is the rear assembly and the front assembly, the rear hubs are almost exactly two studs wide and the pins to hold them are the same diameter as the inside Lego pins so if you screw them into a pin you can use Lego beams as wishbones. The front caster blocks will need to be drilled out to fit the larger pins since they use smaller ones but that's no big deal. These wheels are the cheapest ones I could find that are high quality but you will need to widen the center holes to fit the Traxxas parts. The parts are cheap on RC planet but you can also buy them on Amazon.

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Very, very appealing shapes! Love the rear, power bulges, defined side skirts and that side profile is just fantastic!

The grill seems a little odd, like I don't know how to feel about it. It looks like the shape of it works but the actual finished look doesn't mesh with the rest of the car. Polarizing may be the word.

i couldn't build what you did so don't even consider that an informed critique. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, JJ2 said:

(1) My next MOC will use some camber. what do you mean with the worm gear?

(2) No, having shorter upper wishbones adds negative camber when compressed which helps traction but I'm sure you already know that.

(1) You meant caster? Worm gear - I meant this.

(2) Not exactly true. Shorter upper wishbone alone will not add negative camber when compressed, unless you have long suspension travel (such that it compresses until both wishbones tilt upwards from the chassis). You can verify this easily by constructing a simple trapezoid and see what happens when u hold one non-parallel side fixed (representing the chassis), and lift up the opposite side (that'll represent the wheel). The point when both wishbones are horizontal is the point to note - from that point, the more they tilt down from the chassis, the more negative camber gets. Same thing from horizontal to tilt upward. But as your suspension travel from the wishbones tilted down, then horizontal, then up, your camber actually went from negative, positive, then negative...

Edited by PorkyMonster

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7 minutes ago, PorkyMonster said:

(1) You meant caster? Worm gear - I meant this.

(2) Not true. Shorter upper wishbone alone will not add negative camber when compressed. You can verify this easily by constructing a simple trapezoid and see what happens when u hold one non-parallel side fixed (representing the chassis), and lift up the opposite side (that'll represent the wheel).

Yes I meant caster.

It will but the shorter the top wishbone the more pronounced the affect, admittedly the ones on this MOC were not short enough and most likely did nothing but if you have a 3L wishbone on the top and a 5L on the bottom that will introduce camber, they do it in real cars all the time.

1 hour ago, thatrabidhobo said:

Very, very appealing shapes! Love the rear, power bulges, defined side skirts and that side profile is just fantastic!

The grill seems a little odd, like I don't know how to feel about it. It looks like the shape of it works but the actual finished look doesn't mesh with the rest of the car. Polarizing may be the word.

I couldn't build what you did so don't even consider that an informed critique.

Thanks, I agree the grill does look a little off, I could have made it better but it served as an access port to the front suspension if something went loose so I kept it simple (and ugly)

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9 minutes ago, JJ2 said:

It will but the shorter the top wishbone the more pronounced the affect, admittedly the ones on this MOC were not short enough and most likely did nothing but if you have a 3L wishbone on the top and a 5L on the bottom that will introduce camber, they do it in real cars all the time.

Oops, you responded too fast. I've edited my post with more details already. Basically one needs to note the rest position of the wishbones. If you ensured that they are horizontal while the car is stationary, you're on track to gain negative camber as it moves and turn (this, you're right). However, if the wishbones tilt downward from the chassis at stationary, then you'll end up gaining positive camber first, before gaining negative (assuming your suspension will compress until your wishbones start to tilt upward).

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14 hours ago, PorkyMonster said:

Oops, you responded too fast. I've edited my post with more details already. Basically one needs to note the rest position of the wishbones. If you ensured that they are horizontal while the car is stationary, you're on track to gain negative camber as it moves and turn (this, you're right). However, if the wishbones tilt downward from the chassis at stationary, then you'll end up gaining positive camber first, before gaining negative (assuming your suspension will compress until your wishbones start to tilt upward).

Yes that's true, I see now.

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Cool! Somehow your models always look as if they originate from some kind of secret laboratory (that's a compliment:wink:). I always imagine a real car with all these wires and dangerous speeds. I would absolutely want to to drive it, but not before signing my will :pir_laugh2:.

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1 hour ago, Didumos69 said:

Cool! Somehow your models always look as if they originate from some kind of secret laboratory (that's a compliment:wink:). I always imagine a real car with all these wires and dangerous speeds. I would absolutely want to to drive it, but not before signing my will :pir_laugh2:.

Haha thanks, it was not really hard to drive it was just that my road is really old and is very bumpy which made going at top speed almost impossible, in fact the video was shot with it only going at about 50%-75% throttle so I did not hit a bump and wreck it (again)

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Interesting performance, I have thought about using RC grade motors in some of my models, as TLG's aren't always powerful enough, or are too slow. I think it would be fun to see the same components installed into a trophy truck chassis, and drive it over some ramps.:thumbup:

Edited by Tommy Styrvoky

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1 hour ago, Tommy Styrvoky said:

Interesting performance, I have thought about using RC grade motors in some of my models, as TLG's aren't always powerful enough, or are too slow. I think it would be fun to see the same components installed into a trophy truck chassis, and drive it over some ramps.:thumbup:

Like this video in this thread? :laugh:

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39 minutes ago, PorkyMonster said:

Like this video in this thread? :laugh:

yeah, but at a much smaller scale, so you could obtain better performance and top speeds, because of a lighter chassis.

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21 minutes ago, Tommy Styrvoky said:

yeah, but at a much smaller scale, so you could obtain better performance and top speeds, because of a lighter chassis.

yup, that'll be another kind of fun :laugh:.

personally, i think that's possible, and someone will come up with that sooner or later...

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Nice!

Do you have any closeup of how did you build the motor mount and/or the trasmission? Trying to get those two things solid enough bugged me a lot in my projects

Is there any chance you'll step up to 3 cell battery&motor?

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6 hours ago, Jojoba said:

Nice!

Do you have any closeup of how did you build the motor mount and/or the trasmission? Trying to get those two things solid enough bugged me a lot in my projects

Is there any chance you'll step up to 3 cell battery&motor?

In this picture you can see the 3D printed motor mount I used, it was designed by Efferman to hold 550 sized motors, I'm not sure if it will work with brushless motors but I think it will.

31400824853_28fa8e2c5f_c.jpg

The rear is very simple with just a 12T gear mounted to the motor, I can make a tutorial on how to do it, and a 36T follower. Then it went into a 12T single bevel to the 36T differential (also by Efferman) That totalled a 9:1 ratio which is a ratio, not enough speed that it is too fast and enough torque not to over stresses the motor. I would recommend using the 5x7 frame with bearings because compared to my other models without it this one ran very smoothly and did not damage any axles.

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Really nice car! I've always dreamed of doing something like this but my wallet doesn't exactly agree. I just built an electric skateboard, with a 5065 275kv brushless outrunner and a custom made 36v battery, but I don't think LEGO would do very well with such power. I am thinking of using a small 3000kv brushless system in a lego car, but this is just and idea. I was wondering about your parts, how many amps you pull, how many kv your motor is and where you bought everything?

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