About A Toy.

Ok, so there's two posts today. I'm bored, you see. And this is as good a time to document my life as any. After all, I'm Still Not Yet Dead (TM).

I realised the other day while talking abt my bike to David, that all my toys have 2 things in common: wheels, and suspension.

I'm going to talk about all my toys in the sequence that I acquired them.


Toblerone

The first one. I've always wanted an off-roading radio-controlled car. And was too poor to afford one when I was a kid.







Named Toblerone because it ran smooth as chocolate. Tobs is a Team Losi Mini-T Stadium Truck, scale 1:18th. It runs 280 brushed/brushless motors and 2/3rdAA battery packs on an AM radio and it's a 2-wheel drive.

Features out of the box included independant swingarm friction coil suspension, a two in one electronics unit, the ability to run off 4 AA batteries, and a 2 channel AM radio.

Tobs has had several upgrades:

3Racing Aluminium Coil over Oil Shocks
3Racing SSG Carbon Fibre double-deck chassis.
3Racing SSG Bulkhead Reinforcer.
3Racing Titanium Turnbuckles.
3Racing Alloy Bulkhead.
Full ball-bearings upgrade.
Tamiya TEU-01 Electronic Speed Control and a Hitec AM Receiver.
Hitec HS-55 Feather Servo.
Nosram 6-cell 7.2 volts battery packs.
Topcad 5-spoke alloy wheels with tires.
Team Losi yellow plastic rims with Mini-Smashers tires (2 sets)
Team Losi Ball Differential (uninstalled)
Team Losi Volkswagen Baja Bug body (unpainted & unmounted).
GPM Alloy ball studs & ball-cup rods. (installed 2).
Numerous original spares (steering block, swingarms, etc, body extension posts, body clips, etc).

To date, I've worn out one set of rear tires, and burnt out 4 motors, broken 2 bulkheads and destroyed 5 steering servoes.

The sheer amount of breakage makes this thing a money pit.
But I love it loads. Wonder what it's worth now. I reckon I must have spent close to $600 on the entire truck.

He's been run in the rain, in fine sand, in leafy underbrush, and on slippery wet tiles. The best thing about him?

He's fast like a rat on fire. He's a miniature missile, a pocket rocket.

And he's in traction right now, because I've burned up yet another motor. Need to get a new one. Probably from HPI, the same one used in the Jack the MiniZilla.



Maurice/Herbs

This cute little fellow is a Kyosho Mini-Z Monster 20th Anniversary Edition, 2-wheel drive, 1:28 scale. Features out of the box included:

Kyosho Blue vinyl wheel nuts
Single Axle Suspension, sprung with Kyosho Coil over Oil Shocks.
KO Propo 2 channel AM Radio
Kyosho X-Speed 180 motor.
Fully Ball-raced.

When he's wearing this yellow beetle body (custom-made and shipped from the States), he's named Herbs.




This is the original silver Twin-Force body that came on the Anniversary edition. I call that Maurice.



I also added a set of night-driving lights from Hong Kong. They have:

- 1 blue pilot lamp that blinks fast when being driven, slower when stopped, and then turns off after 15 seconds of inactivity.

- 2 white LEDS and 2 amber LEDS in front,

- 2 red LEDs for the rear which work just like regular brake lights on a car :D




Upgrade history for Maurice/Herbs:

VW Beetle Bug body.
Topcad alloy 5 spoke rims.
GPM Alloy fore and aft shock mounts.
GPM 0 degree alloy front knuckles.
Atomic elastic coated antennae (orange).
3-layer FET stack.

Currently broken: Front chassis steering pod, Steering Rod, rear bumper/wheelie bar, battery clips.



The Monster was the most expensive out of the box, but parts are also cheaper and broke less. I reckon I must have spent about 600 dollars on it too.

Pricey little bugger. Because he was so tiny, I never let him out of the house. He's a house-monster.

Check out the articulation on him. I like to do jumps and stunts, hence the broken bits.




My Mini-Xs

These used to be named Herbs coz they came with a New Beetle body. But then I bought a new body and Herbs didn't make sense.

The Mini-Xs were the cheapest of the lot. I actually bought two, after I burned out the motor on the first one.








Features:





Upgrades:
Tamiya 1:24 BMW Z3 model kit (body shell replacement)

Total cost to date: $200

The best fun to have with the Mini-X is to drift it around the house, Initial-D style. Awesome. They run really fast too.

That covers the trucks and cars.


Cuba

It always starts like this. I buy a cheap toy and end up buying more expensive versions.

Cuba isn't the first tank I had. The first one had no name because it got broken in rather a hurry and I didn't have time to feel attached to it.

Cuba was a pickup at a toy store, and for 39.90, it had independant rubber tracks left and right, AM radio, and built-in sound, plus the turret swivels and the tank has to be started (ignition) by pressing the 'ignition' button.




The genius of the tank is that it allowed me to go over terrain previously impossible with my 2-wheel drive trucks and cars. And with a wireless camera mounted on it, my exploring joy finally knew no bounds.



Here's a view of what you'll see.



The only upgrade was to replace the original antennae with a longer one, which extended its range.

Currently Cuba doesn't run well if at all. I must have put it through more than 60 hours of running. Depending on your luck, he'll start up.

Don't count on it.


Hoagie.

With the demise of Cuba, I began to wonder what the logical limits could be for a moving camera platform. Suspension would let it travel over more terrain. Soon, I picked this up on Yahoo Auctions.

Hoagie, as I would call it, was a Marui Tiger.

The awesome thing about Hoagie, was that while it had fully working suspension via coil springs, a super-detailed model quality construction, and detailed plastic tracks, overlapping wheels with rubber rims, turret traverse, gun tilt and an aluminium barrel -- all great stuff, Marui is a collector's item in Japan -- the turret also contained a self-powered spring piston air-gun.

Yes, an air-gun. The thing shoots 6mm pellets out of its aluminium barrel, and it shoots them *hard*.

This was the most awesome thing since sliced bread. I immediately had thoughts on how I would make it even awesomer, as is my nature.












After thinking about it for a while, I decided to swap out the tank's electronics. It did not have proportational control, which made targetting with the tank gun pretty much hit and miss.

I needed better. I need 6 channels, 2 for propulsion, 1 for turret traverse, 1 for gun tilt, 1 to fire the gun, and 1 more for auxliary (read: for this channel, anything goes, from power saws to shovel blades to even a 2nd gun! the only limit is your imagination).

So I went and ordered a couple of IC controller boards designed for amatuer robotics.

I must have spent $250 dollars on these boards:



Each board had 2 channels main plus one auxiliary, giving a maximum of 6 channels.

Swapping out the electronics was easy.



I also purchased a Hitec Optic 6 6-channel FM radio and a micro FM receiver, and patched the battery compartment to the crystal socket so that I can recharge the batteries without having to take them out.





Did the idea work?

Hell yea. I sold my wireless camera, bought a new one (this one is smaller and comes with a sound channel). I was plinking army men and soft drink cans with abandon.

Driving around with a wireless camera is a lot like playing an Xbox simulation, only more fun.


In fact, fun and games went on all year round. Until someone lost an eye.

No actually, what happened was, I fired the gun so much, I stripped a gear in the firing mechanism. And just like that, Hoagie was dead to me.

Presently he sits on the desk with his innards all over the place. Until I can get a replacement gun mech, that's where he's staying. I'm aiming for December.


Hero

I got Hero to replace Hoagie. Hero is a VSTank Abrams.






The only upgrade thus far was plastic treads. I actually prefer rubber treads but they stressed out the drivetrain.

So much so, that I have stripped some gears inside.

It's time to replace the motor pod.

Ever notice how things keep breaking? Thank goodness spares are available.


I have great plans for Hero. I bought some ultra bright white LEDs AND infra-red LEDs. My plan is to mount a laser pointer on the gun, so that I can have laser targetting :P. And use the LEDs to make an FLIR (Forward Looking Infrare Red) optics system, all turned on and off by the 6th unused channel.

And a couple of proximity sensors back and front to detect edges.

Think of it. A laser-targeted, FLIR enabled, full suspensioned, 6mm remote mobile gun platform. And then the plan was to buy some ICs and program a self-roving robot that would shoot at laser-designated targets.

Watch out, cats.


How much will I be able to sell Hero for? My estimate places it near $700.

Thereabouts.

More when the modifications are complete.

Jack

"Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack go under limbo-stick..."

Jack is my last purchase.



Jack is a HPI 1:18th MiniZilla, with 4-wheel drive, friction coil shocks and a Twin Vertical Plate (TVP) chassis.

There are absolutely NO upgrades. None. Zip.

I am too broke from maintaining the rest. I want an extended chassis TVPs and aluminium oil shocks upgrade though.

Bouncy little fellow. Also a house-truck at the moment.

Runs on the same batts as Tobs, so save a bunch on batteries.

This is what Jack aspires to be when he grows up:




The Rest

My other toys.

I play a lot of tennis. Tennis + bike + ipod makes my world go round.




And my dragon of course. Named him William, after William Blake. The girl's named Helen.




Racket is named Natasha. (russian players so hot.)

I like naming things.


Thus concludes the taking stock of life. I'm tired.

Oh yea, this is me playing with my toys.







I'm out of here.