Thursday 14 March 2013

Team Xtreme Vega RB5 . . . Don't mind if I do.

Well I couldn't resit it.
It's a Team Xtreme Kyosho RB5 based Vega.

I have lusted after one of these for some time and when this little beauty cropped up for sale recently my heart got the better of my head, not to mention my wallet.

For those that don't know, the Vega is a  kit, comprising a number of tasty carbon and machined alloy parts to convert the rear motored Kyosho RB5 into a mid motored weapon capable, in the right hands, of running right at the sharp end.


Monday 11 March 2013

Hobao Hyper H2 . . A morning at TORCH

Upon awakening I was initially frightened by the huge fireball in the sky, I quickly realised however that it was my long lost friend the sun.

Without further ado I packed up the Hobao along with the rest of my kit and set off for TORCH.

It was a low key morning club meeting so not likely to be overly busy, the perfect opportunity to give the H2 a shakedown.
 The upside of these meetings is that there is plenty of track time, usually 5 heats and a final, the downside is that there is very little time to make changes to the car, in fact there is barely time to charge cells.

I was going to enjoy myself nevertheless.




I had kind of guessed at a set up and knew I would have no opportunity to make drastic changes.
It turned out I wasn't a million miles away as the car felt pretty good from the off.

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Hobao Hyper H2 . . Electrics Install

For the electrics in the H2 I resorted to some familiar components.

The Hobbywing V2 speedo is a great favourite of mine, HW have been really good at updating the software for this unit so it remains competitive and is easy peasy to programme track-side via the digital program box.
Sweet!

I am using a full size 2s pack in the H2 so there is no choice in mounting location, it goes on the hinged battery plate. I was a little worried that with the fan fitted it might foul the body shell. I needn't have as there is plenty of room.

Depending on the brand stubby users may be able to squeeze in the esc on the chassis behind the servo. 

I used some snazzy blue wire to hook this up to an LRP X12 8.5t motor which, with modern software, should suffice for most tracks. It's a clear run so was quite straightforward.


Friday 1 March 2013

Hobao Hyper H2 Build . . Part 2

So I am back in the shed to complete the build. it's bloomin' freezing so my little fan heater is working overtime!

The H2 comes with all the parts to build the car in mid or rear motor formats, I have chosen to build my car as mid motor as I will be racing primarily on astro. 
(If you decide on the rear motor configuration some of the following will still apply but keep an eye on the manual.)

At this point the H2 offers something a little different from the norm in the shape of a hinged battery retaining system. 
Tip: It is possible to use either full size or stubby type cells in the car, the small L shaped retaining piece can be fitted to the forward or rearward pair of holes in the top plate depending on your choice.

The hinged top plate also acts as the mounting plate for the electrics, this can be seen in the electrics install blog post.


I assembled mine to accept a full size 2s pack.


From this point onwards a little 'interpretation' of the manual is required, hopefully the following will help with  your build decisions.