another A-stamp gold pan wants to go brushless

[pcrussell50]

Another 40-something dude with a gold pan that's been sitting in a box for 20 years... 

Mine's an '88, A-stamp, original narrow suspension and ball diff.  A couple of years ago I got a stealth, but have not drilled my A-pan. 

Wanting to go brushless and use it as a basher, not a racer.  I'm not power hungry at all.  At. All.  I just like the clean simplicity of brushless, since I got a brushless rc airplane.  I'll get a 20turn motor if that's best for basic reliable fun.

Reading similar, "I' want to convert my gold pan into a brushless basher" threads, there is a movement of recommendations for hobbyking and hobbypartz, and since you guys recommended it, I'm down with it too. 

Anyhow, even though I have -some- brushless experience with my plane, I am not qualified to pick out a battery,  motor and speed controller that are compatible with each other, so I'm asking for your help picking out a set that matches. 

I'm sure i will have a ton of other questions.  Thanks. 

-Pete

[RC104ever]

Hi Pete, welcome! For brushless I have a Castle Mamba Max Pro and 4600 kv with a Gens Ace 5000 mah lipo. It's geared with a 23 t pinion and 78 t spur. This is with a stealth tranny. I would say out of all the things I upgraded, the lipo was the best value. It's cheap, and gives the best continuous power. Gens Ace also is very inexpensive. I also have the Fly sky GT3B radio which is great and very cheap too.

My advice is to shop around and read a lot!

[jwscab]

not sure how much you want to spend, and I have not much experience with ground vehicle brushless, but the associated system that comes in the RTR sc10 and b4, etc looks like a decent middle of the road, takeout systems on ebay are around 90 bucks.

such as this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Associated-Reedy-3300kV-Brushless-Motor-W-SC700-BL-ESC-/230701374749?pt=Radio_Control_Parts_Accessories&hash=item35b6df9d1d

benefit there is you have a little bit of factory support should something go awry vs some of the far east suppliers.

then you need a 2s lipo or it will run on pretty much any battery that you already have. there are some really nice values in LIPO batterys, but you need to get a charger. Not sure how involved you are in the details of the plane (if it's rtr and came with its own charger), but if you know a little bit about it, you should have no problem.

post up more questions as you read and get them, more than happy to help you out! welcome to rc10talk!

[pcrussell50]

thanks for the responses and open offers for help, guys. JW, I like what I'm seeing in that eBay ad. I may toss in a bid for it. in that case, is there any guidance you can give me as to what specs to look for in a lipo? my airplane uses a 2s, and my balancing charger will handle 2s AND 3s batteries, so it's pretty much down to me needing to know what characteristics to look for in a battery, (or two).

-pete

[jwscab]

for a land vehicle, you want a hard pack, that's good you have experience with LIPO's; where an aircraft benefits from having a softpack for weight consideration, the ground based vehicles benefit from a tougher cell housing for rough and tumble. Sure, you can run the soft packs, but they are more easily damaged in this scenario.

anyway, you should only require 2s packs, in as big a capacity as you are comfortable buying. 2500mAh and up is normal, you should be familiar with 'C' rating, so anything that will give you 60 amps or so on up.

lots of places to find packs, I picked up a turnigy pack, from hobbycity, tons of other places on the net. a search on lipo here should give you good results.

here is recent thread with some decent info;
http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=24032&hilit=lipo

one thing to watch, the lipo's can vary quite a bit on overall size, so the ones I think in that link are very close in size to a sub C pack and would not require much to install.

[longboardnj]

the associated system that comes in the RTR sc10 and b4

thats what i was goin to say.....

run full bearings that means bearings on outdrives too..

if you want to run lipo id only run a 2 cell max

[pcrussell50]

thanks for the tips so far... here comes another question:

this is an original, narrow suspension version, and on one of the threaded rod, upper control arms  the socket is loose and pops off the ball too easily.  I suppose I need new ball sockets... unless i can (carefully) shrink it with a little heat?

-Pete

[jwscab]

heat might make things worse. your best bet is new ball cups. the original natural nylon color has been discontinued for quite a few years now. you can find them here and there, but if you are not concerned about the originality, you can pick up brand new black ones from many places, tower hobbies being one, maybe even a local hobby shop.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LX2549&P=7

[pcrussell50]

perfect, thanks. I don't need to have white ball cups. black is fine with me, just to get me going again.

say, why is it that it seems like old A-stamp pans like mine go for more money than B-stamp pans, when the B pans are already drilled for the more desirable, stealth tranny? seems like it should be the other way around. of course I want a B-stamp now because I won a stealth off eBay a couple of years ago and I need a B-stamp to use it.

-peter

[pcrussell50]

Hi Pete, welcome! For brushless I have a Castle Mamba Max Pro and 4600 kv with a Gens Ace 5000 mah lipo. It's geared with a 23 t pinion and 78 t spur. This is with a stealth tranny. I would say out of all the things I upgraded, the lipo was the best value. It's cheap, and gives the best continuous power. Gens Ace also is very inexpensive. I also have the Fly sky GT3B radio which is great and very cheap too.

My advice is to shop around and read a lot!

sweet. i have a castle on my brushless rc airplane. it has given me trouble free service for the last 3 years.

i want to ask you about the flysky gt3b you have. i _was_ going to reuse my 20 year old airtronics tx/rx/servo, but i ran over the transmitter in my garage and smashed it to bits. so now on your advice (and a few others), the flysky gt3b sounds like the thing to get. so it doesn't come with a servo for steering... there are flysky servos over at hobbypartz.com but i couldn't begin to know how to pick out the right one. any help? or can i just keep using my airtronics servo with an adapter plug?

thanks again.

-pete

[klavy69]

use your servo if you don't want to spend the $ on a new one now. You should have no problem using an airtronics with this radio...
Todd

[pcrussell50]

guys, how well do you think this battery:
http://www.hobbypartz.com/98p-25c-4000-2s1p-hardcase.html

would match up to the stock 3300kV reedy that comes with the brushless rc10?

-peter

[RC104ever]

Peter, that battery would be fine but I would say go for the 5000 mah version instead. Its a hard case lipo and fits the RC10 chassis by either using posts and thumb screws or cutting the front of the battery tray out.

I have 2 Gens Ace batteries for it and they are perfect, great batteries with no issues.

As for the Fly Sky - the thing I figured was for $35, even if it sucks, I could use it as a basher radio (which is all I do anyways). Well, it works great and binds with no issues at all. The only real downsides are the lack of trim (easily fixed with a software mod), and the number of batteries it takes (also can be modded to accept a lipo pack). The receivers are incredibly small - and I have no issues with range at all.

EDIT: Here is a link to the mods that can be done to the radio. There is also a link to one guy that sells them pre modded to your liking.

http://www.rctech.net/forum/9145387-post1474.html

[pcrussell50]

Resurrecting this thread from the dead.... or at least from two years ago....

quick summary: late-40's dad. full ball bearing, A-stamp rc10 been sitting on shelf for last 20 years, what else is new? not a total newb to brushless, since i have a brushless airplane and helicopter and lipo charging gear and such. so i bought off ebay an AE takeoff brushless motor and speed control and the skyfly gt3b radio everyone is raving about. got that stuff all set up and installed...

....and i bought a stealth tranny... but...
So it looks like i bought the wrong kind of stealth transmission. didn't know they came with different cases. It came with a blue anodized frame on it that makes me think it was not from an rc10 but rather something else an only two mounting holes on the base. the case is black. might have been off of something called a B4... whatever that is.

sooo... where to go from here regarding stealth tranny for rc10? can i buy an rc10 case and retrofit the guts of the tranny i have? advice? suggestions? would you drill an A-stamp pan? or buy a B-stamp?

-peter

[teman]

To drill or not to drill is your call, personally I just grabbed a b-stamp so I could run a stealth car.

I think you bought a newer 2.60:1 stealth, you would want the older 2.25:1 stealth. You won't be able to retrofit the new gears in an old case.
This is a 2.25 with an early white case, the later 2.25's that were molded like this had a black case.