Switching from “Tamiya to Deans” Connectors

WARNING : Don’t attempt soldering unless you know what you’re doing or are being supervised by someone who does. We won’t accept any responsibility if stuff goes wrong or if you hurt yourself.

Following a series of complications caused by the high current trying to flow through the Tamiya connectors (the older they are the worse the problems get) we decided to make the “leap” and move onto Deans T type connectors.

  •  <– Tamiya Type Connector

     <– Deans Connectors

They’re really rather inexpensive to buy (for example: in sets of 5 males and 5 females plugs) All that needs to happen is a little soldering:

A set of “soldering helping hands” are really rather precious for this type of work as they also allow for the two bare battery leads to be kept nicely apart.

Given the opportunity we’ve also made some Tamiya-to-Deans adapters so that we could still keep swapping between Newer and Older ESCs and, if necessary, swap batteries around. More importantly, our old Battery Charger had Tamiya-Connectors and it felt wrong to change it.

Here are the results:

All recently purchased LIPO batteries and ESCs came fitted with Deans connectors and we’re pretty sure we’ll never need to change to any other type. They just feel real sturdy and trustworthy.

In all honesty, fitting the NiHm 1800 battery with Deans seems, in retrospect, a bit of a waste of time.. but it’s done; so let’s pretend that it’s nice to know that those precious 120 seconds of run time are flowing through Deans!

Thanks for watching.

A.

MiniCoop @LMCC – Aug/Sept 2011

A couple of pictures of our MiniCoop @ LMCC… why not ?

 

From memory, the big foam tyres gave a lot of grip (too much grip in fact) but the small Fiat 500 wheels (with Tamiya Kit Stock Tyres) are the ones that hold the track record.

Stay tuned for more MiniCoop action soon!

A.

Our Cute Little MiniCoop (M03s)

The summer of 2011 really re-kick-started the whole TeamVebra concept, it felt right to add a shell to our Fleet and … in came the MiniCoop !

It has proven to be the most fun to drive, countless laps at the LMCC !

  • BEST LAP 32.3 Seconds on Sept 3rd 2011 – Driver Astoria
  • Clash 15T – Full Ball Bearings – Friction Dampers – NiMh 3300

Rumour has it that it’s Claris’ favourite Car! Stay tuned to see more of MiniCoop in the weeks/Months to come.

A.

Cleaning a good old Brushed Motor Dr. Speed 12T

How did people learn anything new before the days of YouTube ?

After watching How to Clean a brushed Motor (on YouTube) using a simple power drill, a   piece of sandpaper, and some “time”. I did my best to clean out our old but mighty Dr. Speed.

The opportunity also helped us determine that it is indeed a 12T motor.

Used a piece of sand paper and an electric drill to polish off the commutator: (see you tube videos for a full walk-through)

nice and shiny and it’s been working pretty great since !

Thanks for watching

A.

MiniKast @LMCC – July/Aug 2011

It’s only fair to show you some MiniKast @LMCC pictures as well.

Notice the bad white roof coming off in July and removed fully by August 2011. The MiniKast has been resting a little bit in the recent days (but so have we) She’ll be back out this Spring/Summer and, who knows, she might just surprise us still!

A.

FocusWRC @LMCC – July/Aug 2011

Well, we’re on a roll here and posting @LMCC of all our body shells. This is our mighty 4×4 Focus WRC 2002. (TL01)

For the record, that wheel did fall off whilst racing and any attempt at using the Foam tyres with friction dampers and a high ride resulted in countless grass barreling excursions :)

Notice how it had fewer decals back then… it’s a lot more “rally” now.

A.

Our mighty 4wd TL01 – Ford Focus WRC

Another “veteran” of TeamVebra, our beatifully sturdy TL01 – dating back to approx 2002/2003 it’s seen some of the worst tumbles and always kept coming back for more.

It holds the TeamVebra’s record to Date

  • BEST LAP 29.83Sec on February 26th 2012 – Driver: Astoria
  • Brushless Etronix 10T – Full BB – CVA Oil Dampers – Lipo

We’re pretty confident that the time can come down considerably on a drier track (and once we’ve had more practice)

Special Thanks to Marcel at LMCC who kindly donated the Slick-Racing Wheels (pictured above)

Thanks for watching

A.

M03L – Faithful MiniKast ! (the ‘veteran’)

The car that started it all for us was the M03L, New BMW Mini. Yes, Yes, Yes… we know that people out there were driving M01′s and have been in the RC Scene for decades….. but for TeamVebra.. this is the Car.

It’s been with us since approx 2001, so it would be difficult to summarise all of its adventures; we had the day it went up in smoke, the time it barreled across most of Batiself’s carpark and it chewed more gears than we care to remember….

Our Forum wouldn’t be complete without a Post on our mighty MiniKast :)

she’s showing some wear and tear but she’s still up for some good RC fun :)

A.