Topic: Ta02sn (RC car conversion)
Hi everyone,
Thought I'd share a project I am currently working on.
I have an (unhealthy) obsession with RC cars, and have always wanted to build my own from scratch. To test the waters a bit with this, I decided to take an old car of mine and shorten and narrow it. The donor car is a Tamiya TA02 (http://www.tamiyausa.com/images/product … ader_1.jpg) and change it to the same size as an m chassis (http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/ … ro/top.jpg). The ta02 is fairly modular, and a lot of parts from the m chassis cars fit onto the ta02 without any issues. The biggest hurdle is changing the chassis over to a ~45mm shorter version while still shoehorning the same gear into it.
I started this project quite a while ago, but stopped for a few reasons. Back then I put together all of the parts to make the width correct, and started making some alu plates for the chassis, but without machines (and the skills required) I couldn't ever quite get it right. I have started up the project again, this time I am printing out the main chassis. I am not super concerned about how durable it is, if I was I would have bought an m05 a while back, it is more to say I have done it.
The whole reason I started this was because of this page: http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_mode … mp;id=4190
Prior to seeing that, I had put any major mods in the too hard basket. I have taken hondabikers name of the ta02sn (short and narrow) as in the end, the end product should be similar.
So far I have;
Narrowed the wheel track. - for this I bought the appropriate parts for the m03 and bolted them on. I had to build a new front shock tower which I made about a year back out of alu plate.
Built the main chassis (replacing the black tub in the photo above) - this took a lot of messing around with my calipers measuring locations and dimensions of posts. I started off by making the front and rear ends in OpenSCAD, testing for fit. Once I had this down pat, I stuck all the parts together with a very minimal mid frame to check to see how it all goes together. I found I was about 3mm out on my wheelbase, and I'd really struggle to fit the servo for steering in. I fixed the parts that needed attention, added some supports and structure around for rigidity and reprinted.
Built the radio plate - this will hold the radio and the electronic speed control. I originally made up a square plate, but after having trouble trying to fit the servo in, I have redesigned the plate to include a mount for this. The new version is printing as we speak.
Built the battery holder plate - there is a small bit of plastic that bridges over the battery that has holes for a peg to stop the battery from sliding out. I have printed a rectangular plate that didn't quite do the job, it was too wide and there was a fair bit of slop in the peg. I have redesigned it to be a bit thicker and have tightened up some of the tolerances I had around the battery so that it fits inside the body properly. This is printing out too.
Designed a replacement steering arm - unfirtunately over many years if use, one if the steering arms has given out and I have to replace it. I replicated the design as much as possible and will test it out after the other two plates are done.
Todo:
Test servo mounting
Test replacement steering arm
Assemble steering
Print replacement rear body tower - I bought a rover mini shell and the posts just don't make the height.
Mount electronics
Paint shell
That's enough of a story today. I will post some pictures of what I hack done so far in the morning. I have set up a time lapse camera on my printer, so if anyone is interested ill post up a video of the parts printing to YouTube.
So far I am super happy with the results I am getting. I'm not sure if there are any other rc folk on here, but if there are you'd know these cars can take a beating. It'll be interesting to see how well the parts stand up to a beating. If they break, no biggie, it means I have achieved my goal 
