Dnano project

Rallyp,

that's outstanding! I read your statement saying you would give the dNano cars a try on a "slot-like" course. I waited with anticipation for the announced thread

So now here you are with two vids already. I see a lot of thoughts have gone into that. Nice layout and well done. I agree on the the challenges you see, but I think they should be manageable.

It would be great if your tests and developments show, this was possible. My son does drive 1:10 RC cars in competitions which is lots of fun to him. So we once tried (cheap) 1:43 RC cars on our Ninco track (track width including shoulders: 30 cm). This was quite a no-go as the steering was too aggressive and we did not manage to control the cars as we should....

I would assume the Kyosho cars are much better and I see you really did some nice laps. I am looking forward how this emerges.

You state that you are not on to speed but after a more realistic way of driving. Even on RC there are some guys that are not on to speed but on to drift action.

They just use very hard (in fact, it feels like plastic) tyres on 4WD(!) cars. The tires are so hard, you can even drift on asphalt

May be that's a way to go:


another video:


Keep the posts coming, it's just great.

Thanks,
Diegu

One more video, done 1/2 hour later, still a beginner but getting better.


I have to say that driving these dnanos is lots fun and challenging in the good way. I feel like I am learning how to drive and getting better which is satisfying. It is definitely possible to drive at these scales. The track width is 22.5cm on the wider parts and 17.5cm on the narrower parts (actually 16cm at some points).

This could be initial enthusiasm but I think Kyosho has product here that could go in a new direction in the rc world, realistic driving in hometracks.
I have some easy suggestions for Kyosho to make this easier to achieve. Motors with less rpm and more torque, wider steering and the transmitter (controller) with 3 special pre-assign curves for hometracks. As it is see below and later posts for more detail comments .

Is rallying possible? Well here at this stage I think is quite difficult because the cars are not engineered that way. The biggest
obstacle is the maximum degree the wheels can turn, it is not enough for tight hairpins. It is possible that one could do some fancy
forced sliding, but that would be raising the bar maybe a bit too high (I will try to see what can be done). The motor also seems to not have enough torque for big climbs, but maybe with change of gears one can address that. Rallying with large radius curves that is possible, I do know know yet about controlled sliding.

What about Le Mans style driving? Totally doable. I am curious to do a race, I think with many cars on a track this wide it could get messy, but I am just speculating. It would be essential that all the drivers are good and know the track, this is not friendly to beginners.

Two cars with drivers like me (beginner but focused) it would be a blast after 1-2 hours of getting acquainted with the track. This is raising the driving experience a few notches above slot racing.

More comments later.

QUOTE (diegu @ 23 Jan 2011, 14:36) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Rallyp,

that's outstanding! I read your statement saying you would give the dNano cars a try on a "slot-like" course. I waited with anticipation for the announced thread So now here you are with two vids already. I see a lot of thoughts have gone into that. Nice layout and well done. I agree on the the challenges yosee, but I think they should be manageable.

It would be great if your tests and developments show, this was possible. My son does drive 1:10 RC cars in competitions which is lots of fun to him. So we once tried (cheap) 1:43 RC cars on our Ninco track (track width including shoulders: 30 cm). This was quite a no-go as the steering was too aggressive and we did not manage to control the cars as we should....

I would assume the Kyosho cars are much better and I see you really did some nice laps. I am looking forward how this emerges.
Keep the posts coming, it's just great.

Thanks,
Diegu

Thanks, Diegu. I also once got a tiny rc car from toys r us but there isn't any possible comparision in terms of control, with dnano cars you have progressive
throtle and better steering (even more so if one gets a transmitter with adaptable curves). About being possible to do rc racing on 30cm wide
tracks I am certain that it is since even for the rc speed people there is a track from RCP that is 30cm wide. For me those tracks leave me cold, totally abstract, no nuances and the cars drive in them like a a rat in a labirynth. I have seen that RCP has now 45degree curves so maybe one could create a bit more interesting tracks but 30cm wide plus edges then you can't do interesting tracks on small spaces. My track is as said above 22.5cm or 17.5cm wide and still totally drivable at lower speeds (these will be the spped where one can actually have fine control of the car).

QUOTE (Lloyd.L @ 23 Jan 2011, 15:48) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Oh dear rallyP, you have definitely put the cat among the pigeons with those videos, I am only grateful for the two main drawbacks that prevent me filling in the slots on Little Monte and going this route.

1/ The cost, these are seriously out of my price range.
2/ I cant see that it would be possible to slide the tail out to negotiate very tight, and narrow, hairpin bends.

One other negative is that I would miss my recently found friends in the slot hobby and on the forums! I do see the possibility of Dnano rallying from what you have shown here.

Regards, Lloyd

I hear you Loyd, on the slot friends, it seems to be a much more interesting crowd (more diverse). You have the right intuition about rallying, as it is now it
difficult not clear if not possible.
Pricewise, well what you see in the videos cost me $240 (140$ car plus Starter pack 100$(transmitter, battery for car and charger)). It is expensive but not crazy expensive, unless you want to have a huge collection of cars with chassis, then yes. For the bodies you could potentially put the ones you make with resin.

Maybe I am lucky that pure rallying is difficult to achieve but the other driving is not, then I will have slots for rallying and dnano for circuit racing. I plan to do, not now maybe in May, a larger track with mild elevations, maybe a track in the spirit of the Tour de France, country road driving (the mix of rally and circuit racing).

QUOTE (loosesalute @ 23 Jan 2011, 16:18) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Fantastic post RallyP..always nice to see something different..have I seen similar in ho/oo scale, or did I dream that?
Cheers
Kev

Thanks, Kev. It is a lot of fun. I feel that this might work quite well. I need to just see how it keeps evolving.

Having been into R/C for several years on a couple different occasions I can back up your thought about the R/C crowd being all about speed! And it is a totally different experience then slots and even more so then you might think! As a person who came to slots from R/C I was kinda surprised and perplexed by people building cars "like the one that Gurney drove at some such race" What?? where they there?? NO?? So how do they know what his car looked like??? I was totally mistified at first, but I thought it was cool! When I raced R/C some guys knew what the different models of cars were, but being young I just went with what looked good to me which more often then not was Porsches! BUT, as I said, I knew nothings of Vic Elford or Derek Bell or Gulf liveried cars!! I just painted them the way I liked and that was it!! Most of the guys I raced with did the same! I think it has changed a little in R/C and there are a few more true Cars/ racing enthusiats, but it is pretty much a world unto itself.

Another aspect of R/C that I encountered, that I have not seen too much of in slots is egotistical Buttheads! And yes it CAN be expensive, but in different ways then slots. Most people don't have more then a handful of cars, BUT they can have boxes of parts for those cars!

Rally P before I got into slots I tried doing what you are doing now with Mini-Z's, I just could not find many other people who were interested; it was all 1/10th scale nitro cars!! I can't watch your vid's cause I am @ work, but I am curious to see them when I get home!!

like the way this is going mr p. more realism and infinate variety being what we´re all after...to cast off the chains of the damned slot!....be careful these are heretical words!

Rather surprised to hear about the lack of torque! Although it makes sense, these small cars use very small batteries and a motor with a lot of low end will just spin the tires allot, make the car hard to control and use up valuable battery power! This is where the controller comes in, being able to tune the power band!

So maybe Kyosho is jumping into slots to tempt sloters back into R/C!!!???

You know the one thing is no matter how good they make little R/C cars, the thing I like about slots is being able to sit down flip the switch, put the car on and go! Then I can run for a few minutes or for an hour & a half, changing cars willy nilly and not having to worry about charging batteries! Don't think R/C will ever be able to touch that! Although I can see a tabel top R/C circuit appealing to me in a similar, but different way. Strictly for racing it could be the way to go, that environment where you run 10 to 15 minute heats is just fine for a car that needs to recharge!

Sig, I do feel the fear of being excommunicated, I wonder how long can I mention rc before being caught. As a driving experience it is more rich (no two laps are the same). Building tracks without the slot is a blessing. I really wonder if this is not really it. I need to see two people going at it and see if the presence of the other driver makes you not capable to focus on doing a competent steering. For a single driver the dnano works very well.

My plan is to build a good scenic track and then create the splash, by then the dnano will not be a novelty for me and I will feel more secure about its pluses and minuses.

Masmojo, the low torque happens at low throttle which gives the manageable velocities. I am still a beginner so I might be missing things. The good thing about low speeds (i.e. true scale speeds at scale 1/43) is that the battery will last enough time not to be frustrating. Each battery cost 20$ so one could have spares.

I have an unrelated/related question for you, what is the usual weight of a resin shell for 1/43?

Lets take the idea step further,

My background is 1:10 nitro but mostly Mini-z racing competitively. I help 2nd place in 2004 (when mini-z where really hot) in the kyosho cup in South Florida. - What a fun race.
while most racer are not help on RCP track which is relatively wide, our track was about 3 mini-z width. Very technical. You really had to drive.

I do have a dnano, and they are just as fast as mini-z and unfortunately require a good amount of space to race.

this is the track we used to race mini-z at. take a look at the proportions:





Additionally, I designed a dnano track, I plotted it on large architectural paper and I drover on it to test. It worked great.
I will see if I find the plans and show you.

For everyone else, this what a dnano chassis looks like on scalextic track.



Ideally, what I wish to do is install a guide to the dnano and drive it like a slot car with the 2.4 transmitter.

^ my track design for 1:28 / 1:43 r/c © absolutecg.com

how difficult would it be to decrease the turning circle?, a few tweaks with the steering servo?...surely doable, then all these fat roads can be a thing of the past

QUOTE (sig @ 27 Jan 2011, 09:33) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>how difficult would it be to decrease the turning circle?, a few tweaks with the steering servo?...surely doable, then all these fat roads can be a thing of the past

Well, It's not quite that simple, The steering servo is not the real problem. The problem is the front tires most likely don't offer enough grip (depending on the surface) to turn that tightly and the car will have tons of push in the turns. That's the reason the cars in the high speed video's are turning in big arc's! They are probably turning as hard as they can, the speed of the car is carrying it out!

Most indoor R/C tracks use a special carpet that does not build up static!, it offers much more grip and is quieter then a hard surface.

RallyP, I watched the vid's last night and Hmmm . . I don't know?? Something was missing for me I am o.K. with a slower speed, but at that speed it did not seem like much fun! More speed in the straights and slowing more for the turns might do the trick?? Have you tried it on the full speed setting just to see what she would do?? Is there a medium speed!?

Sig, the reason for the wide tracks shown by Profoxcq is beacuse they want to go at full speed (maybe not full speed with those curves but very high), for me it does not make sense to go at that speed with the dnanos. For that one has the Mini Z, which are easier to control and higher speeds are more reasonable scalewise.

I think the dnanos are a bit wasted in the RC crowed which does not understand (does not care is perhaps more accurate) the dnano potential which is realistic driving in hometracks. That can't be done with the MiniZ 1/28, it would simply require a huge track to have any realism. I think the move from Kyosho to the slot cars is very smart in that direction because we care about realism.

Masmojo, I do agree that for someone with an rc background, the speed in the video must look blaa. But those were my initial trials in the track and I am total beginner, I need to do some more recent videos. I am still in the phase also seen in slot beginners in which one is using a constant speed. I am doing the braking of slot cars but it does not work with the rc (I guess one has to move the finger forward). What I am focusing in is controlling the steering which is not trivial. Also to see acceleration and strong braking in this track I think requires very good skills because the track is very small (it is easy for slot cars, because braking is easy and no steering is involved). But I hear you men, I guess now I have higher standards to achieve (gee! I was happy to be able to steer without touching the borders and now I have to do everything with a punch).