R/C Tips & Tricks
General
- Boy, What I Could Do With A Third Hand
Ever think to yourself, "boy, what I could do with a third hand"? Sure you have. Well wonder no
longer. Turn any pair pliers into a vice with the use of a simple rubber band. Wrap the band a couple
times around the handle of the pliers. You can then insert whatever it is you want to hold in the pliers
grip. This tip comes in especially useful when solder plugs and things.
- Unconventional Toolbox Essentials
These are just a few items you may not have thought would be a toolbox must.
- Band-Aids: Keep a couple of these handy. You never know when you’ll have a hobby knife
accident or gas car burn. This is an item that, when you need it, you really need it.
- Handy Wipes: Yup, you know, those little towels used to keep a baby’s bottom clean. Well those
little gems work great for cleaning bodies, hands, tires, or just about anything else that happens
to get dirty or dusty.
- Compressed Air: You don’t need a huge air compressor, just a small can of compressed air.
Found at your local computer store, this essential can help keep things running smooth and
quiet. As long as you don’t go crazy with this stuff, one can will keep you satisfied for at least a
few months of racing. Use it for cleaning out your ESC, receiver, connectors, diff, bearings,
switches, radio, charger, etc. Be careful not spray when the can is on its side or upside down.
The gas may come out in liquid form and can damage your components.
- Your car’s instruction manual: Always keep a copy handy. You never know when you’ll have a
question about diff assembly or shock rebuilding. Also, since many instruction manuals list part
numbers, finding the right part at the hobby shop will be much easier.
- Removing Servo Tape
Don’t get sore thumbs from trying to remove old servo tape by rubbing it off, or make a huge gooey
mess by using motor cleaner. Instead, grab a heat gun or hair dryer and heat up the servo tape.
Remove the servo, ESC, or receiver. Apply the heat to the tape residue. Be careful not to melt
anything. Once the tape has softened, it should come off easily.
- Tool Tune-up
Do you use a Dremel Motor-tool or something similar? If so, you’ve probably noticed its performance
and speed wind down a bit the more you use it. You can breathe new life into your Dremel with a
couple of quick tips. First, remove and clean the brushes. That’s right, brushes. Just like the motor in
your car, your Dremel tool uses brushes as well. Remove the brushes by unscrewing the brush caps.
- Clean the brushes with a smooth cloth or brush-cleaning tool.
- Spray the comm down with some good, plastic-safe motor cleaner.
- Using a comm cleaner, clean the comm of the tool through the brush holes.
- Last but not least, add a drop of a high quality comm drops to each brush face.
- Don’t re-oil the bearings without first consulting your tool’s owners’ manual. Some Dremel
tools use sealed bearings with high viscosity grease. Using a lighter weight bearing lubricant
may dilute the grease in your tool’s bearings and not provide proper lubrication.
After you’ve performed these little tips you’re ready to get back to work. This kind of maintenance
may void the warranty of some tools. Be sure to check your warranty before performing any of these
steps.
- Stay Fresh
You get to the track and your on/off switch has come loose, so you dig into your toolbox only to find a
dried out bottle of glue. Prevent your CA from drying out by putting it in a zip-tight baggy with a Silica
keep-dry packet. This will help keep that bottle of glue nice and moist for those unexpected
moments. This will also help keep it fresher longer which will save you money since you’ll be able to
buy the larger bottle of glue next time you’re at the hobby shop. Novak sells Silica gel desiccant bags
( part #5610).
- KIT BUILDING - Mouldings
Mouldings - Make sure to trim any excess moulding off of any plastic piece. This will prevent bad
fittings and bindings between parts
- Stripped Screw Threads
If you stripped out a hole, place a small copper wire in it when you put the screw in. This will make
the fit much tighter and the screw will stay in place. Make sure you use copper wire because it is
softer than the screw. This way it won’t strip the screw.
- Worn Allen Wrench
If your stock allen wrench strips, put it in a vice and use the Dremel to chop the end off to get a fresh
tip!
- Stripped Screw Heads 1
If you strip out a screw end, solder a wrench to it to get it out.
- Stripped Screw Heads 2
If you strip out a screw end, take a rotary tool (Dremel) and cut a slot in it. Then, take the screw out
with a straight blade screwdriver.
- Don’t Throw It Away
NEVER THROW AWAY ANYTHING! You’ll never know when an extra part could be salvaged from a
broken one!
- Removing E-Clips
Use a small flathead screwdriver to remove E-Clips.
- Clean Pit Area
Keep your pit area neat and tidy. Take a foam block and stick your tools in it. To keep it from tipping,
glue it to a wood block as a base.
- Stripped Allen Head Screws
Take a Dremel and cut a slot in the top of stripped out allen head screws. Now you have
straightblade screwdriver head screws.
- Track Markers
If you need some cheap track markers go to the hardware store and buy some of those little orange
flags for marking underground cables. They work great because your car won’t break or stop if it hits
them.
- Small Storage
Use old fishing weight containers to hold small parts.
- Pro Tip
This tip comes to us from Trinity’s David Spashett.
Make a checklist of things to do between heats (e.g., apply traction compound, charge batteries, etc.)
at a race and an order in which to do them. Tape the list to the inside of your pit box or to the top of
your charger - somewhere you will see it often. This will help you make sure that you get everything
done before each race and that you do them at the same time round after round.
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