Krelubot

Just ordered a bunch of parts to upgrade my new photon.
Going to have one tricked out photon when it all arrives.
And some spur gears. Ground through the teeth of two of them within 15 minutes of opening the box.
Seems like the metal "pinion?" gear really tears into the plastic Spur gear.
Also had to reverse the battery springs in the transmitter before it would turn on.
N and R on the transmitter had me confused as to what they meant and lots of throttle trim usage too.
Otherwise it will go in reverse in idle.
Any tips on making these spur gears last longer?
I may have posted this in another area the other day and they mentioned making sure the gears meshed and there was no binding. It had a nice tight fit, but things appeared to spin around without any problems.
Heard mention of placing paper between the the two to get the right spacing, is this correct?
If so, do I loosen the motor mount to add space? Not real sure about this procedure.
My LHS told me this was a common problem and ordered more spur gears, but surely they are supposed to last longer than this.

And what about this USB cable for upgrades? Is it worth it/important?

NICE and zippy. Since this is my first electric, I was hoping for a little less maintanance than my nitro models.

thanks

Mindcrime

Krelubot,
You are correct, the gear should not be wearing out that fast unless the gear mesh is wrong.

The N and R are for normal and Reverse, differnt types of cars may need the radio to operate in normal mode, while other may need it to run in reverse mode..

Please explain what you mean by "had to reverse the springs in the radio"?

The Paper trick is something I do not personaly use, however it may be helpful, the gear mesh should not be too tight, there needs to be a small amount of "play" between the gears, but not too much or it will damage the gears even faster.

The gear mesh can be set by loosening the top screw that hold the motor to the mount, you will be able to move the motor in or out.

You should not be having to use the trim settings on the throttle, only steering, did you calibrate the system like the instructions say to? this should be done before you operate the car for the first time.

The USB cable is a very nice piece to have.

What local hobby shop do you go to?

Krelubot

Wow!
Nice and helpful. Thank you!
It is Hobbytown in Tallahassee, FL.
The employees there seemed fairly knowledgable, but honestly thought the motor might be too powerful for the car and that might be the problem with the gears stripping.
The transmitter that holds the batteries is what I had to reverse the springs in.
Pretty simple really. In everyother battery operated device I have seen that put batteries in a series, the negative end of the battery is pressed up with the the springy end, and the positive end is pushed into the flat end. The batteries are in the right direction, but the way the springs were in before I reversed them(all three of them), the negative end would not have made contact.
I was trying to calibrate the system, when my first gear striped.
I finished calibrating it after it was striped before I changed the first spur gear.
Now I am waiting for either my LHS to get some in, or my order from IRC to arrive so I can try again.

Mindcrime

How did you strip the gear while calibrating? the car should never move during the calibration...

Krelubot

I was having problems with it recognizing when I was pressing the brake(pushing out on the trigger). The red light kept on blinking after recognizing that I had calibrated the full throttle.
Repeated presses of throttle in reverse did nothing.
I assume that when the manual mentions brake, it really means reverse? Never really recognized the brake calibration, so I couldn't calibrate neutral either. I tried to turn it off with the switch and
the car got away from me and the motor was spinning really fast. I thought I had finished because after I picked up the car when it got away, the motor seemed to be spinning in the right direction when told to go forward or reverse. Let me know if I did something wrong here. I didn't drop it, it just bucked and sped away REALLY fast, then clanked and stopped moving. Steering works good.

Krelubot

Excellent service from an excellent company.
Thank you!!

ruggerjames

I have a brand new photon that sound like something is slipping badly when going forward. It appears to work fine in reverse. After calibrating, it ran fine at full speed for a minute or so then started slipping. I say slipping because I can hear the motor racing at full throttle but with the weight of the vehicle on the wheels it barely moves forward.

I am assuming that the motor is just run in reverse for reverse and is geared directly like forward. When the car is held with the wheels off the ground the seem to spin at full throttle. (enough to make them grow in circumference.)

Are the front and rear diffs just spools or open differentials? They appear to be open diffs

Has anyone ever seen this or know what I can do to fix it?

Krelubot

That was close to my problem. I took the car to the LHS where I bought it and they said the spur gear had been stripped.
I finally figured out the problem with mine after 3 dead gears and 1 just starting to go.
The screw used to adjust the motor on the mount was loose.
Probably happened during shipment or something I guess.
Anyways, after tightening it (and making sure it was seated with the pinion gear correctly), it hasn't happened again and I am going expremely fast. *
* Bad news is that I crashed into a landscape brick going too FAST and am now waiting for a replacement chasis, front differentail, and various plastic mounts around it. The new aluminum suspension parts I installed were spared damage. Be careful when you get it going.

Finally got it calibrated also with a 3rd set of fresh batteries.