Syma Forum

Ok, now I'm experiencing technical difficulties... the car worked perfectly when I packed it up for my friend to take and work on it. Now? Nothing. No front steering, no rear wheels spinning, nothing. I'll have to charge the batteries and try the other remote, then I may have to undo my waterproofing to check the board an antenna. Joy...

Sorry, but we're taking some Enterprise vans and traveling via caravan. Of course, they're all driven by college students, with questionable driving skills. So, if you see 7 white vans swerving to miss parked cars, loaded with college kids, that's probably us. I'll have to keep up to date on the fly-in, although it is doubtful that I could go. Hopefully we'll all be out of the hospital by then, suffering as few broken bones and collapsed spines as possible from the journey. Lol.

Hopefully, if my arms are still intact, I should have some good video this year. I'm bringing my new video camera and tripod, so hopefully I can get some steady shots of the races. (Unlike last year, where we were out in cold weather, after standing in 35 to 40 degree water that was, uhm, just above waist high. That made for some shaky video, not to mention some high pitched commentary.)

Alright, latest update is, not much of an update. I got a new car, ripped out the old board, put in the new, and murdered that mother with silicone. I slapped half of a tube of the stuff in every open crack, crevice, and anything that looked like it would remotely allow water to get in. This car had a even tinier remote, about 5/8 the size of the 107 remote, with really weird plastic pistol grips that look like they should be covered in soft rubber. Since then, it's been quite a while, and now I'll have to hand-off the project to my co-pilot on the project while I go to Annapolis, Maryland for canoe regionals. The canoe this year looks baaaaaaad, and I'll be surprised if there's a badder canoe to compete. The theme is the Army Corps of Engineers, and just think American flags, camo, 'Murica, giant tanks and eagles, and a giant Engineering Castle.

Anyway, the project will be "completed" for my Engineering Design class on Monday with a final presentation, but I have a feeling this one will last a while longer than that.

Things that you need to build anything or do any project the "handyman" way if you have: Duct Tape, a sawzall, wd-40, 2x4's, nails, a crescent wrench, and Spray Foam Insulation. (forget a hammer, the crescent wrench does that too, and has a wrench on the end of your hammer!)

I'm already a bit ahead of you. I took the extra foam trimmings, and packed all of the crevices in the frame with it, then covered the whole thing in my good OD green Duct Tape. It helped add buoyancy and lessen the amount of water in the frame. Plus the duct tape covered many of the seams around the silicone, although apparently not enough. The problem areas were around the battery leads, antenna, and steering servo connector. The connector and antenna were my fault, since i had some in the hole for the antenna, but I think it slipped past, and the connector, well, who'duv guessed that Chinese wire connectors aren't waterproof. DOH!

I think the other thing i have to do is seal the box before attaching the box, so I can get more silicone in every little place water can get through, THEN add the box to it, and seal the box, sticking it into a double sided wall of caulk.

Great news! It floats! It doesn't move, it doesn't turn, it smells like burnt electronics, but it floats!

The hull design is perfect, the problem is that water either A. managed to work its way through the connector to the front steering servo into the board, B. around the silicone at the top of the antenna, C. through the STILL not cured silicone that was supposed to be water ready within 24 hours, or D. all of the above. Either way, it needs a new board. Battery is fine--old analog battery taste--I mean tester proved that--but the motherboard is dead, even after drying. The car worked flawlessly, until it reached a certain point where it stuttered, then stuttered a LOT, and died an unceremonious death. I do not have another 27 MH board, the parts car was AA battery operated at 49 MH, (or whatever the 40-some-odd number is) and need to go get a new board. Fortunately, if anywhere has one, it's hopefully the hobby shop that google maps places at 6 minutes from my school. Yay! But, that's probably more expensive than a new car. Not yay...

I'll keep you tuned in, but I think this may get to be a bit over my head.

"Oh, we're wheel deep in the big muddy, and the big fool yells to throttle on."

EDIT AND UPDATE:

Well, here is some news. The hobby shop on google was closed and out of business, with the backup shop only being open 10-3 on Monday through Thursday. I guess I'll have to go there over lunch tomorrow. Also, upon further inspection of the motherboard, there is apparent water stains around the front connector I did not seal, and around the battery leads, which I did seal. Oddly enough, the silicone turned green around there. Plan of action from here is to visit this shop, and see what I can see. If I can, I'll get some stuff, hopefully since they have a sale advertised, there's some stuff cheap too. If not, I'll just have to man up, buy another car for $30, and water seal the ever living daylights out of its board. And I mean just smother everything in silicone. Not the board itself, but all of the leads, the on/off switch, the connectors, the area around it so the box forms into it after it's laid in, not just smothered around.

Well, first off it's not worth it for this thing. If you're going to buy one from a regular store, (I.e. Walmart or Toys R Us) no matter how expensive it is, it will have the same motor, suspension and same turning issues. New Bright, Majesto, and probably all the others have the same problems. It's not until you get into a couple hundred dollars US that you get ones that don't and would be worth the FPV investment.

Sometime, I'll post an in-depth review of it that I did for youtube. Didn't realize it was as long as it ended up being, but it's very full and covers the entire thing. Then I'll hafta try to edit up and upload the testing videos I have.

Well, I just had a day of strenuous testing of the Interceptor. Ran through some muddy pot holes, over some small left-over snow piles, (not big at all) and through lots of watery mud. Handled it all like a champ... well, a hot dog eating champ at an American football game, but still a champ. When the battery starts getting into its regular voltage, and not the "fresh" voltage, it really shows how little I paid for it. Again, I could have bought one for $50, but it would have the same motors in it, and would have been just as meh.

I do have a question for anybody reading this, however. Is there any entry-level rear end units--i.e. basic gearing and axle units--that anybody knows of for an rc car/truck that I can add a motor to and make work for this thing? The more I use it, the more the poor motor choice shines through, and the stock back assembly just doesn't allow for any improvement without major hacking and gluing, which WILL fail. Thanks!

Ok, well here's the developments so-far. We've gone through, and determined that the best course of action is to take an existing RC truck chassis and modify it into a boat, and determine the most important features of the design. Also, I just got back from the wonderful world of Wally, where I picked up a New Bright Baja Buggy for $30. That eats up most of the budget for the project, since the final to-consumer cost is supposed to be about $30-40. I selected this particular vehicle because it was within the planned price range, it comes with a rechargeable Li-Ion battery, is of decent offroad merit, (Though it has a very low torque motor, which limits it to slow acceleration and it cannot crawl over obstacles unless you get a running start and hit them  with the front tire) and is large enough to mount a sizable boat body onto. There were others that I could have bought for less which could do more offroad, but none have the LiIon battery, which saves money in the long run on batteries, and most were significantly smaller in size.

Some notes on the New Brite Buggy for future reference in case anybody is looking for an RC Dune buggy to purchase for a kid or themselves:

First and foremost: if you post anything on youtube about it, there WILL be people from the dark side of the hobby posting "BUY A REAL ONE!!! THAT'S NOT A REAL RC TRUCK YOU NOOB!!!" and so forth. Considering the fact that if you are spending $30 on an R/C toy, you most likely do not have the thousands to spend on one that those kinds of people want you spending.

Secondly is the car itself. The first thing you'll notice is it's actually quite sturdy feeling. All plastic, no surprise there, but it feels very sturdy. The body is THICK plastic, but yet flexible enough to withstand impact. It has a center unibody frame under the shell, propping it up from the actual frame. Again, decently thick Chinese plastics, and interestingly enough, there are extra mounting loops on the sides where you can tell that it's designed to fit the bigger truck bodies on the same frame. The tires feel super knobby and are decently soft, although they don't have THAT much give to them. Again, to be expected in this price range. There is a giant plastic thingy sticking off the front to catch it from any rocks and stuff, and act as a bumper, but it'll probably just get caught a lot. Guess that's better than banging up on the front suspension, at least, though. Speaking of the suspension, oddly enough, it is SUPER hard. I may see if I can pull the shocks and cut a loop off of the springs or something. With how light the car is, it's almost impossible to get them to give at all. Now, this is kind of a good thing in many ways, but I think that they could use being a little softer, just as long as it's not too soft and doesn't make it sag. The motor/gearbox is mounted directly onto the rear trans-axle assembly, which pivots up/down and has two sprung shocks. Since it's a cheapo, there's no differential, so don't worry about that. Oddly enough, and this may get tricky when trying to hook it up for water runs, the battery is mounted onto the bottom, and clicks in with no battery cover. Just slide it in, then flip a lever to keep it in place with two contacts on the sides in the front. This unit is separately connected to the rest of the frame, and can be removed. (i.e. I just did) There is a separate box on top of it for the motherboard, with clip on/off connectors to the motor and steering servo. When I waterproof the vehicle, this should make it quite easy to glue said box shut and make it water tight, or so you'd think. The box has large open areas around the power switch and the connectors, which will need addressed. Oh, and those connectors I mentioned? They allow for the whole rear and front assemblies to be removed with just a few screws. Upon removing the rear, I noticed that yes, I can (and did) disassemble the shocks, and there's even two points on the rear of the frame to hook them to. I'm assuming this is for the frame to be used on other cars that use different shock positions, but I'll see which spot I want the shocks on for best results in the suspension. The back pin set is the stock arrangement, which allows the wheels to be farther down, giving it a lifted effect, while the front pins allow for a sleeker, more on-road suspension. Cutting half of a loop off of the one end also seems to have significantly helped the shocks performance.

Now, the remote is a much worse story than the car. Let me say this: For $30, you get the buggy and the battery. The remote? Pft, that's just a courtesy in their mind. It feels like it belongs with the $10 junky trucks, not something you paid this much for. I guess they didn't go the route Syma did, where you design a cheap remote to not feel cheap. Instead, it's a cheap remote that feels even cheaper. It takes two AA batteries, which are included, and interestingly enough, does not have an on/off switch. When you hit the control sticks, the light turns on to say it's transmitting. In my opinion, this was probably more expensive to develop than a simple on/off switch, but I guess it prevents kids leaving their remotes on and killing the batteries. Then it's on to the body. Cheap plastic that feels cheap. Not like how Syma (at least on the older controllers) uses plastic but makes it not feel cheap. The control sticks are placed too far down the remote-- they feel like they should be up near the top, not halfway in the middle due to the size of it. There's also two tangs from the box's anti theft stuff that are perfectly places to line up with the tips of your index fingers on the back. The throttle sicks are also sprung, and don't click on until the very end of their range. Either it's full turn/full speed or nothing. The antenna is the standard wire through a plastic straw configuration of my youth, and there is an awkward plastic ring around the top of the remote. I think they were trying to replicate the carrying handle on $1000 r/c remotes, but since it's so small and cheap, it's just stupid. The back is all bumps, ridges, and other comfy stuff that is quite annoying to even pick up the controller, let alone use it.

In the end, while I'll have to use it some, not just running it 10 feet in my dorm room, I'll say that I think it's pretty decent. Not going to get a whole lot for $30 at WalMart, but it's pretty close to getting a lot. Sure, the thing needs a better motor for better offroad performance, and I have a lot of work to put into the project, but I think it's not bad at all.

Here's a video I found of one in action. As you can see, not for rough gravel really, but not too bad for being so cheap, with the LiIon and everything else included. Sometime, I'll try to get some video for you all.