Turnigy Trackstar 80A Runaway

[HS-YZ250]

Got the servo steering limit set on the transmitter, turned the punch down a couple of pegs, and reinstalled the glitch buster correctly. I had a lot of good, controllable, aggressive throttle run time and didn't have a runaway until the battery was noticeably slowing down. Even then I (usually) still had steering.

The major bugs seem to be worked out at this point, and its just refining from here. A couple of issues are the cheap ebay gyro I got sometimes causes the car to "wiggle" at high speed, but I can make it go away by turning. I got it because A) this is a new item I've not messed with before and I was curious to try it out and B) with the TC sized tires and less than ideal surface I'm running on, I figure I'll take any aids I can for keeping the car driving and out of the dog's mouth. I'm not sure if some of this is just the Redcat's soft plastic parts flexing, or not.

Might look for another set of tires, also. I went with a set of Protoform vintage tires thinking they had better rubber and a little tread, but don't think they work well enough on an un-prepped surface with light debris. I had looked for rally tires and might do so again.

But, otherwise, might just go ahead and give it a whirl with the dog.

[JosephS]

Got the servo steering limit set on the transmitter, turned the punch down a couple of pegs, and reinstalled the glitch buster correctly. I had a lot of good, controllable, aggressive throttle run time and didn't have a runaway until the battery was noticeably slowing down. Even then I (usually) still had steering.

The major bugs seem to be worked out at this point, and its just refining from here. A couple of issues are the cheap ebay gyro I got sometimes causes the car to "wiggle" at high speed, but I can make it go away by turning. I got it because A) this is a new item I've not messed with before and I was curious to try it out and B) with the TC sized tires and less than ideal surface I'm running on, I figure I'll take any aids I can for keeping the car driving and out of the dog's mouth. I'm not sure if some of this is just the Redcat's soft plastic parts flexing, or not.

Might look for another set of tires, also. I went with a set of Protoform vintage tires thinking they had better rubber and a little tread, but don't think they work well enough on an un-prepped surface with light debris. I had looked for rally tires and might do so again.

But, otherwise, might just go ahead and give it a whirl with the dog.

Try taking the gyro out of the line. A cheap gyro won't obey any kind of set limits and can go overboard. As well it can introduce it's own issues.

How long does the run away last with the new setup?

[Medved]

I'm going to say run it with lipo if you can switch. As some others it's likely that the battery you have can't deliver the current demanded by the motor. The stock settings have the punch quite high and nimh cells are never going to reach even basic lipo 'c' levels.

If you were to stick with nimh I would recommend turning the punch level right down on the esc

[HS-YZ250]

If I recall from the time I was referring to in my last post, the runaway seemed to be less than a second. I could catch it unless it happened without enough room, unlike with the Mk1 where it seemed to blast off for a full second or more. And, as the battery really dropped off and it didn't run off as hard, it got a little easier to manage. Turning down the punch and adding that glitch buster really helped.

I actually did a test run on the tennis court next to the "dog park", recently. The dog was in the park side and the fence kept them apart, and I ran the car up and down the fence to feel it out. The tires were OK, here, but I found another set with a tread that looks like will be better for debris. However, the gyro DEFINITELY needs to go. I'll look for a better one, soon. But we found that the battery has plenty of life to last while it's safe to let the dog chase it. Being a pitbull, she'll run herself until she dies, which we forgot while I was showing my partner how to drive the car and the dog was running up and down the fence. The dog had actually worn off the pads on her feet and we had to bandage her up. So, no more running her with the car without being able to see her and occasionally making pit stops to check her feet.

[CrazyRC]

It's been my experience that gyros act weird in any kind of rough stuff. Of course, I bought a cheap Chinesium one. I don't know if it was picking up vibration from my Trencher tires on my Rustler, but it wiggled constantly when driving straight. I tried mounting it in the middle of the chassis, the front, and the rear, but nothing really helped. The car was on the ragged edge of undrivable before the gyro, and all the gyro did was make it look funny while being almost undriveable. I slapped it in my Tamiya Rally Beetle with drift tires, and it was better, but drifting with a gyro just seems like cheating. In the end, I dialed back the Rustler from kill to stun, and learned to be a little lighter with my finger. That's still a work in progress.

[juicedcoupe]

It's been my experience that gyros act weird in any kind of rough stuff. Of course, I bought a cheap Chinesium one. I don't know if it was picking up vibration from my Trencher tires on my Rustler, but it wiggled constantly when driving straight. I tried mounting it in the middle of the chassis, the front, and the rear, but nothing really helped. The car was on the ragged edge of undrivable before the gyro, and all the gyro did was make it look funny while being almost undriveable. I slapped it in my Tamiya Rally Beetle with drift tires, and it was better, but drifting with a gyro just seems like cheating. In the end, I dialed back the Rustler from kill to stun, and learned to be a little lighter with my finger. That's still a work in progress.

Convert to a one piece front axle and use clamping hexes in the rear. Shim the axles to minimal endplay.

These will do wonders for making a Traxxas vehicle drive straighter.