*taps mic* is this thing working?

[InsolentMinx]

Hi all

I'm Steve, 36, from London, England.
This seemed like a great source of information, so wanted to sign up and say hello.

I've had a Gen1 Skyline xmod since 2004 when I bought it in the USA as a toy for myself to just drive around while studying.
Loved the modification ability too, but never thought it would be much more than just a toy. I played with it a bit but then it lived in the loft.
Skip forward 16 years and I was reminded that I had a rc car in the loft, so i dug it out again, but....

I'D LEFT THE BATTERIES IN

The battery terminal holders were pretty badly corroded, so I tried to clean them up, but couldn't quite get it to work.
I had steering, and power to the LED light kit, but no forward/backwards.
So I bought some new battery holder contacts, but they were a bit big.
Made them fit, but now they get super hot when I put batteries in, so am wary to use it.

Halfways through trying to fix this one, I tried to look if it was possible to buy a replacement or spares. I couldn't believe how expensive these little things are nowadays!
But I found someone selling a car here in the UK, and it had a few spares with it, so I bought it.
Seems he'd resoldered the battery holders too, somewhat messily, so I cleaned them up, resoldered the antenna and the car worked great.

I signed up to some Facebook groups and ordered myself some Panasonic Eneloop rechargeable batteries on the knowledge that i could get up to an hour drivetime on them.
However no-one mentioned that I probably shouldn't drive it for that long at once!

I guess it was last week i was using it a lot, maybe just 30 mins at a time, and would let it cool down with the body off.
But then Sunday I took it out to play with my son, and after 1 minute I lost forward.
Still have steering and reverse though, so I went home and tried to tinker with it to see what was broken.
Got stressed, took most of the car to pieces, and left it at that!

So now I have 2 non-working Gen1s.

However I believe the issue with the second one is to do with the Fets? So i've ordered some new ones recommended from China.
And I've got some new thermal glue too, as understand that could have been an issue as well...

In the meantime I'm trying to read up and learn about these cool little cars.

So here I am
And here's my working xmod before she stopped working:

[InsolentMinx]

Update today:

I now have 1 working XMod after swapping the Fets around.
Fiddled about with both boards, and after taking some Fets off and trying them on the other board, I now have a fully working car

However I'm now in need of either another pair of battery holders, since one set keep getting wayy tooo hot... Or I'll just convert one car to Lipo, thus eliminating the need for the holders as I can just cabletie the LiPos on.

[DRFTKO]

Hi, welcome to the site!

Hopefully one of the members that has actually done this can chime in, however...

Have you looked around here at some of the XMODS that have the lipo upgrade? That will give you a good idea of how to mount them on your chassis without the OEM battery trays. I've never done this upgrade to any of my cars, however, the pics you will find should give you a good enough idea of mounting them at least in a temporary fashion in the meantime.

[InsolentMinx]

Thanks DRFTKO

This site is mostly pretty useful, however a big problem is that since Xmods were generally in their prime 15 years ago, a lot of the links/photos aren't working anymore. And I think there must be threads that have expired as some sections are quite empty.
But that's OK, the main core of info here is very helpful.

Plus I guess battery technology has come a long way.

I'll definitely look into the Lipo mod though.

One thing I couldn't seem to find info or photos of is the cutting of the stock circuitboard heatsink to accommodate stacked Fets.
It isn't mentioned much here, but is mentioned on FB groups; however since most people tend to upgrade the boards, I guess its not covered much, or has been lost in the sands of time.
When I get a chance I'll try to dig deeper.

But in the meantime at least I have a working car at the moment.

[TrickedoutH2]

From what I remember you just cut or drill a spot big enough in the heat sink for the fets to clear. You also want to take alittle off the chassis as they will stick beyond that from what I remember.

I wish someone had saved the atomic mods tutorials they had.


You may want to check YouTube for old tutorials too.

[InsolentMinx]

Thanks J.Prock, yeah there's a lot of info that seems to have been sadly lost over the years. Youtube's a good idea, I'll take a look there.

In the past it seems a lot of people went for aftermarket boards, but they don't seem as readily available now, or at least they're not super expensive.... so I'm hoping I can get a bit more out of my stock one for not much extra £$

[TrickedoutH2]

That I know there is a tutorial for replacing the board. This is for an evo but with a little digging you could. I forget where I ordered my board, but they were cheaper than a real kyosho board and had upgraded FETs. I will look in my old email account to see if I can find a receipt. It was like $40 tops.

Here is the video/tutorial
https://youtu.be/BJWxFzgl9WI


You could always look at WLToys A949. See if those electronics would work for your needs.

[InsolentMinx]

Thanks for that, very helpful.
I'll investigate too rgd the board switch and WLToys

In the meantime will replace my FETs and do the tightturns mod seeing as i have the bits and could do with practising my soldering a bit more