1/43 discovery store bit buggy epoch conversion

[cdog4w]

Wasn't sure where to put this thread, hopefully this is ok.

I was shopping for niece and nephew with my wife and were at the discovery store. I couldn't resist and picked it up. I'm going to power it with an epoch circuit board, epoch battery (comes with a 2c only) and use a bluebird bms-303 coreless 4g servo. Hopefully it will all fit under the body. I will also have to figure out how to hook it up to the steering mechanism since the current uses rack and pinion. I've been working on this for about a week and so far have cleaned out most of the area on the chassis/removed the old stuff. All thats left is the stock motor pod and the steering slider.

http://img290.imageshack.us/img290/3231/imgp2598sz1.jpg

http://img290.imageshack.us/img290/8548/imgp2599qz2.jpg

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/2833/imgp2600ev8.jpg

test fit
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/452/imgp2603at3.jpg

[cdog4w]

part 2

This shows some of the mods nec. to get the servo to work with the epoch CB. Basically I had to open it up, and wire directly to the motor (2 leads) and to the pot (3 leads). Tremendous pain since the pot was a surface mount on the servo circuit board. You can see the bluebird servo on the right (purple) with the tiny little pot.

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/1557/imgp2611hf4.jpg

After much work, I ended up demounting the pot, wiring it and then rebuilding with all 5 leads coming out. I also had to put in a spacer to hold the pot in place so that it wouldn't come loose and decouple from the servo gears.

Now that the servo and electronics work, its time to put it all together and figure out how to connect up the steering.

[hybrid_liter]

Hey cdog... where did you find that at?

[hybrid_liter]

oh the discovery store at the mall?

[cdog4w]

Yup

http://shopping.discovery.com/product-59364.html

[arch2b]

while it looks very interesting and cool to tinker with, i am saving my money for the 1/36 micro-t.

this buggy certainly gives plenty to do for those of us who love to tinker:)

[cdog4w]

while it looks very interesting and cool to tinker with, i am saving my money for the 1/36 micro-t.

this buggy certainly gives plenty to do for those of us who love to tinker:)

Don't get me wrong, I called and told my track owner to get me one as soon as Losi dropped the news :)

I needed to do something with the epoch boards I have, I'd been sitting on them for too long.

[arch2b]

i'm glad you posted this build! i had no idea these existed

[cdog4w]

Thanks arch.

Paul, I'll try to finish up by wed. so I can bring it to the track.

[cdog4w]

Wasn't able to finish it, but progress is progress. I tried to test fit the electronics now that I have the servo working but hit a snag. I didn't notice but the epoch board is a bit wide and hits the body mount screw holes. After some thinking I dispensed with the 4 body mount holes on the tub and am just using the nose screw hole and made a new on the rear of the motor pod. So that frees me up to dremel out the 4 screw holes on the chassis! Still going to be tricky to fit a 3 cell battery, servo, switch, and charge port on the "lower" deck, but that is what I'd like to do with it.