This is the second 3 Racing RC kit I have built, after a couple of hours working on it I was asking myself why I fell for it again. The kits are quite well made, the instruction book is reasonably accurate but the plastic suspension components are too hard for the screws that are supplied. The idea is that you use the screw to cut the thread but the allen head on the countersunk screws fail before you can get them completely home. What should take a few minutes becomes a one hour job to drill the screw out. I bought a 3mm tap but only after I had finished the build and drilled out numerous screws, not very clever.
For the price, around A$95 it is quite a sophisticated design, belt driven 4 wheel drive, oil filled diffs front and rear, oil filled shocks with 3 spring rate choices, front and rear caster and camber adjustments and toe in, toe out. The cost of the motor and electronics are extra. I have used a 12 turn brushless motor with twin fans and heat sink, the speed controller also has a cooling fan.
I have used a Mazda RX8 body, most of my RC mates run Porsche's so I needed something that was politically incorrect, especially as this should be faster. Out of the box it goes very well, the main problem is controlling how much throttle I use, it is way faster than my ability to control it.
I used my Nikon D80 with a 35mm lens, I picked the camera up from Nikon yesterday, they told me it needed two complete circuit boards replaced as well as the battery control unit. $414 in total. Strange that today it works perfectly with so many failed items. My guess is that they didn't even check it, just read the list I had provided and then quoted based on that, the service manager even said they would not have taken the back off to check. I have a feeling that the connecting cables for the various circuit boards may have become corroded over 7 years. I had a Toshiba laptop that had this type of intermittent problem resulting in a black screen, I was able to fix that fault. The plan is to wait until the camera dies again then I will remove the back and re seat the cables. If that works I will post details.
