Infraction Another Limitless-to-Infraction Build

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They barely consume material so I don't mind making a few and you pay the shipping. Got a color preference? Got black, white, blue, purple, red, orange, glow in the dark blue, satin gold, copper, and silver, and gray I think.
I’d be more than happy to
Pay for materials as well, just let me know how much.. Pm to follow
 
I was thinking, how cool it would be- if you printed one of those wicked air scoops that formula one cars have.
 
I was thinking, how cool it would be- if you printed one of those wicked air scoops that formula one cars have.
The issue that comes up is how to print them successfully without a lot of hassle. When printing its done in small layers from the bottom up. So something that is tube that has a 90 degree bend in it can be difficult because all the sudden there is a ceiling with nothing to support it unless I specify that the printer build in supports to hold it up while it prints, but that adds time and material that is just thrown away later and can be difficult to remove.

I don't know if this helps but here is an example. In below pictures there are 2 things I would want to print, the small part is the fan adapter and the bigger one is a GPS case. The fan adapter is flat with holes and has openings or ceilings so it prints flat without issue.

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In the second picture is a preview of what the actual print looks like when it's done printing, ignore the colors they are just there to tell me what kind of line each part is, the only thing we care about is the light blue color. The light blue spots on the GPS case is extra material it had to print inside the case from the bottom up to the top in order for the top ceiling area of the case to have something to sit on so it will print correctly. Without these it would just pass over the gaps trying to print on them and that can lead to a failure or ugly print because the gap it travels over is too large and the plastic just falls down and then the layers on top of it fail.. etc.
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Anyways that is one of the things I have to consider when designing stuff and that is something I could see as being tricky when dealing with some kind of tube shape that does a 90 degree bend at the top. I've been playing with a design for a F1 style scoop but just haven't finished anything close to a prototype to test.


**Edit** Here's one of my earlier designs for mounting fans to the motor. I made it so instead of sitting flat on the side of the motor there was a small gap to give the air better flow. Since the top was not flat it wasn't a good idea to print upside down so I used supports to make sure the top area where the fans mount didn't just fall into the hole. You can see how much wasted material it made.
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Ah that makes sense, I don't know anything about it. Just seems super cool in my head lol. Never been much of a computer person aside from basics. I still don't even know how to use my instagram, other than posting an uneditied video or picture.

I really dig the stuff you've printed in this thread, never would have occurred to me.

On the turbine scoop, would sanding the inner surfaces smooth be more efficient?
 
Ah that makes sense, I don't know anything about it. Just seems super cool in my head lol. Never been much of a computer person aside from basics. I still don't even know how to use my instagram, other than posting an uneditied video or picture.

I really dig the stuff you've printed in this thread, never would have occurred to me.

On the turbine scoop, would sanding the inner surfaces smooth be more efficient?
The amount of air the fan is moving is so low that it really doesn't matter how smooth it is, maybe if it were pushing huge air it would be better but I doubt it. I could probably take out the center cone piece and it would work a little better because less air restriction but the center cone is kinda what makes it cool lol
 
Wow that really is a lot of waste. I've never thought about that with the extra air movement, do you think something like that would hold up to hard bashing bashing? Heat not that much of an issue for me, since I don't drive if it too hot out. I struggle myself in the heat, so summer is usually my least active time unless it's at night.

With the center cone removed, I'm picturing something very similar to what cars with individual throttle bodies have.

Seems like this would be a great application, to make some kind of mesh guard for the fan blades. I've seen people using window screen(?) to keep rocks out. Something printed would look cool with a honeycomb pattern.
 
My 35mm to 30mm fan adapter plate seems to be a decent fit. Quick test with a powerhobby 14k fan already has significant improvement on airflow.
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I managed to score an ESS-One used off Mercari for 35 bucks, about half the cost as new. Wasn't really sure what I was going to use it for but when I got it I decided to go just that little bit more "extra" again on the Infraction.

I designed a mounting plate for it that utilizes the front body mount point for the Limitless along with supports that sit nicely on top of the stock tower to tower brace that secures nicely with zip ties. I have made it longer with slots in it for velcro to mount an external 2s battery, but later I changed the external power plug to power the unit from the receiver instead and will use that extra space to mount a cap pack later.

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I spent a little time last night setting up my custom sounds. I wanted just turbo and horn sounds and no engine sounds but unfortunately if you leave the engine sound set to nothing the turbo sounds doesn't work at all. So for now I have two sound profiles set with two different engines and blow off valves and two different custom horns. I finished installing today and used more of the wire mesh to consolidate the wire into one loom to clean up the install. When body is installed it is just low enough to clear the body and the sounds actually come from the engine area as if it were a real engine.

Video of demo using it below, sound quality sounds worse than it actually is in person but you'll get the idea. Wait to the end to hear my custom horns that I think some of you may recognize...

 
So are you telling me you have troubles printing bridges? The gps case you showed should be easy without supports provided your bridge settings are correct. I don't even have part cooling fans and can do reasonable bridges. Because I have no part cooler I have to have my bridge speed faster than usual. With a part cooler it would have to be slower. I forced myself to try to find ways to print without supports to include overhangs. I always felt it was a lot of waste both filament and extra print time.
 
So are you telling me you have troubles printing bridges? The gps case you showed should be easy without supports provided your bridge settings are correct. I don't even have part cooling fans and can do reasonable bridges. Because I have no part cooler I have to have my bridge speed faster than usual. With a part cooler it would have to be slower. I forced myself to try to find ways to print without supports to include overhangs. I always felt it was a lot of waste both filament and extra print time.

The gps was just a file I threw on there to illustrate how supports work when you need them, most times I use support blockers where I know gaps won't be a problem but leave supports on where I know or am not confident that bridging will succeed or not. The dual fan mount was a better example of a design needing the supports in place. In the print preview it tries to print the walls for the fan opening in the ceiling portion in the air first so without the supports there that would have just failed. Also with flexibles bridges tend to be trickier for 90° overhangs.

I try to design anything I do to need little to no supports for the most part.
 
So I have a few updates to add later once I get everything back together but one thing I wanted to ask about was how to test a cap pack. What's the best way?

I've made my own using (6) 35v/1800uF panasonic fm capacitors and a printed 2 piece housing of my own design. I used 10awg wire and covered my solder joints with liquid electrical tape so nothing should short but I am still hesitant to just hook a battery to it right away.

So if you diy cap pack guys can chime in and tell me how I should proceed with testing before adding to the esc that would be helpful. Also rules of thumb to follow for esc lead soldering, cap pack wire lead max length, etc.
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So finally got everything out back together so here's the updates since last post.

Spektrum 8s ESC and Telemetry:
I picked up a Firma160 8s Kraton ESC because I wanted to try the smart telemetry features when pairing it with the Spektrum SR6100AT and DX5c. The esc was kind of a pain in the ass because the button programming menu numbering doesn't match the menu in the manual so I couldn't figure out which values I was actually changing. Basically there is no category for lipo size in the menu but the manual says there is and I only found that out after buying the smart programmer that way I could know exactly what menu item I was actually changing. An extra expense but oh well, it allows me to play with motor timing which I might do later. I also replaced the stock 35mm ESC fan with a 35 to 30mm adapter and 30mm high CFM fan from R1 Wurks and finished it off with a printed hex pattern fan shroud.

To install the esc I snipped off the mounting tabs and printed a plate and attached to the bottom of the esc with double sided tape. The plate then fastens down to the stock esc location with the 4 bottom screws making it easily removable. Since the power wires were shorter than the wires I had on the Hex6 I ended up turning the esc around so the power wires were facing the center of the truck and then extended the motor wires with 10awg wire and 6.5mm bullets. After wire dressing everything came out pretty clean.

After messing around with things a while I finally figured out how to set up the telemetry features I wanted including speed, temps, RPMs, etc. I am not using smart batteries so I don't have individual pack data but I did add the spektrum battery sensor so I can at least monitor total pack voltage.

Cap Pack:
I decided to break out the 1800uf 35v Panasonic FM caps I had in a bag for a while and make my own cap pack. I made a custom 2x3 6-cap printed housing and soldered with 10awg wire and XT90 male connector for a total of 10,800uf. To test I made a led indicator light with 3D printed housing with XT90 in/out connector with cap pack one side and battery the other. When the battery is removed the light remains on when just connected to the cap pack so I guess that means it works? Lastly I spliced an XT90 female pigtail to the esc power leads as close as I could to the ESC finished off with some shrink wrap (I used XT90 female for the esc connection end so it'd be impossible to connect a lipo to it in parallel when other batteries were connected in series). I thought about removing the stock small cap pack but I left it on there so I guess it's double cap packed now...not sure if that's a bad idea or if it matters so someone can let me know if it's bad that'd be great. The Ess-One center plate I printed worked great for mounting the cap pack in the center of the truck and clearance is not an issue because it sits right in the middle of the cab area under the body.

Upgraded Center Drive Shafts:
Installed thicker/slightly longer front/rear center drive shaft dogbones from RCAWD. They are thicker than stock and made from #45 hardened steel and total cost for both was around $20 shipped. Hopefully these will hold up better and not be prone to oscillation at high speeds like the stock shafts.

DX5c Removable Antenna + Range Booster:
I have a post in the Electronics section of the mods I've done to my DX5c radio. One of those mods was adding a second removable antenna to the radio for better range. In addition to that I've added a range booster powered off the 5v data port. The booster is a cheapo eBay one that was just protected with shrink wrap and I removed the wrap and designed and printed a case for it with added 30mm fan. I'll be testing this later but so far everything seems to be working pretty well and hoping this eliminates any range issues for future speed runs.

Anyways here's all the pics:

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Kudos for sticking through spektrum for the telemetry stuff. I just took delivery of a third frsky transmitter. One of them will be converted to a pistol tx so I can take advantage of the r9 system on a surface vehicle with telemetry at a fraction of the cost of the other surface systems ??
 
Kudos for sticking through spektrum for the telemetry stuff. I just took delivery of a third frsky transmitter. One of them will be converted to a pistol tx so I can take advantage of the r9 system on a surface vehicle with telemetry at a fraction of the cost of the other surface systems ??
Haha dope man. Yeah after messing with all the spektrum stuff if I could go back I'd not bother. Their documentation sucks not only for stuff that is just inaccurate but for everything when you want more details about how stuff works or even what telemetry is available or how to set it up. I hate that avc takes over aux1 and aux2 channels on the receiver when active so you lose those channels for anything else. Also the "smart throttle" throttle channel that activates automatically when used with a telemetry receiver is weird in that when you use a Y splitter to feed the throttle signal to another device (like a second ESC or in my case the ESS-One sound box) the signal is weird and basically my ESS-One can't read it. I had to do channel mixing on the DX5c to duplicate the throttle channel on Aux3 of the receiver to get the sound box signal to work on that channel instead of using the Y splitter and since the DX5c is only 5 channels that meant all 5 channels are now in use with avc active so I lost my custom horns :(. There a 6th channel (Aux4) on the sr6100at receiver but with the 5 channel limit of the DX5c I can't take advantage of it, sad panda. I'm still experimenting with the avc but might just disable it to get my aux channels back. If someday I want to try the MMX8s I might try pairing it with their castle telemetry adapter that converts their telemetry signal to xbus so it can be used with the telemetry spektrum radios.. but again that's $$ and honestly I don't have a good reason to do it except that I just want to try it lmao.

I will be super curious to see how your Frsky air converted to ground pistol transmitter turns out. I am kind of surprised the telemetry stuff from air hasn't been incorporated into ground RC as well yet. Telemetry for ground is such a pain right now.
 
Dang the trials you just did are above what I encountered and gave up on too easily...and that was with drones and flights controllers :ROFLMAO: spektrums telemetry on the air side is just as crazy too lol.

But yeah I have a 1st gen x-lite that is just sitting around so it's perfect for a conversion. And can still do 8 channels MINIMUM with telemetry. My x-lite won't be going to ACCESS anytime soon so I can take advantage of my rx8r rx's that can still take PWM channels woot woot ?
 
Dang the trials you just did are above what I encountered and gave up on too easily...and that was with drones and flights controllers :ROFLMAO: spektrums telemetry on the air side is just as crazy too lol.

But yeah I have a 1st gen x-lite that is just sitting around so it's perfect for a conversion. And can still do 8 channels MINIMUM with telemetry. My x-lite won't be going to ACCESS anytime soon so I can take advantage of my rx8r rx's that can still take PWM channels woot woot ?
Too bad Frsky doesn't make a ground transmitter (that I know of) because I'd buy one in a heartbeat. I love my gen1 x-lite.
 
That gimbal looks pretty sweet.
Thanks man. I forgot I had this gimbal in a box from a while ago when I was going to try to mount it on a fpv drone but it turned out to be a tad too heavy for my application. I found it again while doing some spring cleaning and thought HMMMM... maaayyybee. A 3D printed plate, cheap 4k camera, GoPro mount, mini 2s battery and a selfie stick later = Infraction gymkhana drift cam haha

I'll hopefully give it a run this weekend to see how it looks. I think it will look cool down the side of the truck with all the steering action in view and low to the ground.
 
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