Basic electric conversion?

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TK5310

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I've got enough parts left over from building my new picco .28 revo 3.3 to build another complete car with a 2.5 chassis.
I was going to build it up with my old 3.3 motor & bung it on ebay - but my oldest has expessed a lot of interest in having his own 'not a toy' car.
He's 8 - too young for a nitro, so I figured it may not be a bad idea to build up another revo for him with a basic electric motor.

It doesn't need to be fast, the faster it goes the more time I'll spend fixing it for him & the less he'll be able to use it, he'll mostly use it in our back yard & bring it out to BMX tracks with us.

I've never built or owned an electric, so I'm pretty clueless as to what is required, but I am pretty handy on the tools & have a machine shop at my disposal for fabricating bits & pieces.

Budget on this will be tight, so I'd like to use as much of the stuff I've got as possible - which is basically a complete car with a forward only trans & some other hop ups.

Can I use the revo trans?
What sort of motors & speed controllers should I be looking at?

Is it as simple as adapting a bell gear to an electric motor, making up some mounts & jamming it in?
 
Tekno makes a kit that only needs a motor/ESC, batteries and their clutch kit. AMain has the kit and the clutch. This kit uses the rest of the stock Revo drivetrain.
 
Yeah, nah! - $140 & 2 weeks wait to get it here, I can build the whole car for less than that!

Got the basic roller built on the weekend, it's pretty decent:

2.5 chassis
3.3 diffs with fresh oil
rpm arms all round
P1 rockers, blue & silver springs, 2.5 shocks with 60wt oil
Dual 2055 steering servos
The rest is a combination of stock 3.3 & 2.5 parts

Trans has 2.5 cases with 3.3 internals, FOC & close ratio gear set

A mate scratched up a spare traxxas titan 12T 550 motor that was left over from his slash, I'll use 15/40 gearing & make up an engine mount for it from alloy sheet.
Battery will sit where the fuel tank/RX/Battery box used to sit, RX & motor controller will be mounted where the throttle/brake & reverse servos would sit.
I'll make alloy sheet mounts for all that gear so that it just bolts up to the stock chassis.

To make the bell clutch fit the motor I'll machine up an alloy adaptor that presses into the bell & is grub screwed to the shaft on the motor, that'll eliminate the clutch.

I'll run engine braking on it, so all that's left to figure out is how to lock the internal 1 way bearing inside the gearbox so the gearbox can be driven in backwards for engine braking and reverse.

That gets rid of all the braking stuff - keeping it simple is a good idea for an 8 year old I figure & it keeps the weight down.

To finish it off it'll get a spare TRX digital radio & reciever, my old set of badlands wheels & tyres & a spare 3.3 truck body trimmed to fit the 2.5 chassis.

Should be a good thing.
 
All done, to sort the 1 way bearing in the trans I just pressed it out, machined up an alloy bush of the same dimensions, pressed that in, ground a flat on the shaft & drilled & tapped the bush & carrier for a grub screw. Works perfect.

Whole car is done, came up pretty dang good for a parts car, the slash motor is a little lacklustre but plenty quick enough for a young bloke to learn with, when he outgrows it I'll grab a decent castle motor or something - probably for his birthday.

I'll post up some pics later.
 
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