Brake Wear

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codeman11

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What are you guys doing about your rate of brake wear on these beasts? The wear rate is terrible. Maybe 3-4 tanks per set and they're just about toast and if you so much as have them not perfectly even, they wear the pads right down on an angle.

The caliper size is way too small for a truck this size and weight, and the pad material is garbage. The calipers need to be increased in size, with replacement fiber based pads that you can swap so you're not tossing perfectly machined pieced of aluminum into a trash bin after a handful of tanks through the truck.

That and the shoddy electrical setup in this truck ... both of these things need a complete overhaul for any kind of real driving and longevity.
 
Must be an issue on the rigs with much more power trying to stop it at higher speeds. 🤷‍♂️ I have had my truck running since October 2020 and have only changed the brakes out once. My wear is pretty even on the pads and the rotors wear in even too. I did have to replace a rotor unrelated to brake wear, as I smacked it on a rock and bent it lol. Short of that no major issues with mine. But again running a basically stock engine.
As for my electrical, only thing I did was change out the trucks power switch and bracket for it, added an inline fuse and have had zero electrical issues. That is running 4 steering servos, brake servo, throttle servo and reverse servo. Steering servos and brake servo still stock and reverse and throttle are swapped to HV Savox servos on a 2s lipo.
I did ditch the stock receiver and transmitter too..but again no issues here with the rig. Really stinks man that you are having so many issues.
 
Definitely seems to be related to the extra speed and engine power. I was speaking with Mike from TaylorRC and he agreed the brakes 'desperately' (I would say so too) need to be looked at. He may be looking into producing an upgrade part. For now, I found guys are making custom carbon fiber brake rotors so I may try that route to cut down on wear and maybe improve the braking a bit.

Few issues for sure with the truck, maybe related to the more powerful servo setup, engine and more weight on the Grave Diggers as well. The stock switch and wiring just burns out on you with the kind of amperage on 100KG servos hooked to brakes and a pair of high-amperage steering servos. The truck performs awesome and really tight with better steering setup and the GP46 HO engine is IMO the perfect blend of get up and go and top-end; just needs a few upgrades for reliability :) No fun having to replace parts with gentle driving around a property after a short afternoon of fun. I don't bash hard on the the truck and send it off big jumps, more just for the cool factor driving around.
 
Didn't know you could buy it there, thanks Sean. Found a guy who makes brake discs out of carbon fiber, not too sure how well that would hold up. Past that ... I'm going to invest in a CNC router :) So many of these kits need upgrades. Being a software engineer by trade, it's not too far of a stretch to buy a decent 4D setup and start designing parts myself. Have seriously considered it for a while for building airplane kits, might be time to go for it.
 
codeman11 said:
Didn't know you could buy it there, thanks Sean. Found a guy who makes brake discs out of carbon fiber, not too sure how well that would hold up. Past that ... I'm going to invest in a CNC router :) So many of these kits need upgrades. Being a software engineer by trade, it's not too far of a stretch to buy a decent 4D setup and start designing parts myself. Have seriously considered it for a while for building airplane kits, might be time to go for it.
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Having owned a onefinity CNC router table, I highly recommend you just send your files to a CNC service such as sendcutsend/pcbways/etc. Especially if you plan on cutting a lot of carbon fiber, it's not worth your time or health.
I've thought about getting the langmuir hobby mill, but that's the bare minimum I'd recommend for aluminum and CF. Router tables are best left to wood, plastic, and other light duty materials.
 
Seandonato73 said:
Light duty like aluminum and carbon fiber lol. Neither is particularly difficult to mill.
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It's not that it's difficult, Murphys law is just a 😂. I recommend a coolant/flood table for both CF and Al to reduce health hazards and frustration. Not standard on a normal router table.
The Langmuir MR-1 is the only thing I'm considering. Now do a cost analysis on the price of the MR-1, how many parts need made, the cost of material in your area, your time to baby sit the machine; compared to a manufacturing service and you might be surprised...
Now the random priceless stuff you make for yourself or others, rapid prototype, etc. Yeah, that's priceless, but the quality, speed, and reliability of doing so is limited by the machine price. Even the Langmuir is "hobby junk" compared to what most manufacturing services are using.
 
Absolutely. I just don't recommend it. They're fantastic machines, but it's more than just buy the CNC router table to mill either material reliably and safely.
 
HXRC said:
Having owned a onefinity CNC router table, I highly recommend you just send your files to a CNC service such as sendcutsend/pcbways/etc. Especially if you plan on cutting a lot of carbon fiber, it's not worth your time or health.
I've thought about getting the langmuir hobby mill, but that's the bare minimum I'd recommend for aluminum and CF. Router tables are best left to wood, plastic, and other light duty materials.
Click to expand...

Fair assessment. Part of the 'investment' would be having fun and the challenge of learning the skillset, outside of the main goal of developing parts. Though that is a consideration, workshop safety and health. Routing out carbon fiber and aluminum etc. isn't great for your health if you happen to get it outside of the CNC and into your general workspace.

The best Desktop CNC I've seen IMO is the Makera Carvera. It is very well built, self-contained, has coolant attachments, auto tool pickup and changing, and has more than enough grunt and stability to CNC 7075 aluminum and some steels. Piece of cake for carbon fiber, and has a 4D attachment add-on capability (ie. a 'lathe' basically)

Interesting about sending off designs to one of those services though; hadn't really considered that.

FYI - I'll be trying out some carbon fiber brake pads. Hopefully it's a solid setup and fixes the issues with the brakes on these things.
 
HXRC said:
Absolutely. I just don't recommend it. They're fantastic machines, but it's more than just buy the CNC router table to mill either material reliably and safely.
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either get a machine that can use coolant or make an enclosure for the cheap one, few 3d printed parts for a decent pc fan and few filters, nice air intake and bam... carbon milling problems solved.
 
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