ASK Cubby – Questions, Questions, Questions, Questions…

“Skool bus body

Mr. Cubby hope u can help me out. I’m a school bus driver and i am looking for a school bus body all over the net and was not able to find one. Since you are the rc man i was hoping you can use u your connections to find out where I could find one. Thanks for any help u can give Mr cubby.

Eric”

Cubby- Hola there Eric, interesting question you have there. In fact, not one I’ve EVER gotten before. And that is definitely saying something considering the stuff you guys send in every week.

Nope, there aren’t a whole lot of school bus style bodies on the market right now. Just off the top of my head (as I am farrrrr too lazy to even use Google), I would take a look at something like the Tamiya King Yellow 6×6. While not a “traditional” school bus, you gotta admit it looks like a TON of crazy 6×6 fun! And ya, I know you were asking for just a body, but that kit is well under $300 and has loads of attitude.

“Motor Timing

Cubby,

How much timing should I be running on my brushless system? How much more power can I get by turning it up?

Frank C.”

Cubby- Nice question ya got there Frank. Oh and, before I get started, hit me with your snail mail for a sticker pack.

This is how I see it. I run nearly all my brushless systems right around zero timing. Depending on the motor, this can be quite efficient. Efficient means wasting very little power.

Now, in racing, especially when running stock class motors where the overall wattage isn’t very high, many people run a lot of electrical timing to really peak out the motor for yank (and then they can crank even more timing in physically at the motor). Also, the kV of these motors (21.5, 17.5, etc) tend to be quite low, so it can be hard to gear tall enough.

I mostly always run motors that have far more power than I need. Should I feel lacking for power, I use gearing and cell counts to get things to where they need to be for full stupidity. However, timing changes can easily be made via software on many ESCs. I say this because changing timing via programming can be a lot easier than changing pinions.

My best advice to you is- experiment with motor timing. However, it is very important to monitor the motor temp until you know for sure there isn’t a motor temp issue. You do not want to “cook a rotor” while doing some simple experimentation, so check the motor temp every minute for the entire first run.

Do you have a question? Do you need a crazy answer? Do you have an epic rant that you just have to get off your chest? Email me- thecubreportrc at gmail dot com.