New Zipzaps CARS! From Pixar
 

Hi, good news for everyone.
Sally
http://i17.ebayimg.com/03/i/07/0c/c5/d4_1.JPG
http://cgi.ebay.com/ZipZaps-Micro-RC...QQcmdZViewItem
McQueen
http://i17.ebayimg.com/02/i/07/0c/c7/3c_1.JPG
http://cgi.ebay.com/ZipZaps-Micro-RC...QQcmdZViewItem

They are ZipZaps SE BTW.

Those are actually looking pretty nice! I was afraid they'd be a lot worse.

Ok, so they finally did away with the hubcaps?

Sally is maybe a Porsche 911 carerra, still trying to figure out what McQueen is.

SWEET!!!!!!







Matt

Nice I love that they have a new line of little toys for us.

Get more pics for us.

it looks like mcqueen is an outlaw nascar type race car. I like the wheels on that one.

Hehe, the McQueen one reminds be of a cartoonish cross between a NASCAR and one of those talking smiley-mouthed cars in the (I think the gas company was) Chevron commercials <LOL>! -:)

Do they have good chassis under them? Good steering, no chatter, fast like the newer SEs?
Wish they had included the white letter tires too.

You know I saw your post elsewhere looking for an answer to a question I had (I was having troubles with my (FINALLY!) 2nd zipzap acquisition, so that I could make use of my remaining motor/gearset/body in the Initial D kit, and I was looking for the answer and came across those new ZZSE models.)

DarkT

Sally
http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/produ...rshalt1_dt.jpg
http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/produ...rshalt2_dt.jpg
Mater
http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/produ...rshalt1_dt.jpg
http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/produ...rshalt2_dt.jpg
Lightning McQueen
http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/produ...rshalt1_dt.jpg
http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/produ...rshalt2_dt.jpg

That tow truck's kind of cool. I might have to get one to put on my shelf.

I bought one of these new Pixar ZZs today and found that they aren't SEs. They're actually a weird hybrid chassis thats completely new. They come in the standard 27 and 49mhz frequencies. There is a light connection on the PCB just like an SE. and all of the SE bodies are interchangeable except the GTOs for some reason. The Pixar car only had headlights, but when a standard SE body is plugged in, all lights work as usual.
But, the chassis is not proportional. The steering is magnetic, but the works are behind the front wheels rather than center front. The knuckles are slightly different, but the tiny springs are still there. The steering is very snappy and strong.
The running gears at the back are standard ZZ with the new square end motors and the additional metal tab on the heatsink. The thing is lightning fast. Even with the blue gear setup. The tires and hubcaps are the same, except the car is completely assembled in the box now.
So, what we got here is a new kind of standard ZZ with different magnetic steering and an SE type of lighting setup. It sports a black PCB cover thats much better and doesn't have those tiny little tabs at the back that always break off. And, it would seem that the antenna is solid wire and stiffer than the other ZZs, Very similar to Cat5, and more than effective as range is very good on these cars.
I like them alot. The chassis that is, but I'm glad any ZZ body will snap right on.
Edit: I just noticed that the pics above show the cars on standard ZZ controllers except the first one. Fact is, the top pic is correct, as these new cars have their own controller. The controller is just a slightly different ZZ Monster Truck controller. A standard Zip controller will work the car, but the charging jack is very different and the car can only be charged on one of the new controllers. The new controller uses 4 AAA batteries, and this may account for the increased performance of the cars.

yah i just got them at my store and i agree with everything that you said.

also Azimov did you notice that when the ZZ is on the charger it lets all the juice though to the motor.

It screams.

I think this is going to be amazing with the multi cells. I cant wait to start tearing them up. I took some pics and videos but i will have to wait till i get home before i can post them up.

I havent heard anything else on the ZZ though RS. so i dont know what if anything will replace the SE or the MTs. I will keep my ears open

I'm afraid you may be holding the future of Zips in your hand right there. These Pixar cars seem to incorporate all of the stuff RS got right in the entire Zip line. The SE steering was always an issue. Even after ironing out the steering problems, and making them much faster, you could still buy one with some jitter right to the latest models. Most are good, but they just can't seem to eliminate center jitter in some random chassis no matter what they do. I think RS may be dumping Propo designs and sticking with redesigned magnetic steering.
The transmitters seem to be melding into this single MT derived design with slight asthetic differences. This may mean the MTs are still going to be around. But, I fear SEs might be history.

check this out. hope it works this is my first time loading video. this is out of my camera phone. but it shows how fast these new cars are, this is right out of the box.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...h_SSPX0016.jpg

Kewl! Workin fine for me. Is that the floor of the Radio Shack there in the video?
I've been playing with these things on linoleum. I have to say, the things are so fast that the cars fishtail out of control during the hole shot. A quick turn will either spin the car out or roll it over depending on the body used. These things are faster than the Panther Chariots that up til now held the speed record for unmodded cars for me.
I haven't cracked open the chassis yet to see the guts as I only have two cars. One of each frequency.

[COLOR=purple]OPEN IT, OPEN IT!!!![/COLOR]
 

Just kidding.......open it.......well..maybe if you can get another.....Open it!!!!!......calm down bad-side-of-my-brain.no! not again...........OOOPPPEENNN IT FOR A PICTURE OR TWO!!!!!!

well i think my bad side wants a pic, please?.....OPPENN IT!!!!!

Re: [COLOR=purple]OPEN IT, OPEN IT!!!![/COLOR]
 

Yes, I have question...You're crazy.

OK, just for the bad side of your brain.
First, the victim:

Minus the body. Notice the new PCB cover. It's held on with 2 screws and is opaque black plastic. The light connector can be seen too. Notice the different steering configuration.

Minus the PCB cover. The PCB is held in place with a single screw. Very different from the loose PCB in older models.

And now for some complete surprises. The steering isn't magnetic at all, but is motor driven! See that silver cylinder in there? Thats a hardwired steering motor. This is why the thing can slap the front wheels left and right while standing still.
And another pleasant surprise. The cars come dual celled with an SE battery! No wonder they're so fast.
Also, the fit and finish is the best I've seen in a ZZ. The front wheels are perfectly straight and the pins are tight reducing wheel flop. The bodies seem to ride much lower on the chassis as well. All in all, a very nice upgrade to the original Zips chassis.

Sorry, forgot the pic and edit won't let me insert it. Here it is.

Whew! Good thing about the controllers. I was looking at the pics posted and thinking 'oh no, the OLD ZZ controllers?' I just hated the control levers..... I remember the ends of my thumbs becoming somewhat numb after using the old style controllers.:)

Yah, I like the toggle style buttons myself. I hadn't bought an MT til recently, so the toggles where new to me. This car seems to have alot of what we call mods factory installed.
That is:
Dual celled
Cat5 antenna
improved steering
improved PCB cover
lower riding bodies
Controller toggles
But, I can see mod potential here as well.
Changing out steering motors?
Tri- cell? A regular Zip battery would fit in there standing up next to the steering motor.
Quad cell?
These are very nice chassis. I think I might pick up a few more to replace my old Gen 1 slugs.
I would guess we'll see these things for awhile. I can't see why RS would put a redesign on the shelves just for a single Pixar movie.

THANK YOU AZIMOV!!!!!!!!!
 

:eek:That's awesome!!!! the car is going to be fun. ZZ's best car ever, am i right?

Yes, I think it's the best original Zip design to date. I would hope they'll continue to improve the SE as well, but I'm not sure if they will. With the combination of ZZ and SE parts in this thing, I'd guess RS has given up on propo. I hope not, but I'd almost bet on it.

OK, I just went out to the track and did some side by side comparisons. I ran a 49mhz Pixar chassis with red motor blue gear combo and then ran a 49mhz Herbie which has the latest gen original Zip chassis. Same gear setup.
The Pixar car is at least twice as fast. I mean scary fast. It made keeping it off the walls very difficult. The new steering allowed for really quick turning in the curves, but since I wasn't used to the car yet, this usually plowed me into a wall as well. I think with some practice and quick thumb work, this car would be really hard to beat. And we're talkin blue gears! At one point, I was gettin a little better at drivin the car and could manage to pulse the controller going into a curve and either fishtail (could even call it drift) through it or raise the car up on two wheels. Wide open and it just spins out. Even on my semi sticky track surface, the car would fishtail out of the hole.
I didn't break out a stopwatch or anything, but run times seemed the same in both cars.
I then ran one of my newest SEs, same motor/gear setup. Of course, control is much better with an SE. Keep in mind that I've spent a stupid amount of money culling out bad chassis for rock solid ones in my collection, so I don't have any steering issues.
Again, the Pixar chassis is much faster. It smokes even the latest version of an SE chassis.
If you like unreal speed, these are definately for you.

Excellent, now to wait to go on sale. At least I can claim the first siting then posting on this site about them. From using the ZZMT controllers I knew they were dual celled. Someone needs to make a tri-cell.

You guys are right. RS did a lot of things right with this car. I took it for a spin on my track as well. It was so fast that it was uncontrollable with the standard setup (red motor, blue gears). I changed the motor to blue 10k and kept the blue gears. Lap times on my track were then around 12.0 seconds. An SE with the same setup gets about 16.0 seconds and the last gen of standard ZZ is over 20.0 seconds.

The steering is much improved over both of the older models. It was much easier to set the car up and control it at faster speeds.

The bodies sit better on the car as well (that is to say lower).

However, not everything is better. I bought one of each car at my local RS and tested them all. The bad thing I found was the charge. It doesn't last long. All of mine seem to run no longer than about 2 minutes. On my track the standard ZZ can go for about 20-25 laps, an SE can go for about 40-50 laps, and these new ones about 12 laps (15 max). For my purposes this makes them almost unusable.

I like to invite friends over and race. Right now the SE is still the best for this purpose. Many frequencies, and lasts a long time before needing a recharge.

I wish they would have kept the SE and just swapped out the steering that is found in these babies. Then added more frequencies (like Xmods). That would be an ideal car for me.

I hadn't noticed any run time issues. But, I was looking more at speed and handling. Were you running lights on the Pixar chassis? I'll have to do some run time comparisons myself.

I poped one on my hobbie peak charger and turned it down to .2 amps. it charged for 6 min and just bairly warmed up the cells. I was BLOWN AWAY. I added the wide tires in the rear and put sugar water down on the driveway and i was still able to get this little guy to spin out.

and i ran it for what seemed like forever i figure 5 mins.

it started to rain so i havent got a chance to time or video it yet.

way to go RS

You'r doing well. The most I can get out of my latest ZZ SE is about 8 feet on a charge. Its an Aston Martin DB5 chassis with an Escalade body, lights and music. Any easy way to change out the battery or should I just take it back?
Thanks
Hugo

I was initially running the lights, but was barely able to get 10 laps in. After unplugging the lights I got a few more.

I have only been chagring it once with the controller. I will check the voltage of the batteries after this charge and see if it is near 2.4V. Maybe it will take a couple of charges to get it up to max. Thanks for the suggestion.

He's talking about charging with a peak charger. This fills the battery slowly so it gets a full charge. The standard TX charger is a quick charger that doesn't even fill the internal battery by half.
When you say you have the newer chassis that comes with the DB5, then I assume you'd have good run times, but you also mention music, so I'm thinking you've added some circuitry to the chassis that is drawing a lot of juice. I don't think you have a reason to take it back if this is the case. You just need to add another battery in parallel to make up for what your music circuit is using. If your music circuit is hooked to another battery seperate from the internal one, then I'd check the batteries in the controller before exchanging it as they may be to weak to give an ample charge. You shouldn't need to replace the battery in a new chassis.

I would start double charging that battery and I bet it does better. The problem with this is like with the zzmt. When the steering peaks out, the steering motor doesn't shut off it's signal so it's drawing the most current whenever you're holding a turn. I'm betting on a track with a lot of turns that this will really affect your battery life.


My plan is to wait until after the movie is long over so they sell these really cheap, as they did the Hulk and Spiderman trucks before any of the others. Then i'm-a get me a few :)



as for the batteries in the SE..... that's a tough one. I found replacements for the original zz's and have a ton of them, but i never found a place to sell the smaller ones used the SE.

The lights & music are standard on the ZZ SE Cadillac Escalade Body Kit (600-7548) and are not an add on. I disconnected the sound & lights and now I'm getting ~ 22.5 feet per charge which still seems very poor. I'll test the other Escalade body on a ZZ SE Ford GT chassis for comparison.

This is my third ZZ SE DB5 and the second one that has given me trouble. RS exchanged the second one for this one after it quit completely after about 30 seconds. The first one I bought does not seem to have any problems - yet.

The slow charger is interesting - tell me more.

Thanks,
Hugo

Interesting, I didn't know about this body kit. I would assume then that the factory added circuit is not the problem, considering that you've tested the chassis with this circuit unplugged.
I've never encountered this problem in a new chassis. Especially twice. I have experienced the same symptoms, but always due to low batteries in the controller/charger.
Do a search for "peak charger" and you should find loads of info.
The basic idea is that a peak charger trickle charges these tiny internal batteries rather than quick charging them with the controller charger. The peak charger senses when the battery is almost full and cuts the juice accordingly to assure maximum fillup in the battery.
The engineers that came up with these little micro cars way back assumed that the quickest possible charge was needed for marketing purposes. That is, they can print "One minute charge and run for 5 minutes". The battery inside of an SE is 2.4 VDC @ around 70 Ma. In order to fill this battery to the rim with juice, you need to charge it for one hour at 2.4VDC @70Ma and you'll get roughly half an hour of run time. But, the marketing guys know that no one, especially kiddies, are gonna wait an hour to run one of these things. So, they put 4 batteries in the charger, that equals 6VDC @ around one Amp. Way to high for the batteries to take it. So, they limit the charge tiime to 45 seconds to one minute. This dumps a small amount of charge into the bottom of the battery very quickly so patience is not taxed, and keeps the battery from exploding. But the capacity of the battery is never filled and you are using less than half it's current (capacitance) volume.

Thanks for the information. I knew I shouldn’t have been napping during those EE lectures but that was back in the slide rule days and we didn’t have none of this solid state stuff anyway. Actually, one oriental kid was still using an abacus - seemed to work most of the time.
I’ll start by replacing the charger batteries and then try a “peak charger” search.
Would rewiring one of my SE chargers for 3 VDC slow down the process and fill the batteries up?
Thanks,
Hugo

Slide rules are hilarious..... For my EE degree/classes, all we do is throw the numbers in a TI-89 or use Matlab. We actually refer to the 89 as "Jesus."

"What's the answer to this set of 6 simultanius equations? Let's ask Jesus."

Jesus says:

X= 3 + j5
Y = 5.4893
Z = 4.7 E-9
T = 6.34 + j.433
R = 0

:D

hehehe
 

this is sooo off topic but...

I have a ti89 and we used it for everything. we used to make programs that would just ask you for what info you had and what you needed. then you entered the numbers and it would throw up the answer.

I love that thing. I am going to look for mine tonight. I havent used that for years.