Inside the dNaNo

[LBRC]

Fitting Parts Size Diagrams PDF file. This PDF document shows the parts used to adjust the dNaNo chassis dimensions. There are more than you might think so it’s worth taking a look.

Size chart with Fitting Parts Set contents, for the current and some of the proposed bodies. Measurements are in millimeters. Not 100% accurate yet but better than nothing.


Fitting Parts Instruction manual, PDF file.




Left Mini-Z ASF board, right dNaNo

Points of Intrest
3010 mosfets
Bushing/bearing sizes; front (4) OD 4mm x W 1.2mm x ID 1.5mm, rear (2) OD 6mm x W 2.5mm x ID 2mm.

Comments/cautions
The dNaNo screws and wiring are extremely small. It is best to avoid temptation and leave the CB and its wiring alone. As for the screws if you can completely assemble and reassemble a ZZSE then you will have no problem with the dNaNo, however if you are fumble fingered, or worse yet tend to over tighten screws, you should probably just stick to the necessities. At this time replacement parts are a long way off, for the US at least, so lost screws and/or stripped plastic screw holes will be potentially fatal.

Batteries and the Starter Pack (K-18 radio, battery, and charger)
So is that starter pack the only option? Not at all, I made a few 210mAh LiPo packs for myself and friends who already have the K-18’s that came our 2.4GHz ASF Mini-Z’s, and better LiPo chargers than the one that comes in the starter pack. Of course the custom packs don’t have low voltage cutoffs, due to the size of the 130mAh pack I assume the dNaNo does, but from experience I’ve found that for me they don’t actually end up doing much. The car slows to a crawl and becomes unmanageable well before the battery reaches 3 volts and I like to think I’m aware enough to know that it then needs to be charged. For additional safety both the Triton and Ice chargers I use sound an alarm and show an error if the voltage is too low. My only problem is that I get distracted and have in the past left the car “ON” with the LiPo plugged in, and guess what a LVC does very little to help when I do that, in fact the dNaNo manual even warns against leaving the battery in the car when not in use stating that there is still current flowing even with the power switch in the off position.



A little hard to see but the photo does show that the 210 pack fits nicely in the dNaNo's battery compartment, and it's not just the extra 80mAh I appreciate either. Kyosho doesn’t say what the stock cells "C" rating is but my guess is 5C or less for something like a 650 millamp max current rating, either way it's low enough that I can feel the difference when accelerating especially after the first 10 minutes. I also like that the 210 pack can be charged safely at 0.2 amps instead of 0.1 for the 130 pack. Not sure what the stock chargers exact rate is, honestly I only tried it once, had a few problems, got impatient, found a better use for it's batteries and gave it away.

[tinyrc]

LBRC, you rock! Can you email me when you have a sec?

[LBRC]

Sent email, hope it went to the right address.

[tinyrc]

LBRC, I don't see anything from you - we've been getting a ton of spam lately though - maybe try a Shop Support Ticket? Thanks!

[LBRC]

A very strong magnet in the middle, 5 sets of coils on the outside.


Side view of the magnet.


I started playing around with 7mm coreless motors a few years ago when I tried putting a SuperSlicks motor in an Epoch, just one motor didn’t have quite enough power to push the 80gram Epoch but as it turned out two 7mm coreless SuperSlick motors where just what I was looking for, well almost that is. The problem was that the SS motors where a bit unreliable and burned out too quickly, but eventually I found what I needed.

SuperSlick armature on the left with the red wires, LBSpd on the right with the orange.

Note, I didn't sacrifice a good motor, the burnt com on the right is the result of an entertaining 7.4v 2S LiPo Mini-Z CB Epoch experment.

Side view red SupperSlick on the bottom, copper LBSpd on the top.


SuperSlick magnet bushing left, LBSpd right.


Blue SuperSlick endbell and brushes left, orange LBSpd right.


The SS motor is your basic economy model, and the LBSpd is a made to spec high end Precious Metal Brush (PMB) version. You usually do get what you pay for but the $10 question is which one does the stock dNaNo motor and XSpeed resemble? Unfortunately I only have one and am not quite ready to sacrifice it to the cause, yet.

Coreless Motor Designations

Kind of hard to count the number of turns on a coreless motor, but the armature resistance can be/is used for the same purpose and just like the number of turns the lower the resistance the more current it draws and faster it goes. Please keep in mind though that using a multimeter to measure a motor across the connector through the brushes to the commutator is going to very a great deal from motor to motor, especially used motors. And that the brush and commutator quality between motors will also have a good deal to do with a connector measured resistance value. Oh and one more thing the values I’ve listed for the LBSpd motors are ball park figures close enough for a discussion but not the actual spec'd values.

Left Black – Stock Kyosho dNaNo (4.7 ohm)
Middle Orange - LBSpd Sweet (~3.7 ohm)
Right Green - LBSpd Ripper (~2.7 ohm)
In Car Blue - LBSpd Muhaha (~1.7 ohm)

Since the dNaNo has an XSpeed hop-up motor I thought that my test motors needed X-names too .

My favorite dNaNo motor for the traction side of a 2xWide-L RCP track is the ~3.7ohm Sweet as it’s name implies and I’m assuming that the XSpeed will measure in right around 3.7 to 4 ohms too. More than fast enough with good torque, especially with the batteries I use, but more on that later.

The ~2.7 ohm motor is a bit fast for serious racing, ok that’s not quite true it’s a bit fast for my current dNaNo setup and lol driving ability, but still fun and who knows…

A ~1.7 ohm motor is a bit much and would be more accurately named the Stupid “go fast try to turn and roll like a dog.”

This cars going to be fun.

[Sm0lders]

How big is the dNano board in mm?

[LBRC]

20mm x 30mm x 7mm

[Sm0lders]

wow, that is tiny! thanks!

F1 cars have a total width of 1800mm = 41,9mm in 1/43.
And they are 1400mm = 32,6mm in 1/43 wide at the sidepods so it could hold the electronic board.

Theres very little space left for a battery or gyro though...

[LBRC]

Don’t forget the steering servo, it’s the hardest F1 part to fit. The smaller the car the proportionally larger the servo ends up being when compared to the rest of the components, and an F1's feedhorn needs to extend out the front a bit.

This is a 1/32nd formula one body and it’s still too small for the dNaNo chassis as is. Like the 1/24 (not 1/28) Mini-Z F1 even a 1/32 scale F1 would take a whole new design.



Now if I was making an F1 I’d probably start with a Mini-Z ASF CB sure it’s 5mm longer (20mm x 30mm) but only has the one ICS connector in the middle instead of three on the end. Much easier to fit in a tight spot, especially if you remove or modify it. And similar to the Mini-Z F1 I’d probably install my battery from the bottom of the chassis for space and to avoid removing the body as much as possible, detailed F1 bodies tend to be a bit delicate.

Hmm what was I doing with that CB in the above photo? I seem to have forgotten.

[arch2b]

i would be your first cutomer to line up for a custom dnano based f1!

[Marcro]

I second that comment arch!

[nic-z]

And a Third with enough cash to fund the project lol. Also I too thought the stock lipos to be some what worth less, I've made several 230 packs and one 400 pack. the 200's fit fine as you have show, the 400 works well with only a slight modification, though after running with it my TX batteries ran out before my dnano did, far too much run time needed, but of course it was just fun to do.

[LBRC]

Afraid 1/32 F1 project will use very little from the dNaNo except maybe a future ball differential for an alternate rear end, for a CB it uses the Mini-Z ASF. I started the project awhile back but I keep running into or inventing delays, mostly I’m just not happy with my current cnc mill and am sort of waiting for this one which I hope to pick up in August when they become available here in the States to finish a final version.

Also been working on upgrading my lathe, not being a machinist fabricating some of the more intricate parts has had a fairly steep and sometimes painfull learning curve, especially when it comes to finding tools/equipment that will fit within my hobbyists budget yet still have the precision and repeatability I want. Not to mention some of life’s little medical curve balls getting in the way, but the project has been moving along.

Back to inside the dNaNo and its 130 mAh LiPo.
Afraid I sort of upset Tim over at MZR with some of my comments about it, but the cold hard fact is that as a LiPo goes it’s “adequate” with a good deal of room left for improvement, and the DC AA battery only charger basically sucks. Of course I suppose it does leave room for Kyosho to sell a future AC charger, but IMO the dNaNo charger is right down there with the Mini-Z boat and LIT chargers, but that is just my personal opinion and if anyone likes them that's great more power to them, oh except that they would need more AA batteries for more power wouldn't they?

If you pry open the nifty little 30x20x7mm plastic dNaNo battery box you will find a small 25x17x5mm P34HP0017K02A Korean LiPo. I have no complaint about the battery being made in Korea right now China and Korea are dominating the market when it comes to the high current type of LiPo that we use in RC cars and plains, if not the low current high dollar cellphone and computer cells. There is no low voltage cutoff it's just a single LiPo cell. Funny thing about that; it seemed to be my slightly disparaging comments about LVC’s not really being necessary in a dNaNo except to possibly satisfy some lawyer that started the misunderstanding with Tim in the first place, but the dNaNo doesn’t have one so??? I didn’t mean to offend.

Thing is that until you actually drive a dNaNo with a 10C 210 or better yet 12-20C 200mAh battery after driving one with the stock battery all the theory in the world is not going to be much more than a so much babble about current delivery. For me it’s not the increased runtime, although that’s nice too, it’s the throttle response, on my track I get that full power feeling and steering control longer. At first I was using 10C 210mAh cells which where a noticeable improvement and all I originally though the dNaNo could possibly need but I was mistaken the 12-20C 200 cells are providing noticeable more power/punch longer, especially with the motors I’m using.

IMO upgrading the battery comes right after ball bearings, and before an XSpeed or other motor.

Which of course leads us to tires.
Ouch with the batteries and motors it didn’t take long for my front tires to go. A purest would say that it’s just like “real racing” but unless someone starts selling tire packages by the dozen at a reasonable price $3+ for 4 is going to be a major deterrent to dNaNo racing.

[nic-z]

Great post, where are you getting your 200 and 210 lipos from? I can only find 230's they work but would like to experiment with other varieties. thanks

[nic-z]

Okay don't want to share with the class? thats cool lol. Here are a few pics of mine for those that are interested they are 230mAh lipos and fit perfectly no mods to the dnano at all. Also a shot of the large med and small core transponder tags as you can see the small tag works perfectly for the dnano until the new timming systems come to reconize the built in rfid tag. Also a shot next to a micro-t just for marco.