It’s too cold for painting race bike fairings in the trailer so I’ve been tinkering with the Carisma SCA-1E Lynx ORV RC crawler. I was searching around on yeggi and Thingiverse for a roof rack but then realized that it would block access to the body clips on the roof. Apparently Carisma released STL files of a roof rack specifically designed for the Lynx for free but I couldn’t find them anywhere. I contacted Carisma through Facebook who told me they would ask at head office, no joy yet so find something else to print while waiting!
All of the washers that go on the body posts were missing so I drew up and printed a set but found that the rear ones lifted the body too much so I took them back off.
The shocks have very bad stiction after they have sat for a little while, it takes a good deal of force to compress them and get them moving even after sitting for only a few minutes it seems. Once they have been worked they seem ok but it’s something I’d like to try to address as new shocks are pretty expensive, only issue is that I don’t have any shock oil so I can’t disassemble them. Apparently there are some little seals just above where the rod or stanchion goes into the body where the oil is, they can get compressed so that they grip the rod or maybe they just need greasing.
I noticed that one of the wheels has a little nick in it and found these great 1.9 bead lock wheels by Goodson’s Hobbies on Thingiverse, so I downloaded the STL files and set the 3D printer going – 9 hours later two wheels were ready printed in gold ABS! While they were printing I ordered these Hefddehy 1.9 tires, a bit bigger than the stock ones I had but a great deal and can be sold to limit the loss if they’re no good. This is when I found out that it’s very difficult to print ABS in winter – my printer is in the basement and it’s a little cool down there making it tough to heat the bed and prevent the nasty warping. The first wheels warped enough to strip the threads in the holes when trying to screw them together and grab the tire beads. After switching to PET-G I got a set of 4 wheels printed in black, the detail is not as good as with ABS but they didn’t warp, assembled easily and look wild to my eyes!!
In the last image on the right there you can see my attempt at a spare tire carrier as the stock one is missing. After a few iterations I wasn’t overly happy with where the tire sits and even though the printed carrier was stiff the tire wobbled around a fair bit so I took it off and gave up … for now.
After a little run in the woods across the street (that didn’t present much of a challenge to the Lynx) I found that one of the side mirrors was gone!! I went back twice and searched but couldn’t find it so I drew one up and 3D printed a set.
Finally, it took a few iterations to do some fine tuning but I have finally designed and printed a forward battery tray to move the battery to the front (more scale) and move the receiver/ESC to the old battery tray. There’s a good few mms of clearance over the steering servo when the front suspension is bottomed out and a few mms between the top of the battery and the body. It is a little tight at the front though so not sure how well it will work with other bodies. If anyone is interested in getting one, feel free to contact me and I can send you the STL file or a printed part.