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The new stuff chronicles #18: PS3 and another car

Movies, Playstation, RC, The new stuff chronicles, Videogames | Posted by Dr. J

Feb 06 2011

Last Friday I was at the Mediamarkt with a friend and I finally decided to get me a Playstation 3, or PS3 for short. I had actually planned this already for a long time, but now was the moment that it finally dropped to an acceptable price for a game console. I said that I had this planned for a long time already is because God of War 3 is a PS3 exclusive title. I have God of War and God of War 2 on the PS2 and after beating both several times I was really hungry for more over the top Kratos action. So on the list of games to get with the PS3, God of War 3 was the top essential. Just in case God of War 3 would leave me hungry for more I also got Dante’s Inferno. Dante’s Inferno is basicly exactly the same as God of War, but with a slightly different look. The gameplay is more or less the same, so it’s pretty hard not to like it. And while browsing through the available games I also found WipeOut HD Fury and I couldn’t leave that sitting there either. WipeOut is awesome. WipeOut HD Fury isn’t much different from the WipeOut games on the PS2, however, it is a little friendlier to beginners as WipeOut Fusion and WipeOut Pulse on the PS2 and it looks awesome, the controls are tight and it starts of easy, but gets pretty tough really quick.

At first the PS3 wouldn’t let me play the sound through my stereo set and video through HDMI, but a little hopping through the config menu’s fixed that. Surround sound is overrated. I still love my 15 year old Sony RXD7.

A good thing about the PS3 is that it plays Blu-Ray discs and DVD’s. So now I no longer have to use my XBox as a DVD player. Ofcourse it’s also possible to play DVD’s on a PS2, but I don’t have a media remote for that one and operating it with a wired controller from my bed is a pain. Fortunatly, the PS3 has wireless controllers. But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t get some Blu-Ray movies with it as well. Here are the two I got.

Avatar needs no introduction and I’m not usually into French movies, but Amelie is quite a special case. It’s not very often that you actually get to love the main character in a movie, but somehow they pulled that off in Amelie. Check it if you want to see what I mean.

The title of this installment of The new stuff chronicles also says something about another car. So yeah, here it is.

This is a Tamiya F103GT with a full graphite chassis and some aluminum hop-ups. I got this second hand from a guy over at a Tamiya fan site and it replaced the only non Tamiya car I had in my collection, the Corally CCT which went to a Corally fan. The body has some impact damage and the chassis does have some scratches at the bottom, but that’s normal on a second hand car which has had some running time on a track. I don’t think I’ll be getting a replacement body however as this body is insanely expensive. Maybe I’ll get something else sometime, but for now this will do. I still need to get an ESC and motor for this one anyway, so I won’t be running this car yet anyway.

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Clod light add-on

RC | Posted by Dr. J

Jan 04 2011

Just like I’ve added some lights to my Sand Viper, I’ve now added some lights to my newly acquired Clod. This, however, is a little different.

The Clod’s standard body has light buckets in it’s front, but no other light buckets. The original (fake) light bar on it’s top broke off after an unfortunate roll and has been replaced by a functional light bar with 5 leds. The light buckets have been equipped with leds that came with the light unit that I have installed inside the body.

The head lights actually burn at just 50% when idle or reversing, but light up to 100% when going forward.

As you can see, these pictures where taken before the body was mounted on the chassis.

The unit also provides functional signal lights and brake lights.

Unfortunately the body does not have light buckets other than the head lights, so I just drilled some holes to fit the leds in at the right spots.

These pictures don’t quite give the full effect, so I’ll be recording a short video soon and post that as well. Stay tuned.

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The new stuff chronicles #17: CLOD

RC, The new stuff chronicles | Posted by Dr. J

Dec 09 2010

Pictures say more than a thousand words…

This monster is second hand and came with a battery, transmitter and a simple charger.

No testdrive yet, but I don’t expect this thing to be very maneuverable.

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Sand Viper lights add-on v2

RC | Posted by Dr. J

Nov 20 2010

The old version has been removed and a new version has come in it’s place. This one looks better, is brighter and has tail lights as well.

I just took it out for a spin about 15 minutes ago. That was close to mid nights, so it’s a good thing it’s not running on nitro

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Sand Viper lights add-on

RC | Posted by Dr. J

Nov 14 2010

It’s getting dark early these days and when I take my Sand Viper outside for a spin, I prefer to see where it’s going. So I built a light add-on to meet this demand.

The add-on is based on a light set that I bought for next to nothing at a local RC hobby shop. The bad thing was that the leds from the kit burned out almost instantly after applying power to them. So I took the plastic parts, some higher quality leds, a 4 way AA battery holder, some wire and a soldering iron and built my own head light add-on.

I pried 4 leds through a small piece of elapor foam and attached 2 wires at the back of the foam. I then soldered the led’s wires to the wire on the back of the foam piece. Lastly I soldered the battery holder to the wires on the foam piece and there you go: a very bright head light add-on.

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The new stuff chronicles #15: mini

RC, The new stuff chronicles | Posted by Dr. J

Sep 30 2010

After a lot of thinking I finally decided that I wanted to take part in next season’s RC competition over at the club (www.erceracing.nl). But none of my cars are very suitable for any of the classes. The CCT doesn’t fit into any current class, the FF01 is too old and slow and TA05 isn’t fitted for any of the classes that I would want to compete in. The TA05 would be allowed in the modified class, but I’m pretty sure that I’ll be blown away by even the weakest competition in that class with their way to powerful motors.

So then I decided that I wanted to ride with the mini class and that mend that I had to buy a new chassis as any of my other cars are too big to be allowed into that class. The mini chassis class is 1:10 scale just like the others, but they are based on considerably smaller cars like a mini cooper or fiat 500. I, however, got my chassis without a body, so it’s just small and not based on anything. Here are some pictures of my new Tamiya M05 Pro.

Unlike most RC cars, this one isn’t 4 wheel driven of rear wheel driven. Instead it’s a front wheel driven chassis that is very front heavy. The rear weighs next to nothing while the front is pretty heavy with the motor, drivetrain and steering mechanics in the front. The electronics are in the back though for good measure and the battery goes just a little to the front from the center of the chassis. The biggest difference that this chassis has compared to it’s predecessor (the M03) is that the steering servo is mounted in the back of the chassis instead of the front. This all for the better distribution of the weight. This better weight distribution means that this chassis is more suitable for use with lipo batteries than the M03 was.

I chose this chassis, because it’s the latest front wheel driven M chassis by Tamiya. It comes in several different versions and this is the M05 Pro Blue Plated Version. I actually picked the Blue Plated Version, because it had the exact same price tag as the normal black one, but this one just looks cooler. The electronics are just mounted on the chassis for good measure right now. The speed controller isn’t connected to the motor and has no connectors on it for a battery. And also important, it’s just the standard motor that comes with any Tamiya RC car (except for Pro versions, they don’t come with a motor) conveniently called “Silver Can” by the community. It’s a low cost and low performance motor that probably won’t be used in this car at all. Like I said, it’s in there for good measure.

I’m not yet sure whether the rear body posts will remain on there like this. The body I want to buy probably won’t fit with these body posts, so I’m probably going to have to replace them sometime.

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The new stuff chronicles #13: thingies!

Movies, Old stuff, RC, The new stuff chronicles, Videogames, XBox | Posted by Dr. J

Dec 27 2009

What’s that? No posts for about a half year and then 2 posts on the same day? Must be something special then…

Anyway, time for another new stuff chronicle. This time there isn’t any real theme to it. Some of this, some of that. Let’s get started.

On December 19th, me and my friend Michiel went to Amsterdam to visit the one and only “PC Dumpdag”. In English that would be the PC Dump Day. At PC dump there are many things to be found for little money and some are computer related while others are not. Basicly it’s a computer discount market, but besides computer stuff there are cheap ass remote control helicopters, cheap ass remote control cars, electric razors, movies, games and other useless crap. For the first time we were actually looking for something we could take home with us as there was barely anything interesting to be found and we decided that we wouldn’t go home with empty hands, so here is what I finally got.

First, a miniature vice (or vise for American readers):

This little thingy may look more useless than it actually is. It can be mounted on a table or something using the suction cup at it’s bottom and it stands pretty firm that way. I’m going to use this thing to hold wires and such that I want to solder together so I can use 1 hand to hold 1 wire and the other to hold the soldering iron and since I don’t have a third hand this vice can actually hold the other wire.

Second, some crappy movies:

The first movie (on the left) is Scarecrow Slayer. This is really as bad as it sounds. It’s the only one I’ve watched so far and it’s really so bad that it’s funny. The camerawork is rubbish. The acting is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. The story makes no sense at all. It’s not scary. And it’s so cheap that the gore effects aren’t gory at all. But besides all that it was a good laugh and that’s all that matters. The best thing is that it even has a behind the scenes documentary on the disc and some of the girls are pretty nice looking.

The second movie was a great find. I haven’t seen it yet, but I know it’s awesome. I know that because it was mentioned at “de Nacht van de Wansmaak” (night of bad taste) a few years ago. It’s even mentioned on one of the two Nacht van de Wansmaak DVD’s that I mentioned in a distant past on this post and this post. That was so long ago that they aren’t even called New stuff chronicles yet.

The last movie has yet to surprise me, but the title and tagline are promising. “Super Badass: from farmer to bounty hunter” has to be awesome.

That’s it for the PC Dumpdag. Let’s move on.

The same day I also went to Rotterdam to pick up something I bought through an internet marketplace for second hand goods. It’s this:

Yes boys and girls, this is a really old Pong console. But unlike most Pong consoles, this one doesn’t have a big clumsy base station with 2 controllers, this one has it’s base in the controller with all the switches and it’s sound in the other controller. I don’t have much data on it besides these 2 pictures, but I believe it was made in the late 70′s or early 80′s. The brand is Eaca and that even has a page on Wikipedia right here. At first I thought it was from 1971, but that’s impossible according to the Wikipedia text as Eaca produced Pong style consoles from 1975 to 1983. So this one is from sometime between those years. It doesn’t have it’s original power supply unit anymore, but it works on the one I got with it. The knob on the base controller was kind of sticky, but prying a screwdriver under it fixed that problem and now it works like a charm. Playing Pong has never been so much fun. There’s nothing like playing an old game the old fashioned way.

A few weeks ago, even before Christmas, we have the Sinterklaas celebration. Sinterklaas is our version of Santa and the biggest differences are the following.

Sinterklaas lives in spain instead of on the North Pole.
Sinterklaas has existed in some distant past where Santa has not.
Sinterklaas travels by boat and not on a sleigh with flying Reindeer.
Sinterklaas has black people to help him out instead of non existant elves.

These black people aren’t negroids by the way. They are this black because of the soot in the chimneys of the houses where the presents are to be delivered. So there is no racism involved in this celebration.

Anyway, I got this:

This is an interesting game. I will never say that Halo is a good game in any way, but this game proves that something good can be made on Halo technology. Stubbs The Zombie is a very fun game running on the Halo Engine on the XBox. As with Halo, there is also a PC version of this game, but as to be expected, the XBox version is far superior.

This game is the other way around zombie game. You don’t get to shoot or slash zombies. Instead, you get to be the zombie and eat people’s brains. Sound fun? It is.

And lastly, I got an XBox console. No 360, just a plain old XBox. My brother’s girl didn’t want it anymore, so I bought it of her. Here’s a pic, nothing else to it.

…End of line.

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My Corally CCT’s new face

RC | Posted by Dr. J

Jul 25 2009

Only recently I have driven my first ever RC race and I drove it with my Corally CCT chassis. However, at the time I didn’t have a body for it, but fortunately I could borrow an old body from a friend so I could still enter the competition. This body, however, was for a Corally C10 and not for a CCT, so it was quite a bit too wide and it looked kind weird, but it was still cool that I could use it for this race.

Now it’s different. It took some time to arrive, but finally I got the body I wanted for my CCT. A HPI Saleen S7R 190mm body unpainted. I painted it red and black using the same red paint as on the body of my Tamiya TA-05ifs. But instead of coating the body with white coating paint, I sprayed the entire thing over with black making the red tint much darker. It’s now nearly brown and I think it looks pretty great. I also got the limited version of the Saleen S7R body with 3D headlight buckets. The manual actually gives you the choice to simply paint the entire body and put on the normal headlight stickers to finish it, or you can cover the headlights with the headlight covers to prevent paint from getting there, then paint the headlight buckets and apply stickers on that and then put those inside the body. I chose the last option and I must say that it looks really great. Much better than just your normal headlight stickers. These headlights are true colour and 3D, just like fish. Even the CCT’s standard wheels look quite good, beit a bit small, under the body. So here are some pics.

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The new stuff chronicles #12: more RC stuff!

RC, The new stuff chronicles | Posted by Dr. J

Jul 02 2009

Today there are 2 things that I’ll be writing about. The first is the Corally CCT that I already mentioned in my previous post. The other thing is a body that I ordered at a store to use on my FF-01.

The Corally CCT is a direct driven rear wheel drive car. It’s not a touring car, because of the direct drive and it’s not a Pro-10 pan-car either, because of it’s size. Some people like calling it a touring-pan-car. Anyway, here is a picture of it.

Then there is the body for the FF-01. People might think it doesn’t fit with the style of the chassis. The body is muscle car style and the FF-01 is a front wheel drive chassis. Everybody knows that muscle cars are rear wheel drive in real life, but I just got this body because it looks cool. It’s not very detailed, but it has a nice pre painted paint job and it’s cheap.

I also ran the FF-01 for the first time on the track yesterday. The stupid thing was that I forgot that I had a 27Mhz receiver on it and I only brought my 40Mhz transmitter. Eventually another member of the club was friendly enough to offer me to borrow one of his old transmitters and a receiver with it so I could still take it out for a spin on the track. All I can say is thanks to him and that the FF-01 is very fun to drive.

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The new stuff chronicles #11: picture time!

Other, RC, The new stuff chronicles | Posted by Dr. J

Jun 23 2009

My birthday was yesterday and today is the time to blog about the gifts. I already told you people what stuff I got and also that I didn’t really celebrate yet and that is probably why there aren’t that many gifts. Every year everyone says that they have no idea what to give to me, but eventually they always find something cool.

So here we go. The first thing I got from my brother on behalf of my parents is this box:

This is a parts box that I can use for my RC parts. I don’t have that many yet, but I’m sure that that will change in the future. I’ve taken out the little yellow containers on the inside of the box to make room for my charger, batteries, multimeter and the power supply for the charger.

I think this box is really cool and it will come in very handy for sure. I can just take this to the track, open it up and leave the charger itself sitting in there so I don’t even have to spread my batteries all over the pit table and I’ll have all my parts in one place instead of all over the place. Maybe I’ll even put in some tools in it as well. I just have to make sure I don’t short circuit the power supply with a screwdriver then.

The second thing I got was a Philips Living Colors Mini. Believe it or not, these things are really cool. The only con is has in comparison to it’s larger brother is that this one can’t be controlled with a remote. But just set it on cycle mode and it’ll change it’s color continuously or you can just set it to a certain color if you like that better. Here are a few pictures of it. It can project a total of 256 different colors.