Update- NEW Dash Chassis is Ready !

[Ralphthe3rd]

The following was written by Mr. Alpink >
"got mine and Hank's yesterday. we tested and divied them up today. after testing all we each took one and mounted a body.after lubing, of course. mine began a little awkwardly with a sort of rythym/pulsing slow/fast/slow/faster/slow/fast/slow/faster for about a lap. mean while Hank was getting his shoes properly adjusted and doing a little freeing up of the top plate gear train with a fine grit sand paper.
mine was now running pretty good with no more pulsations and getting quieter every lap.
we ran neck and neck with mine having a slight edge down the main straight with a little more top end. mine had considerable roll out upon letting off throttle and Hank's was a bit tight. Hank kept fine tuning his shoes and getting a little quicker, but I still would get around him at the end of the straight.
the tires never, once, came off. they get extremely good traction right out of the gate with little or no spinning. they do get dirty quick and the difference between dirty and clean is night and day.
Hank monkeyed with his brush tension and caused his to slow a bit. meanwhile I just kept making laps with mine and it was getting quieter every lap and easier to get into the turns. Hank finally got his brush tension back to where he was getting even with me on the straight.
we took a little break.
upon returning to track, Hank's was beating mine down the straight quite easy and I was becoming disappointed. after just two laps, mine came back to it's previous ability and we were doing side by side laps again. I even started to get that long straight pull away back. hank would occasionally make a little tweek, trying to fine tune and squeeze that little bit more out of his.
Hank is master of his track and I am barely able to keep upright, but these drove like a charm and I was able to be competitive and actually stay in slot for many laps ( maybe Hank was sandbagging so I wouldn't get disappointed and quit! ).
any way all I did with mine was the initial lube ( of course we both switched magnets around to put blue in front ) and once cleaning the pickup shoes and frequently cleaning the tires on tape. my shoes were toe heavy and only touching the rail on a very small patch on the leading edge. but the car ran every time it was put straight in the lane and was quite quick.
after agreeing that the cars were about equal and a bargain at $12.00 we needed to do stuff and I left. I left the chassis I was testing with Hank and took another of his un-run chassis. we plan on using the one I was testing as a base and NOT tweeking it but running snot out of it when ever we can to get an idea of longevity in a completely stock condition.
all the chassis we got ran quick and easily on a 9 volt battery with first touch except one. it had a hanger issue, or rather a pickup shoe bend issue and was easily fixed and sounding like the rest. after making sure they all ran, we put them back in the box and then alternated choosing one by one until we both had same amount and none were left in box. all in all, I am am more than pleased with what I got and don't at all understand the issues I have read regarding these. they were no more or less able than a NOS t-jet( of which I still have a couple hundred in cases) right out of the box. of course they are faster overall with DASH magnets, trilam 14 OHM armature and domed copper brushes.
the slight noise from the top plate gear train diminished quickly enough through just running, I would day within ten laps. Hank's was quiet immediately because of the care he took with the top plate gears prior to putting on track. a normal, proper break in period should result in complete smooth running at optimal performance levels.
again, anyone making claims that these chassis are over priced or under developed should, perhaps, find another hobby.
Hank and I thoroughly enjoyed running about 50 laps and proving that tuning or just running, equally allow the car to come to it's greatest potential in each way.
mileage may vary."

[TuscoTodd]

Thank you for the follow up report! Look forward to seeing these show up at my LHS down the road (I may have to order one on line to play with prior though!) :)

[Ralphthe3rd]

WOW !....I've learned alot about the T-Dash Chassis during Break-in and tuning.

OK, where should I begin ? First off, I think Dan Cashmer has a CAT ! As after taking the chassis out of the bag it came in, I noted what appeared to be fine cat fur stuck to gears on the top plate and elsewhere. But that's just a funny observation, and YMMV
I added a guide pin and set the chassis on my set up block, and noted the contact patches of the Pick-up shoes, and they weren't flat, they were nose tip down only, so thats some tuning that needs addressed if you want to make you you get good current flow. I then touched the PU's to my power source and observed the motor running, it had a noise gear train and pulsated a bit, but this was to be expected, as NOS T-Jets will sometimes be like this as well. Next up was to open her up, and examine and then swap around the magnets, as all that have been shipped so far, have the mags Backwards ! Ok, then I removed all internals and examined the chassis for fit and plastic flash, which there was some at the rear near the front of the crown gear where Dan shaved the plastic to make clearance for the Crown which musta been rubbing. A very sharp blade cleaned up the hanging CHAD ! I also noted the comm brushes hung up a little in their bores, and I addressed some flash in there, although the brushes left alot to be desired(more on that later). I've also noted that Dan used a Dremel grinder up front under the axle/about the guide pin, probably to gain clearance there as well, as the course splines in the center of the axle were likely grinding on the chassis floor ? Oh yeah, another observation was, the magnets are VERY loose in their pockets and could stand to be shimmed, and something else about these DASH magnets, THESE happened to be the Roughest CAST Magnets I've ever seen come from DASH, as they usually are VERY well cast and fit most Aurora T-Jets perfectly....more on that later. Just to to be picky, I noted the rear wheel/huibs were Not pressed all the way onto to their Axle, but they were on 3/4 of the way, so thats no biggie. OKaaaay, now time to oil her up, and set her in my Break-in box and let her smooth the rough edges off the gear train etc.
Let me go back now and talk about the Comm Brushes, and WHY They Suck ! First off the T-Dash Brush (leaf) Springs don't exactly end in the V that is normally associated with T-Jet Brush Springs. On the T-Dash, the Brush spring ends in a tiny little "u" and thats what is under the brush from the bottom. The T-Dash Brushes themselves greatly resemble the JL/AW T-Jet brushes- before AW redesigned them a year or so ago and they now have two flat sides(which is rather pointless of AW to do). ANYway, the V notch in the T-Dash brush bottom does NOT fit the little "u" on the Brush spring very well, and right there it's not really doing a good job of either locking the brush from spinning or making good contact, PLUS the fact I noted the Domed Brushes appeared canted in their bores when the comm wasn't in contact with them. Now let me fast forward a bit, and the chassis has gone thru the break-in phase and is ready for formal test driving. So here she goes, off and running as I gun the car around the track- Go speed Racer - Go ! She ran pretty nice, and I was pleasantly surprised by those skinny little tires, they didn't want to pop off the rims, and Did give adequate traction. All in all, the chassis ran about like a Good running NOS Aurora T-Jet chassis. It wasn't extremely fast, just average...so now after about 50 laps of running, I stopped here and it was time to start tuning.
Tuning the T-Dash Chassis. I wanted to concentrate on three areas, 1) Gear Train, 2) Comm Brushes, & 3) Magnets. With the(Top Plate) gear train, I found some roughness and binding, although alot of that was lessened after a good break-in and lapping, but I also wanted to swap out Idler gears and see if that had any effect. Sooo, I grabbed a bunch of idler gears I had, some NOS Aurora, some lightened, and some Nylon ones. What I found out very quickly was, the T-Dash top plate is very fussy about idler gear selection, and many of the ones I had, were too tight to even insert ! But, not all gears are created equally, and I found several that fit and were very smooth and took away ALL excess gear meshing noise. Now onto the Comm brushes, when I first examined them, I noted that the dome face had a rough casting seam on one side of it's face, and so I proceeded to sand that off and polish on paper. But after running break-in and then 50 laps, when I re-examined the brush faces, I noted they were wearing only one side of the dome face, ie- lopsided. Well that's where I drew the line, and why I said they were junk. Out they came and in went a new set of Wizzard E85 brushes which I broke in properly, and then test drove.... YowZa ! The T-Dash was a whole NEW Beast, like I just added a SuperCharger ! Now the current was flowing very well to the comm face, and it showed ! And this by FAR is the best tuning part swap I can suggest. BTW- tuning the Pick-Up shoes also made a GREAT BIG Dif, and is a must. Although personally, I'm not that fond of DASH PU Shoes, they maybe great for racing, but a little too delicate and thin for all around use, and I've noted they can get bent out of shape rather easily, and also pop-off quite easily as well. Alrighty then, onto the magnets. DASH Magnets are some of the best ceramic magnets out there at reasonable prices. But they fit waaay too loose in the T-Dash chassis pockets, and should be at least shimmed so they don't rattle around. But this got me thinking, as we know, the JL/AW Magnets are slightly different in shape, and usually are too tight to slip right into an Aurora T-Jet without a little sanding. So how would these tighter magnets fit and work in a T-Dash ? Answer- They Work and Fit Perfectly ! They pop right in as if they were made for the chassis, they fit better than in any other chassis I've tried them in, and that includes JL/AW Chassis. Anyway, I have matched a dozen sets really close, and popped a nice set in the chassis and will leave them there, as when tested- they out performed the DASH magnets that came supplied with my Chassis. Which oddly, were the Roughest Casting of Any Dash magnets I've even seen, and I own about 30 sets of DASH Magnets ! ...In conclusion, the final Tuned T-Dash of mine is AWESOME.... it went from power similar to a slightly above average NOS Aurora T-Jet, to NOW> the Power of an Aurora Tuff Ones that's been re-geared to the 9 tooth pinion, ie- IT's fast, but lacks a little top end on a 21' Straightaway (Dragstrip).
So that's MY .02¢ worth of Review, YMMV ;)

[Ralphthe3rd]

BTW- Dan Cashmer JUST Told me, the material used in all the plastic parts is a delrin/glass fibre mix.

Which IMHO is a VERY tough plastic alloy !

[RichD]

I got my shipment of Dash cars from JAG Hobbies several days ago. The cars appear to be well made and all of mine had the magnets reversed. The wheels are stock T-Jet sized, but they have a slight taper towards the outside. The tires are rubber like the original Aurora ones, they have a bit of a ridge in the middle of the tread. I was afraid that the tires might come off the wheels easily, but I did not have a problem with that. I have only had time to examine one car closely. The axle holes are the correct size, the armature hole in the gear plate was a little big. The idler gear was a perfect fit on the post. The top gear mesh was very rough with some binding. It was easy to dislodge the pickup shoes, more about that later. The crown gear looks good. The armature looks good as well, it measured 14.1 ohms on all three poles. Everything appeared to be concentric and the commutator was flat. The motor brushes look the same as the ones in a Johnny Lightning/Auto World car. The holes for the brushes were clean on my car.
I wanted to run the car as close to out of the box condition as possible, so I just put a guide pin and a Dash '55 Chevy body on it. At this point I should say that my track is a 50 foot 4X16' MaxTrax running at 18.5 volts from two 20 amp Mastech power supplies. I have been doing some tire testing lately, so the track is in perfect condition. The car was oiled as received, but I put a drop of Superlube on the lower armature hole, just in case. The car did run, but the pickup shoes needed to be adjusted to sit flat on the rails. A good lap time for a boxstock Aurora T-Jet with silicone tires is 7.7 seconds. The T-Dash was noisy and the lap times were just under 12 seconds. I fiddled around with the pickup shoes and tried putting shims under the shoe springs for a little more shoe tension, but that had little, if any effect. I found that the hook end of the pickup shoes needed to be bent down a little more to keep the shoes from moving far enough forward enough to come off the front hangers.
I decided to lap the gears, before I did that I pulled the armature and closed up the armature shaft hole in the gear plate. After some lapping the gears were a little better but not nearly as smooth as I would like. I was running out of time, so I ran some more laps, the times had only dropped a little, to 11.5 seconds, although the car looked better on the straights. The car had a slight bounce, so I trued all four tires just enough to eliminate the ridge in the center of the tread. That made a bigger difference than I would have expected, the lap times fell to under 9.5 seconds. The car was now smooth and fun to drive. The gears clearly need more lapping, I will try that today. With that low ohm armature and powerful magnets, (I did not measure those, but the Dash magnets that I have measured, about 10 pairs, have averaged a tic higher than JL/AW magnets) I expected more acceleration and top speed. A close examination of the armature shows that it seems to have less wire than an Aurora armature. I believe that the armature has fewer turns of the same gauge wire, so it is in effect a dewind version of the standard T-Jet arm. Normally if you wanted to get more power you would use fewer turns of a larger gauge wire. The goal here may have been to match the performance of a typical T-Jet more closely. The car at this point is fast enough for kids, adults would probably find it a bit slow, I will have to reserve judgment on that until I get the gear mesh smoother. I did try turning up the track voltage to 20 volts, that dropped the times a little to 9.2 seconds, but the car was more difficult to drive. Slip-on silicone tires would help, but those did not want to stay on the slightly tapered wheels very well.
I think that the T-Dash car is a fine effort, with a minimum amount of work they will make a good entry for people wanting to get into pancake cars.

[RichD]

I have done a little more testing. I lapped the gears some more and got the lap time down to 9.1. Based on what others have found I checked the motor brushes and found that they were a little jammed up in the chassis. I freed up the brushes and the lap time dropped to 8.7. I checked the magnets and the white one was 840 gauss, a bit lower than other Dash magnets that I have tested, the blue one was only 660 gauss, a big mismatch. I put in a matched set of JL magnets that gaussed out at 945 and the lap time went to 8.6. At this point it was obvious that the tires were what was now limiting the lap times. Skinny silicones did not stay on for long but I did manage an 8.1. When I get a chance I will put on a pair of stock T-Jet wheels so the tires will stay on and see what happens.

Without having to change any parts I was able to get down to 8.7 seconds versus 7.7 seconds for a decent boxstock car with silicone tires.

I wore out a guide pin doing the testing, but the pickup shoes still look practically new.

Without spending any more money these cars are better runners than most NOS T-Jets and they cost a lot less.

[TuscoTodd]

RichD -
Thank you for the detailed updates! Lots of GOOD info there!!! :)
Looking forward to getting a couple of these through my LHS to try out!
:handgestures-thumbup:

[RichD]

I found time to look at a second T-Dash car yesterday. With that one the blue magnet was 671 gauss and the white magnet was 760 gauss. The armature was 13.8 ohms all around. The rivets holding the rear shoe holders were very loose so I used a punch to mash them down, besides that I closed up the hook on the pickup shoes and adjusted them to ride flat on the rails. I opened up the chassis brush holes with the shank end of a 1/8th inch drill, sanded the ridges off of the tires, oiled everything and put on a body and guide pin. The gears were a little better than the first car that I tested and it turned my track in 8.9 seconds. The car was eager to go and was difficult to drive with the stock tires, I found some slip-on silicone tires that would stay on the original wheels and got the lap time down to 7.7 seconds.
With the gears lapped the car did 7.4 seconds.
Today I worked on the first car a little more With silicone tires on the stock wheels I did 8.0 seconds. I found just a little slop in the rear axle, with that corrected the lap time was 7.9 seconds.
Today I looked at a third car. The gears looked better than the first two cars. The armature was 14.1 ohms all around, the blue magnet was 555 gauss and the white magnet was 751 gauss. With the tires sanded, the pickups adjusted and the brushes freed up the car did 8.1 seconds, with silicones it did 7.6 seconds and with the gears lapped it did 7.3 seconds.
If all you did was adjust the pickups, free up the brushes and sand the tires these cars are good runners. With a little more tweaking and an inexpensive pair of slip on tires they are pretty fast.

[RichD]

Car #4 had a 14.2 ohm armature and the white magnet was 781 gauss and the blue magnet was 671 gauss. The car did 7.6 seconds with silicone tires and 7.5 seconds with lapped gears.
HOCOC has a class for JL/AW cars in SS trim with slip-on tires, we expect to run the T-Dash with those, so I built a car to that specification. I wanted to start by retaining as many original parts as possible. The car was completely disassembled and all of the axle and armature shaft holes were checked. As usual there was a mismatch between the magnets, so I substituted a matched 928 gauss pair of Dash magnets that I had hanging around and shimmed those. The gears were polished and lapped and the commutator was polished. The armature was 14.0 ohms. I put on a Wizzard weighted brass front end and used a drill blank rear axle. The stock crown gear was a loose fit so I used an RT-HO crown. The rear wheels are Zoomin 0.170s with Pro Series Supertires. I stuck with the stock motor brushes to start with. The total cost of the car was $55.48 with the parts that I mentioned plus a guide pin and a $19.95 Ferrari 355 body. The body is more than a third of the price of the car! The car turned my track in 6.1 seconds, the track record is 5.5 seconds for a T-Jet SS car that cost $150. The car is topped out about half way down my 12 foot straight, changing to a 12 or 14 tooth drive pinion would probably fix that. If I get a chance I will have to check the balance of the armature and maybe put in better motor brushes.

[TuscoTodd]

These detailed updates are GREAT! Thank you for sharing!!!

[Ralphthe3rd]

Ok, the Red '71 Corvette(AW Body) is sitting atop my New T-Dash chassis, this chassis is still being sorted out.

I've found that with tuning this chassis, it's very sensitive to (Dash)pick-up shoe adjustment, and Comm brushes and their adjustment. It also could use a little taller(14t pinion) gearing, as it sorta runs out of steam on the top end of my scale 1/4 mile dragstrip.

[RichD]

The lap time for the T-Dash SS car that I built is now just under 5.7 seconds versus 5.4 seconds for a fast JL/AW or Aurora T-Jet SS. I will be bringing the car to the upcoming HOCOC race for people to try out and I will have a couple of cars for sale.

[RichD]

I thought that it would be nice if the T-Dash SS car that I built had its own body so I painted up this 9 Finger Hobbies Audi R8.

[Ralphthe3rd]

NEWS FLASH ! Just minutes ago, Dan Cashmer(DASH) announced Online, that within a year, he will introduce a Copy of the Aurora Slimline Chassis !!!!

[Ralphthe3rd]

Dash parts.....(Originally posted by Tom Stumpf, friend to Dan Cashmer, and one of the Three Dash Chassis Vendors)
"Well, they are on the way. Individual and multi packs of T-Dash chassis parts. The chassis has been an outstanding success and we should expect the same from these new items.Tom Stumpf"