AWD Dude .com

Team Durango DEX408

David — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:44:30 +0000

My new Team Durango DEX408, electric 8th scale buggy, arrived last night and I was able to start the build. Here are my initial impressions with the new buggy.

Update: build pics in the Photo Gallery.

First off let me start out by saying this is my first brand new full racing kit.

The box the DEx408 comes in is really nice and has some cool graphics on it, I typically don’t care about such things as they don’t have any bearing on how the RC will perform, but I through it was worth a mention. The buggy is very far from a RTR (ready to run). It comes completely unassembled and doesn’t include anything like batteries, controller, motor, or any electronics, only the rolling chassis.

The instructions are really nice and are full color, it kinda reminds me of my lego days. As per the instructions I started by assembling the differentials then move on to assembling the front and rear suspension. The next step is to attach the suspension to the chassis, then you mount the differentials. The differentials are mounted in such a way that you can remove them without disassembling the front and rear bulk heads, should make tuning the diff oil quick and easy. Next it shows you how to assemble the wheel hubs and attach them to the lower suspension arms. At this point I had to stop because it was getting late and I had to work in the morning. I did pick up some nice metallic orange paint for the body on my lunch break.

Update 2/13/2012

I finished building the buggy Friday night, mounted up all the electronics and had my buddy solder it all up with some nice red 2 gauge wire. I dont have any batteries for this thing yet so I haven’t been able to run it yet, hopefully sometime later this week I should be able to order a pair of batteries for this thing. Sunday I was able to cut out the body, I forgot how long that can take and how much of a pain it can be. I was able to mount the unpainted body on the buggy, everything fits except for the motor tabs are rubbing against the lexan body, I think if I flip the motor upside down or even just turn it 90° CCW and it should fit snugly. Hopfully I can paint the body tonight and finish this build.

New 8th scale RC Buggy

David — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:19:58 +0000

For my birthday I wanted to get an 8th scale electric RC buggy. I did some research and came down to 2 models I liked, the Serpent Cobra 811BE and the Team Durango DEX408. Both are newly released modles. What drew me to these models was that instead of using 1 giant battery pack mounted on 1 side of the of the drive train, which could potentially unbalance the buggy making it heavier on 1 side than the other, it uses to smaller battery packs on either side. This helps balance the buggy from side to side. Since the 2 batteries are mounted towards the rear of the chassis all the electronics, motor, speed controller, receiver, and servo are all mounted further forward shifting the weight of the buggy towards the front giving the buggy tons of steering and maneuverability. These buggies also better utilizes the space on the chassis allowing for a much narrower design and lower center of gravity which further bolsters its maneuverability. In the end I decided to go with the Team Durango DEX408 due to its overall design and easy of adjustability , the front and rear differentials are very easy to remove. Since these are new and very hot boggies finding a place that has them in stock was a challenge, some places had a 70 person waiting list! I was able to connect with someone on an RC forum that got me connected with his local hobby shop who shipped it to me at a discounted price with free shipping.

Another year!

David — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 06:00:26 +0000

It’s January 01, 2012 at 12:00AM, Happy New Year everyone!!!

Third Trimester!!!

David — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:48:10 +0000

Christie just started her third trimester. We went to the doctors office today for a normal checkup and everything looksRead the Rest...

Moved to a new Server

David — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:43:43 +0000

I moved the site to a new server that is more powerful and has tons more storage. My new host also has 24/7 phone and chat support, not that I ever have much need for that, but its nice to have it there to fall back on. This new server is running Centos where as my old server was running Ubuntu, to be honest I prefer Ubuntu but most companies use Centos in their production environments so setting this server up is good practice. Set up was fairly simple, I did have to make some changes to Apache config as Centos isn’t configured for virtual hosts by default. I also modified it so each site has its own config file to make things neater and easier to manage. Once everything was setup I copied all the website files over and exported the databases and imported them into this new server.

Thanksgiving at our house this year

David — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:36:09 +0000

We decided that since this is our first year in our beautiful brand new house that we should host thanksgiving this year. Everything turned out great. Christie’s parents came as did her brother Brett and her aunt Liz and uncle Hector. We bought a new couch, the old one was too small and too low making it difficult for Christie to get out of it in her current condition (:P). As the man of the house the Turkey was my responsibly. This being my first thanksgiving as host and this being my first solo turkey I was a little nervous about the whole thing. In the end it turned out to be one of the best turkeys I had ever tasted thanks to the help and advice from mine and Christie’s dads. We also had green beans, asparagus, corn on the cobb, many different types of potatoes, stuffing and freash bread out of the bread maker. Brett brought down his new Miata and me and him went for a drive through Katy, the weather was amazing and it was great to get back into a manual and drive with the top off. All in all we had a great Thanksgiving, and i cant wait for Christmas.

Christie is Pregnant!!!

David — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:22:09 +0000

The good news is Christie is Pregnant. Our first ultra sound was really amazing, i didnt realize how just hearing the baby’s heart beat for the first time would affect me but wow there is nothing like it. Over the next few months we went in and got regular check ups and ultra sounds, its really cool how we can see him growing from visit to visit. Oh and we found out at around 22 weeks that we are having a healthy baby boy. Christie can feel him kicking from time to time, I havent felt onje yet but im sure i will soon. One of the pleasant side affects of this is that Christie is getting more and more beautiful as she gets more and more pregnant. She is staying active, she is still teaching and coaching Volleyball and now Basketball. We have been talking about names and have a few ideas but nothing is written in stone yet and we probably wont tell anyone his name until hes born. I can wait to see my son for the first time.

Renaissance Festival

David — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:00:43 +0000

Jeff, Wesley and his date, Charles, Crystal, Skylar, and I went to the Renaissance Festival this weekend. Christie was going to go but in her current condition she wasn’t up for walking around all day. We had a great time, I had a few beers and mead and was tipsy pretty much the whole day. There are pictures of the festivities in the photo gallery, take a look at some of the outrageous costumes.

Wings Over Houston

David — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 18:04:32 +0000

Christie got some free tickets for us to go to Wings Over Houston. She had to drive the bus there and ended up having to chaperon some kids. It was really hot and there was alot of walking involved. It was a fun day however I doubt i would go again with the school field trip. There are some cool pics in the photo gallery of some pf the planes, there is even some really cool shots of a “Near” super sonic fly by of an F-18.

Moved in (mostly)

David — Mon, 02 May 2011 15:23:45 +0000

The closing went pretty smoothly and went really well. we signed a bunch of papers and now we own a house. We moved most of our stuff in this past weekend. The house is starting to feel more an more like home. We went out Sunday and bought a bunch of stuff for the house, who knew buying a home would be so expensive. We bought 3 fans (bedroom, living room, and porch), a bad ass Grill (stainless steel char-broil), String Trimmer (decided to go with a 4-cycle so I don’t have to worry about mixing fuel), blinds for the windows on the rear doors, some sprinklers and hoses, I even bought a few L.E.D. light bulbs to try out. All and all it was a good weekend. Even Leo had a good time, he was very excited about having his very own backyard that he can run around and play in.