Two weeks of car boot sales (I do love them) have resulted in a multitude of treasures (see life-long debate of "one man's crap vs other man's treasure")...
In homage to the generation game:
- one vintage Polaroid camera (complete with old film cartridge)
- a radio control speed boat (boxed with controller, charger and battery)
- a radio control buggy (sans controller or battery)
- a set of collectable Star Wars prints
- a plastic airplane model kit (unpainted)
Ms R. purchased even more crap than I did (crap, treasure, blah, blah) and yet managed to spend virtually nothing. Volumetrically it's a lot less than mine. To the point that my crap is pretty much in the way of everything. Anywho, I'm digressing.
The plan is to rebuild both; upgrading the receivers, speed controllers and motors, and just generally improving the way they work. The boat looks pristine, but has really cheap radio gear, motors and propellers. The buggy looks a bit dusty, but sound, with normal consumer radio gear and motor.
The boat has twin motor drives, and uses offset control of the motors for left/right - which is nice, but means finding a speed controller is virtually impossible (for a small budget at least).
The buggy has motor-on-axle rear-wheel drive and good suspension, it's an easy project, given that there's enough space to mount new electronics and to get it up and running with only a few hours work. I have new radio gear on order, so hopefully will have it soon to begin these upgrades.
The next project I think is to scratch build an all terrain vehicle from aluminum profile, using the plentiful supply of parts found on eBay for the drive train and moving sub-systems. Still undecided as to whether it'll be a surveillance style (tracks and flippable body) or rock-crawler style.
Stay tuned...
