A Light Inspection Car...with battery and RC!

[TheJoat]

Every since I first saw these ZipZaps, I've been thinking there has to be something I could build with them! For those of you who don't know about ZipZaps, they are remote control, battery powered cars sold at RadioShack.
I got one on sale for $12.

They come with a little charger to power the car. The charger takes 4 AA batteries and takes about a minute to charge the car. Yep, that's right, you also don't get a LOT of time for this to run! But, the charger also functions as your RC. It does forward, reverse and steering. I didn't think I'd need steering for this one.

When I got my latest issue from the ET&WNC, they had an article about light inspection cars and included this advertisement.


All of a sudden, I was inspired. I thought this could work!

So, after playing around with some styrene, some old parts, and some O scale trucks, I came up with my version of the narrow gauge inspection car!




It runs a bit faster than I really wanted, but where else can you get battery and RC for $12???? [:D] It runs for a good couple of minutes, but it looks sweet going down the track. [8D]

Sorry, no sound. [:p]

[grandpopswalt]

Do you have to use the batteries provided with the unit? Would substitiute AA metal hydride batteries work instead?

Walt

[Anonymous]

How difficult was it to get the road wheels off of the axles and the O-scale wheels on ??

Matt

[whiterab]

Bruce,

I love it !!! [:D]

[Anonymous]

Looks great!

What does the original car look like?

Matthew.

[TheJoat]

Thanks, Guys! It was a fun little project.

This diagram from the instructions should give you a better idea of how it "looks" underneath.


I don't know if you could use any other batteries. The neat part about this is that the charger and the remote control are one unit, and come with the car. The downside is that it doesn't run all that long!

I had some steel rod that I used to build new axles. Had to drill out the gear to put this new rod in, and I built a new front end to hold the front axle. I used a couple of brass tubes to increase the diameter to fit the wheel. The last brass tube was a perfect tight fit for the O scale wheel, but the first one was a little big for the axle, so it does tend to ride a bit bumpy.

[Anonymous]

Very nice Bruce! Thanks for sharing!

[vsmith]

Very cool, looks like a fun little project!

[Phil Hemingway]

Very impressive. This is the sort of simple project that would make a great article for GARDEN RAILWAYS magazine.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a good idea Phil. Pity I don't get Garden Railways Mag yet, perhaps in the new year.

Matthew.

[bman36]

Hey there,
Very nice indeed. It's amazing what you can come up with! Thanks for sharing! Later eh...Brian.

[paultheloon]

the Henry Ford Museum has the human-powered inspection vehicle on display near the steam locomotives.

[paultheloon]

bad news: the aforementioned vehicle is no longer on display.[banghead][censored][#oops][#wstupid][8]