Yokomo YZ10 870C NiMH Battery Post

I was digging through my attic and found my old Yokomo YZ-10 (orginal run circa 1988) that I bought and built when I was a kid.  I got the itch to restore it and started looking to see what could be upgraded.

Obviously, the first thing that had to go was the old Sanyo NiCD batteries which were 30+ years old.  I wanted to run NiMH since I was worried that LiPo may be too much for the electronics and gears (and they tend to explode!).  The  Tenergy 5000 mah I bought from Amazon are great but slightly bigger in both diameter and length.

I used a dremel to expand the 7 battery slots on the graphite chassie - about 1 mm in width (diameter) and 2 mm in length.  But that was not enough since the posts did not have enough horizontal room.  AND they are slightly too short vertically for the hood pin holes to clear the graphite battery holders on top.

So, dusting off my CAD skills, I was able to recreate the part with a digital caliper.  Then, I did the math to see where the arc "cuts" needed to be in the posts.  Finally, I added a little bit of height to the post to allow the hood pin to clear when being inserted using the original graphite holder bars.  Sent the files to my local library for a cheap test print and  it fit perfectly!  Then, I sent it online for a proper print.

The test print was using a simple Markerbot PLA and it was actually very sturdy.  But wanted something stronger and smoother so I went with Nylon SLS online.