agent00111
Pebble Pounder
(Disclaimer: nothing brainy about either me or my wraith. But my 4yr old gets to name the cars, so the Wraith is 'Brainy' and the Losi MTT is 'Nisco'. )
So, I started this wraith a few month's ago from a kit build, and knowing nothing about RC, decided to get the wraith kit so I could 'learn by building'. Did a stop motion video of it as well, just to dabble in animation: Axial Wraith Kit: 5 minute build! - YouTube
There's a lot of same-ol-same-ol which went into the initial build which is why I'm not starting the thread until now. It's back off of the bench again, with a few upgrades:
1. I smoked my Novak Ballistic 13.5T motor, so while that went back to Novak, I've switched the ESC to Tekin RS since the Novak Timbuk2 was limiting me to 2S lipo. I'll break down some of the differences I've seen between the Novak/Tekin later on down the road.
2. For this latest update, I've mounted my ESC high and between the two seats. Reason for this is that I wanted easy access for manually changing drag brake. And seeing flashing lights in a car is like watching Knight Rider. Phase 1 for this mod mounts the ESC to the tube which is right behind the seats. High enough to see lights and to manually reprogram. For phase 2 (work in progress) I'm going to cut out a better bracket to hold the ESC, and allow it to tilt forward on the tube axis, so that if I really want to keep a scale look, I can tilt the ESC down and hide it under a fakey cover. Or make the ESC look like a boom box. Or both.
3. Another thing I did in this update was clean up my wiring and electronics box. Previously when I moved my battery under the hood, I moved my receiver to the back and stuck that in a Radio shack 4x2x1 project box along with the Axial NVS light controller. ESC was servo-taped to the front of that box, but kind of buried deep and hard to get to. So the two problems I had with this: a) with 5 light harnesses, servo cables, and 3 switches (ESC, BEC, lights) it quickly got cluttered and I had to pop open the e-box cover every time I needed to change a cable move something, and b) too many things were connected to each other, making it hard to remove any one particular thing (bec, or ESC, or e-box, etc).
So for this round, I ponied up to get a modest soldering station (Hakko 888) and started some wire clean up. First thing I did: for the Tekin ESC, I used the 4mm performance connectors for the leads between the ESC and the BL motor (redline 13.5T). I know that soldering them direct to each otherwould be less resistance, but I really wanted the flexibility of swapping motors out without having to resolder the connections.
To keep things clean looking, I used all black wirings where I could, and where the wires where colored, they got a nice little coating of black liquid tape. For the motor wires, since those need to be connected in order, I used colored electrical tape and shrink tube to color code the wires. The Tekin 4mm connectors ended up being longer than I expected, and being a bit green at soldering I wicked too much solder into those wires when tinning and that made for some stiffness after the connectors. But, I got lucky on this one and that worked out just fine based on my wire routing. Everything to the motor is 12AWG. I think that might be overkill, so please comment on your opinion/recommendation between 12AWG (esp for phase wires) or if 14AWG would suffice.
While I have no plans of taking my wraith in the drink with a BL motor, the reality is that the neighbors have guns. Squirt guns. So I used liquid tape on the ESC posts, but only on the top where they are exposed, leaving the rest of the posts non-insulated for heat sink.
I had a smaller BEC which came from the Novak Timbuk2 Wraith edition system, and I replaced that with Castle BEC pro. Yeah, I know, a bit overkill. But stick with me on this, it helps with the wiring clean up: I power both my steering servo and dig servo from the CC BEC pro, and only use the signal wire from the rx. Then I just power the rx from the ESC internal BEC. I *think* that should work, and it does, but let me know if anyone has had any problems with this layout. So that's 5 wire leads in/out of the e-box: three for ESC, and two signal wires. Note: to power the BEC I spliced off of the power leads to ESC, and used another Deans ultra connector so I can completely remove bec or ESC without having to remove the other.
My previous version of the electronics box was a real pain to work with. Lots of servo wires, light harnesses, and power and power switches going in/out of it. So this round, I rebuilt the electronics box and used deans 6-pin connectors to aggregate the wires. Now finished, I can hook up the electronics box with 3 6-pin connectors and one servo connector. A lot cleaner. The deans 6-pin connectors are keyed, so you can't put them in backwards. In hindsight, I also make a lot of custom length servo cables using the JR style connectors, and I should have used the Futaba keyed connectors instead. Here's what the e-box looks like disconnected:
Here's what it looks like with the top off:
(after first two connectors built)
And here's what it looks like installed:
Previously I had the BEC, ESC and light switch servo-taped to the top of the e-box, and that just got a bit messy. So in this clean up round, I used the radio shack toggle switches, one for ESC, one for lights, and just leave the CC BEC Pro hard wired to power wires to ESC. I use JST pigtails so I can leave the toggle switches mounted but remove ESC or light controller if needed.
All in all, it's just a cleaner wire-up now. Lots of soldering of little wires, but when all was said and done everything works.
4. Upgraded wheels to SSZ stars, with Pitbull rock beasts. I want to keep my wraith at a good balance between rock crawler and rock racer. So I'll be putting VP knuckle weights in, but keeping the wheels nice and light. I wanted beadlock, but something with a better scale look. SSZ stars are an awesome look. The Pitbulls are very sticky. Not so scale but they've taken me through some tough spots that I couldn't get to with the R35 ripsaws. It's a beefy look, but it's a very wide tire on a very narrow wheel, so still have some work on tuning the foams up. Also replaced the stock shocks with Proline powerstroke shocks. Stock shocks I still like, they'll be rotating in and out with the prolines.
FYI, I'm using the HR dig, I sissy'd out and didn't get the VP dig (and added HR dig before Axial dig kit came out). That said, I kinda like the HR dig: it's affordable, it works, and haven't got it stuck in bind yet. A full size servo under the interior console does take up a lot of room, making it a bit harder to route wires. 4WS was tempting but I'm happy with the tight turning radius of the dig setup. Sorry, forgot to take pics of that install.
So, I started this wraith a few month's ago from a kit build, and knowing nothing about RC, decided to get the wraith kit so I could 'learn by building'. Did a stop motion video of it as well, just to dabble in animation: Axial Wraith Kit: 5 minute build! - YouTube
There's a lot of same-ol-same-ol which went into the initial build which is why I'm not starting the thread until now. It's back off of the bench again, with a few upgrades:
1. I smoked my Novak Ballistic 13.5T motor, so while that went back to Novak, I've switched the ESC to Tekin RS since the Novak Timbuk2 was limiting me to 2S lipo. I'll break down some of the differences I've seen between the Novak/Tekin later on down the road.
2. For this latest update, I've mounted my ESC high and between the two seats. Reason for this is that I wanted easy access for manually changing drag brake. And seeing flashing lights in a car is like watching Knight Rider. Phase 1 for this mod mounts the ESC to the tube which is right behind the seats. High enough to see lights and to manually reprogram. For phase 2 (work in progress) I'm going to cut out a better bracket to hold the ESC, and allow it to tilt forward on the tube axis, so that if I really want to keep a scale look, I can tilt the ESC down and hide it under a fakey cover. Or make the ESC look like a boom box. Or both.
3. Another thing I did in this update was clean up my wiring and electronics box. Previously when I moved my battery under the hood, I moved my receiver to the back and stuck that in a Radio shack 4x2x1 project box along with the Axial NVS light controller. ESC was servo-taped to the front of that box, but kind of buried deep and hard to get to. So the two problems I had with this: a) with 5 light harnesses, servo cables, and 3 switches (ESC, BEC, lights) it quickly got cluttered and I had to pop open the e-box cover every time I needed to change a cable move something, and b) too many things were connected to each other, making it hard to remove any one particular thing (bec, or ESC, or e-box, etc).
So for this round, I ponied up to get a modest soldering station (Hakko 888) and started some wire clean up. First thing I did: for the Tekin ESC, I used the 4mm performance connectors for the leads between the ESC and the BL motor (redline 13.5T). I know that soldering them direct to each otherwould be less resistance, but I really wanted the flexibility of swapping motors out without having to resolder the connections.
To keep things clean looking, I used all black wirings where I could, and where the wires where colored, they got a nice little coating of black liquid tape. For the motor wires, since those need to be connected in order, I used colored electrical tape and shrink tube to color code the wires. The Tekin 4mm connectors ended up being longer than I expected, and being a bit green at soldering I wicked too much solder into those wires when tinning and that made for some stiffness after the connectors. But, I got lucky on this one and that worked out just fine based on my wire routing. Everything to the motor is 12AWG. I think that might be overkill, so please comment on your opinion/recommendation between 12AWG (esp for phase wires) or if 14AWG would suffice.
While I have no plans of taking my wraith in the drink with a BL motor, the reality is that the neighbors have guns. Squirt guns. So I used liquid tape on the ESC posts, but only on the top where they are exposed, leaving the rest of the posts non-insulated for heat sink.
I had a smaller BEC which came from the Novak Timbuk2 Wraith edition system, and I replaced that with Castle BEC pro. Yeah, I know, a bit overkill. But stick with me on this, it helps with the wiring clean up: I power both my steering servo and dig servo from the CC BEC pro, and only use the signal wire from the rx. Then I just power the rx from the ESC internal BEC. I *think* that should work, and it does, but let me know if anyone has had any problems with this layout. So that's 5 wire leads in/out of the e-box: three for ESC, and two signal wires. Note: to power the BEC I spliced off of the power leads to ESC, and used another Deans ultra connector so I can completely remove bec or ESC without having to remove the other.
My previous version of the electronics box was a real pain to work with. Lots of servo wires, light harnesses, and power and power switches going in/out of it. So this round, I rebuilt the electronics box and used deans 6-pin connectors to aggregate the wires. Now finished, I can hook up the electronics box with 3 6-pin connectors and one servo connector. A lot cleaner. The deans 6-pin connectors are keyed, so you can't put them in backwards. In hindsight, I also make a lot of custom length servo cables using the JR style connectors, and I should have used the Futaba keyed connectors instead. Here's what the e-box looks like disconnected:
Here's what it looks like with the top off:
(after first two connectors built)
And here's what it looks like installed:
Previously I had the BEC, ESC and light switch servo-taped to the top of the e-box, and that just got a bit messy. So in this clean up round, I used the radio shack toggle switches, one for ESC, one for lights, and just leave the CC BEC Pro hard wired to power wires to ESC. I use JST pigtails so I can leave the toggle switches mounted but remove ESC or light controller if needed.
All in all, it's just a cleaner wire-up now. Lots of soldering of little wires, but when all was said and done everything works.
4. Upgraded wheels to SSZ stars, with Pitbull rock beasts. I want to keep my wraith at a good balance between rock crawler and rock racer. So I'll be putting VP knuckle weights in, but keeping the wheels nice and light. I wanted beadlock, but something with a better scale look. SSZ stars are an awesome look. The Pitbulls are very sticky. Not so scale but they've taken me through some tough spots that I couldn't get to with the R35 ripsaws. It's a beefy look, but it's a very wide tire on a very narrow wheel, so still have some work on tuning the foams up. Also replaced the stock shocks with Proline powerstroke shocks. Stock shocks I still like, they'll be rotating in and out with the prolines.
FYI, I'm using the HR dig, I sissy'd out and didn't get the VP dig (and added HR dig before Axial dig kit came out). That said, I kinda like the HR dig: it's affordable, it works, and haven't got it stuck in bind yet. A full size servo under the interior console does take up a lot of room, making it a bit harder to route wires. 4WS was tempting but I'm happy with the tight turning radius of the dig setup. Sorry, forgot to take pics of that install.
