Greatscott's TRX-6

[Greatscott]

Well, don't see a specific area for the TRX6, so here it goes...

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

I was going to wait for a kit version, but I got trigger happy. I figure now that I have bought the RTR, Traxxas will drop the kit in about two weeks, that's normally how my luck runs on these kinds of things... Oh, to be cursed with first-world problems...

I just took it out of the box, and without any driving experience with it I can say that it is an impressive beast. I have never been a Mercedes fan, but this thing does look good. I really like that Traxxas did justice to this rig by all of the detailing it did on the body. The door handles and door bumpers are all parts and not stickers, the Mercedes emblem on the hood looks proper, and the lighting detail is superb.

As impressive as this rig is, there are a couple of initial annoyances with it. First, there is no place to rout a winch, which is standard equipment for all of my rigs. Second, I wish they would have made the mid-axle differently, allowing for the back axle to be exactly the same as the TRX4.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Wanting to see the difference having the diffs open and locked made, I set up a quick test. I set the truck up on concrete to give the most amount of grip on the tires. I set the truck up in the exact same place for each run, I turned the front tires hard left, and slowly turn the truck around until it was 180 degrees out from where it started. Here are the results...

All unlocked: 29"
Front locked, back unlocked: 38"
All locked: 56"

With this, I am thinking when I cut over to my DX5R, I will spool up the front and leave the back selectable.


Got some reasonable run time on my back yard crawling course. I am impressed how well it crawls with the diffs unlocked, a couple times it got stuck and had to remind myself to lock the diffs. Until I switch over to the Mamba-X, I need to set the ESC up for mode 5, roll-back killed me in a couple of spots.

The biggest surprise was checking the motor temp after about 45 minutes and it not being over 100deg/f.

It is no surprise that the servo needs to be replaced. The 2075X isn't bad for what it is, but it just doesn't have the power needed for the TRX platform.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

My greatest disappointment was when I tried going up Winch Hill, it just wouldn't get all of the way to the top. I was hoping that it would make it, but the whole reason this feature is in my course is to practice winching while the truck wants to roll backwards.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flick

Here are a couple of videos I shot as well. Please don't judge this truck by my driving skills, I cleanly and neatly got through this course before I started recording...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A9ZBl7ZXP0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9UuXnuhvU8

And, just for fun, my cable slide...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H78PC7jRFfE

 

[OSRC]

Love it! Personally, I'm holding off until another body style comes out. If they've got licensing with Mercedes, I'm hoping a real Unimog version is not far behind.

I like the looks of the Axial version better to be honest, but the 2 speed and locking diffs seal the deal for me.

 

[Greatscott]

Love it! Personally, I'm holding off until another body style comes out. If they've got licensing with Mercedes, I'm hoping a real Unimog version is not far behind.

I like the looks of the Axial version better to be honest, but the 2 speed and locking diffs seal the deal for me.

The body is nicely detailed, love the lights, I am just not a Mercedes person, but it will do for now. One of the things I like about the Axial 6X6 is how uncluttered the chassis is compared to the TRX6. I did notice the Axial has an extremely narrow battery box, I don't think my 3S 4300mha packs would bfit in there.

 

[number9]

Nice looking truck!

I like the looks of the new tires. What size are they and how do they perform vs the standard trx4 tires?
I’m a fan of the standard tires with the center lugs trimmed.

 

[01f1502wd]

I love the rig, but the tight places I crawl it just doesn't make sense to have such a long rig. I agree this thing is much better than the Axial version, I saw them both in store and looked over both. I want to see how it performs once you get some brass on all corners.

 

[mewalsh100]

It's a pretty darn cool rig. But, I just cannot get past those Mercedes bodies Traxxas chose to go with. I don't care for them 1:1 either. It would be ripe for some sort of Military body though. Or, a something like a PowerWagon cab and custom flat bed.

 

[01f1502wd]

It's a pretty darn cool rig. But, I just cannot get past those Mercedes bodies Traxxas chose to go with. I don't care for them 1:1 either. It would be ripe for some sort of Military body though. Or, a something like a PowerWagon cab and custom flat bed.

That'd make for a loooooooooooong bed with the power wagon. It may look right if you can get a larger body and 2.2 tires. Seems like Traxxas bodies are larger than the 1:10 aftermarket bodies. comparing the Bronco to a Proline Raptor body, the Raptor should be much much larger...but it's actually smaller :roll:

 

[mewalsh100]

That'd make for a loooooooooooong bed with the power wagon. It may look right if you can get a larger body and 2.2 tires. Seems like Traxxas bodies are larger than the 1:10 aftermarket bodies. comparing the Bronco to a Proline Raptor body, the Raptor should be much much larger...but it's actually smaller :roll:

Going with a crew cab config, I don't think it would be too long at all. Particularly if you added some accessories behind the cab like a bed-box or similar.

 

[Greatscott]

Got out for some good long running of the TRX6 today.

This truck is very impressive, it easily out-crawled my comp-setup TRX4. Here are a few take-aways...
• The body isn't as heavy as it looks. I was thinking I would be spending a lot of time on my lid, but rollovers were rare.
• The tires aren't bad, but there are better out there.
• The setup is pretty good out of the box, but some tuning is needed. Unlike the rest of the TRX family, I think portal weights are on option here, and not the rule, but I'll be installing them anyways.
• With the front locked and the back unlocked, the whole mess acts like a dig. A lot of times I was able to pull the front end around as if a dig was installed.
• I forgot to reprogram the ESC to Mode 5, but Mode 1 was as terrible as it is in the TRX4. In low gear with all of the diffs locked truck would creep down rocks in a very controllable fashion. Mode 5 would have been helpful in a good number of spots, and the double-clutch reverse of Mode 1 is annoying. No biggy though, next weekend it will all get ripped out and a Mamba-X and 2250kv motor installed.
• The steering servo has gots to go... I am REALLY surprised it still functions, and that I didn't fry it, or the XL5. I had it bound up hard quite a bit, it just doesn't have the guts to push the steering when crawling.
• This thing is FUN on 3S running on a dirt road! With the diffs unlocked you can whip the back end and getting into a reasonable drift. With the front locked it whips harder, and often gets spun out. With the back locked it usually just rolls over.
• I am still trying to figure out how to get a winch installed. Other then going through the body, I can't see any practical way to route the cable.

 

[OSRC]

Good stuff, thanks for the feedback.

I agree about the stock servo, weak for sure, but I stuffed mine into holes, wedged it in places it was never meant to go, and generally beat the heck out of it and it never failed.

 

[Greatscott]

Well... Good or bad, things is about to happen...

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Still trying to figure out how to route the winch cable.

 

[Voodoobrew]

Ptff only 6 wheels?
https://youtu.be/qYc7N7DbEw8

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[Voodoobrew]

Well... Good or bad, things is about to happen...

Still trying to figure out how to route the winch cable.

Did you look at front servo mounts on thingyverse. Or are you mounting a battery up front.

Is that bumper hollow, maybe drill through that and insert a brass tube for the cable. Hold that in place with lots of hotglue. Then 3d print a fairlead and glue it to the front of the bumper. You can bend the tube to whatever you need.
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[Greatscott]

Did you look at front servo mounts on thingyverse. Or are you mounting a battery up front.

Is that bumper hollow, maybe drill through that and insert a brass tube for the cable. Hold that in place with lots of hotglue. Then 3d print a fairlead and glue it to the front of the bumper. You can bend the tube to whatever you need.
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Winch Time...

It is an absolute must to have a winch on my scale rigs, the TRX6 is no different... so here it is...

In passed builds I used a 1/18 scale crawler transmission for a winch with great success, I would use this setup on every rig, but a lot of the time there is just not enough room to shoe-horn it under the body. So, I was happy as pigs in slop when I saw that I could get one under the body.

The two tricky parts came in the routing, and getting the fairlead to work with the body. Luckily, there are people a lot smarter that I, and was shown a cool way to get it done.

I will likely run this off of a HW1060 ESC, they are small, reliable, and have a drag brake. My only complaint is double-clutch reverse, but I put it on the winch-in side, so I don't accidentally pull the winch line in and bind the whole mess up.

The big problem is I have reached the junction of where design meets the limits of PLA. I broke the first spool, I have made a few design changes to the new one, and printed it at 100% infill, but I am gun shy about putting a big load on it. I think I need to get some ABS filament and see if that makes it stronger.

Going off of the stock plate, I drew up the winch base plate in Fusion 360. I already had the spool drawn up. After a tweak or two I got the dimensions correct and off the the printer.

Aside from what is printed and the transmission/motor, I am also using a 5mm (5mm ID, 14mm OD) shoulder washer washer, and a 5x10mm screw. To act as a set screw I am using a 3x10mm screw thread screw. The transmission is bolted on with (4) 2mm

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

I carefully punched a whole in the body for the fair lead, and used a bent rod end to route the winch line.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

And here is the whole mess together...

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

 

[durok]

Damn, that is slick!

Nicely done... "thumbsup"

 

[Voodoobrew]

Looks great. I've never made a winch before.

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[GForceSS]

Very slick setup.

 

[dezfan]

Very clean install.

 

[Greatscott]

Many thanks for the comments!

I fixed the spooling, putting the line under instead of over. This puts the whole mess more inline with the pull, making it smoother. It is a bit unnatural for me, I deal with big reel winders at work and the material always goes over, not under. But, that is why I made the notch, thought I might need to do this.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

If you are interested, here are the files...

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3930409

 

[Voodoobrew]

If you have cats or kids going under my help you save on toilet paper too!

I can see how the under lines it up better. I have never tried abs myself. I usualy use petg, it's strong but kinda stringy and saggy on bridges. I hear the pla+ is realy nice. My unserstanding is abs warps easily if not in an enclosure and produces toxic fumes. I have an unopened roll I never plan on using.

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