MassiveOverkill
Newbie
I'm starting to get settled in after my move to South Dakota. We have a quiet 5 acre lot with gorgeous rock outcroppings that were just begging for me to get a rock crawler. After doing a ton of research on the cheapest way to get a hobby-grade rock crawler in case I didn't like it, I settled on the Mad Torque from Exceed. It was between this and the Max Stone, but the Max Stone's plastic gearbox swayed my decision against it despite being larger.
I took the criticisms about it with a grain of salt, especially from those who compare this in quality to ANYTHING that comes from Toys R Us. I think it's against Toys R Us' policy to carry anything made of aluminum
I noticed all the spare parts complaints dated back to when the models first came out 4 years ago. I was able to order spares no problem.
My unit came with LED lighting and waterproof gear, all marked so on the box. My unit was manufactured in March of 2015. I'm not going to do an in-depth overview this model is old and it's already been done. I will say I'm impressed with all the aluminum on this thing, from the main frame to the links. The only thing I found disturbing was the lack of skid plates, which I easily made myself. I went ahead and ordered the 4 wheel steering kit as well as aluminum Axial turnbuckles as recommended (which haven't arrived yet). There was one problem with my unit OOTB, which was a bent axle shaft. The vendor AHero-RC gladly sent me a replacement at no charge and was an easy swap-out without disassembling the gearbox. Those of you who buy this, as soon as you get it, disconnect the motor leads and turn each axle's wheels to check for binding. If you have binding (you'll hear a clicking or see the plastic axle shaft housings tweak), chances are you may have also received a bent axle. The replacement was nice and straight.
I swapped out the stock 2 channel radio for my modded Devo 7e with LemonRX so I can switch between crab and 2 wheel steering (I still have to set up 4 wheel same direction steering). Those of you thinking of just doing a Y-harness with inverter for the rear opposite-direction steering, if you can afford it, go with a 3 channel or more setup. There are times when you'll want to disable 4 wheel and just use 2 wheel steering and a Y-harness won't allow you to do this.
I'm a rock crawling newbie and maybe it's just because I have very large rocks at my disposal, but I couldn't imagine going smaller than 1/8th scale.
Let's get to pictures:
This is her with the stock suspension\frame I didn't want to scratch up the stock body and needed a mount for HD Runcam, so an Arizona Iced Tea gallon jug did the trick. Check out the articulation (which is actually bad to have this much but I'm sure every rock crawling newb goes through the articulation phase when they first start out):
I put away the stock body and transplanted my daughter's NewBright Z71 truck body and put the LEDs into the tail light and headlight locations:
The LEDs are pretty bright, more than sufficient for night crawling, but I had to cut up the single strand and add servo leads to each:
Raw materials are hard to come by up here so I had to use what I had on hand from my multirotor parts. I know, it's ghetto-fab, but it's functional until I can get a custom frame cut. I'm using two PDBs as frame extenders. Wheelbase is just shy of 18" now. You can see I used wire loom to cover the lower links to protect them from road rash and the loom is also on the steering links and front brush guard:
I made a bracket to relocate the battery to the upper link assembly and relocated the ESC to where the battery stock location to lower COG. Over the axles is the best place to relocate the battery, but requires lengthening the power lead and requires more extensive bracket fabrication:
The bottom of the Arizona Iced Tea gallon jug has nice strengthening ridges for my front skid (I re made it to wrap around to avoid getting hung up):
Sidewall of the jug was used for the rear skid plate. When you're making skid plates, it's important to have them wrap around so they don't get hung up while rock crawling. You can see from the road rash that they're doing their job. Most of my aluminum is nice and shiny still.
To get the 3rd person perspective, I mounted the HD Runcam up high on a plastic post. It's velcroed to the truck bed as well as zip tied.............in a fashion that allows it to break away in a roll over, which worked beautifully as nothing has broken yet. (Stay tuned for FPV rock crawling):
I'm uploading videos now and will post when ready. I'm really impressed with the capabilities of the Mad Torque. I'm not using cut foams or wheel weights or anything else traction-related. Maybe the lichens on the rock may help with grip but keep in mind it's between 40-60 degrees out here now and traction isn't the greatest as a result. The only other mod I may do next is getting bent lower links for clearance. I can go over my indoor steps but not my outdoor steps as I get hung up on the rear lower links. One other thing, many complain about the stock servo sucking. Move your mount on the servo horn to the inner hole. The inner hole gives the servo more leverage and faster response. Trying to adjust your trims for maximum steering throw will cause binding anyways on a stock setup. You could alternatively keep the stock servo horn mounting and use the inner holes on the turnbuckles.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XOE8Ua0NsjY?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I took the criticisms about it with a grain of salt, especially from those who compare this in quality to ANYTHING that comes from Toys R Us. I think it's against Toys R Us' policy to carry anything made of aluminum
I noticed all the spare parts complaints dated back to when the models first came out 4 years ago. I was able to order spares no problem. My unit came with LED lighting and waterproof gear, all marked so on the box. My unit was manufactured in March of 2015. I'm not going to do an in-depth overview this model is old and it's already been done. I will say I'm impressed with all the aluminum on this thing, from the main frame to the links. The only thing I found disturbing was the lack of skid plates, which I easily made myself. I went ahead and ordered the 4 wheel steering kit as well as aluminum Axial turnbuckles as recommended (which haven't arrived yet). There was one problem with my unit OOTB, which was a bent axle shaft. The vendor AHero-RC gladly sent me a replacement at no charge and was an easy swap-out without disassembling the gearbox. Those of you who buy this, as soon as you get it, disconnect the motor leads and turn each axle's wheels to check for binding. If you have binding (you'll hear a clicking or see the plastic axle shaft housings tweak), chances are you may have also received a bent axle. The replacement was nice and straight.
I swapped out the stock 2 channel radio for my modded Devo 7e with LemonRX so I can switch between crab and 2 wheel steering (I still have to set up 4 wheel same direction steering). Those of you thinking of just doing a Y-harness with inverter for the rear opposite-direction steering, if you can afford it, go with a 3 channel or more setup. There are times when you'll want to disable 4 wheel and just use 2 wheel steering and a Y-harness won't allow you to do this.
I'm a rock crawling newbie and maybe it's just because I have very large rocks at my disposal, but I couldn't imagine going smaller than 1/8th scale.
Let's get to pictures:
This is her with the stock suspension\frame I didn't want to scratch up the stock body and needed a mount for HD Runcam, so an Arizona Iced Tea gallon jug did the trick. Check out the articulation (which is actually bad to have this much but I'm sure every rock crawling newb goes through the articulation phase when they first start out):
I put away the stock body and transplanted my daughter's NewBright Z71 truck body and put the LEDs into the tail light and headlight locations:
The LEDs are pretty bright, more than sufficient for night crawling, but I had to cut up the single strand and add servo leads to each:
Raw materials are hard to come by up here so I had to use what I had on hand from my multirotor parts. I know, it's ghetto-fab, but it's functional until I can get a custom frame cut. I'm using two PDBs as frame extenders. Wheelbase is just shy of 18" now. You can see I used wire loom to cover the lower links to protect them from road rash and the loom is also on the steering links and front brush guard:
I made a bracket to relocate the battery to the upper link assembly and relocated the ESC to where the battery stock location to lower COG. Over the axles is the best place to relocate the battery, but requires lengthening the power lead and requires more extensive bracket fabrication:
The bottom of the Arizona Iced Tea gallon jug has nice strengthening ridges for my front skid (I re made it to wrap around to avoid getting hung up):
Sidewall of the jug was used for the rear skid plate. When you're making skid plates, it's important to have them wrap around so they don't get hung up while rock crawling. You can see from the road rash that they're doing their job. Most of my aluminum is nice and shiny still.
To get the 3rd person perspective, I mounted the HD Runcam up high on a plastic post. It's velcroed to the truck bed as well as zip tied.............in a fashion that allows it to break away in a roll over, which worked beautifully as nothing has broken yet. (Stay tuned for FPV rock crawling):
I'm uploading videos now and will post when ready. I'm really impressed with the capabilities of the Mad Torque. I'm not using cut foams or wheel weights or anything else traction-related. Maybe the lichens on the rock may help with grip but keep in mind it's between 40-60 degrees out here now and traction isn't the greatest as a result. The only other mod I may do next is getting bent lower links for clearance. I can go over my indoor steps but not my outdoor steps as I get hung up on the rear lower links. One other thing, many complain about the stock servo sucking. Move your mount on the servo horn to the inner hole. The inner hole gives the servo more leverage and faster response. Trying to adjust your trims for maximum steering throw will cause binding anyways on a stock setup. You could alternatively keep the stock servo horn mounting and use the inner holes on the turnbuckles.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XOE8Ua0NsjY?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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