I wandered into a local shop that does car repair but also just became a Redcat distributor and ended up grabbing an Orange Gen 8. We dont have a local hobby shop per say just a few small engine shops (selling Traxxas only) so I wanted to support them.
First thing I did was look through the spare parts bag and I assumed there would be a plug to fill the bumper hitch hole after its removed.
I did not find one.
A few momemts later...
Available to download and print for free on Thingiverse
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3416351
Now that I have that important task was out of the way I was finaly ready to test drive it.
It felt pretty decent out of the box though it was a cold and damp night. I felt like the axles or something was grabbing the rocks even though my course is setup for small tire trucks right now. Steering was lacking both in its turning radius and power. The motor was too fast and sounded like crap, ESC is okay and the drag brake was good (it has 3 settings 100%, 50%, 0%) the paperwork called it a WP-1040.
The tires feel really good and soft to the touch and just from the feel I assumed I wouldn't need to swap tires but after a few more drives under my belt I needed to try new tires.
I found out that what I assumed earlier about the underbody or axles getting hung up was really the tires just sucking. They were getting stuck in tiny ruts and holes that no other rigs would get stuck in, finding even flat typically grippy areas difficult. After trying 2 different tires, Proline TSL's in Predator and G8 compounds and PitBull Mad Beasts, the Mad Beast being the lowest performing from past experience.
Well even the Mad beasts were a massive improvement over the stock tires (on Rock) so I'll be sticking with aftermarket tires for rock. I'll bring the stockers back for when I hit up the dirt, I'm sure they'll do better there.
Next thing on the chopping block was the motor. Stock is 17T with a 17T pinion and on 3S you're over the ESC turn limit (which is 30T max on 3S), its a bit to fast (on 3S) for my taste. I started off trying a 21T Titan 550 from a TRX4 and the motor and the shaft was too long to fit inside the cover.
A few moments later...
Now that I've swapped motors again I can see that the Traxxas Titan motor shaft is about 5-6mm longer than most motors and maybe 3mm longer than the stock 550 motor.
I'm now running a Holmes Hobbies Crawlmaster Pro 550 12T running a 14T pinion. I forgot that I had this motor because I had thrown it in my Bomber (which is just a loaner rig).
I ordered a new receiver, ESC and servo.
The new Spektrum receivers are not water proof so I tore it down and coated it with some conformal coating from Holmes Hobbies. I also coated the Castle Creations 10 amp BEC that I had on hand.
One thing worth noting about the this new Spekrtum receiver is that it uses a bind button instead of a plug/jumper and after coating the board and the button itself its almost impossible to push this button after the case is assembled. I had to pull it out of its case and push the bind button with my finger nail. Maybe an easier option is to bind it before coating it.
The ESC I went with is the Castle Creations Mamba X mini, I may be pushing the limits of the ESC a tiny bit with the weight of this truck but so far its only got a bit warm. I setup the Aux wire to be and adjustable drag brake on a 3 position switch (100%, 70% and 50%). I Dialed in a nice gentle throttle and brake curve (brake effects reverse) set the motor type to brushed reversing and reverse rotation, turned on crawler reverse, set brakes to 40%.
I also added a Castler Creations 10 amp BEC as they do recommend an external BEC with this ESC.
I used my favorite method for attaching electronics, Dual Lock. This stuff is much stronger than velcro and much easier to pull stuff loose for work or re-arranging than servo tape.
I'm trying a new brand of servo, a Ecopower WP120 (Amains brand) as it has decent specs for a waterproof servo not that I really need it to be waterproof, I'm mostly just feeling out a new brand.
Specs are pretty good
It feels decent on the truck but I'm making its work harder than it would usually be, more on that in a bit.
One hop up that I got as I was filling my Amian order was the metal drive shafts which are actually extremely nice.
they remind me of MIP's spline but with less slop than I remember from MIP's
theres a cup or CVD instead of a U-joint and a nice wire coil to cover the pin hole and the pin is held in place by a set screw.
One thing they did not fix on these shafts is lining up the ends so they can be in phase, you can get much closer than with the stock shafts but its still off 2-6 degrees from being inline or phased properly.
I took it upon myself to lighten these as they are a bit heavy... well twice as heavy as stock.
Metal shafts
Stock plastic shafts (they're partial metal ends)
A few momets later...
I printed a jig to help me bore out the male end of the drive shaft which seemed pretty heavy to me.
They dimple the end a bit but I want to bore it out
It worked out pretty good, I shaved off .2 oz off of one and .1 off the other.
You can see here why one ended up lighter that the other, I went too far on one and was a bit more conservative on the other.
I think this will hold up just fine but I did fill this hole with a chunk of plastic and gave it a coat of plastic slurry to keep crud out of here.
I spent one evening obsessing over the batter tray. Rather than design a new version I decide to just start widdling away at the stock one.
I cut off the rear portion to fit my shorty batteries and I used some of that material to build a rear lip to hold the battery in place, screwed and glued it in place (it did not work with acetone or i would have tried to fuse it).
On the bottom I carved out the spots where it mounts, less in the front and more in the back. I think the back has been lowered about 7-8mm. the front is likely 1-2mm or so. I also carved out areas to clear the transfer case. The mount in the middle that connects to the skid/upper link mount was cut down to the max that I could cut away and still run a screw through it, take off too much and your screw has nothing to hold.
If you look at this closely you can see the places I carved corresponding with the mount points
I cut down the mount point (to the left of the link) on the skid to gain even more drop also because you can only cut off so much on the tray side.
Clearance to the transfer case
I had nothing much to do so I went a bit nuts and sanded off the raised portions of the tray gaining 1mm or so. That was a lot of tedious sanding. I also cut off the lip on the front of the tray so that the battery will now be held in by the tranny itself.
The shaft from the tranny to transfer case clears by a hair.
I cut off the 4 tabs intended to hold the ESC wire in place so I could run 2 wires through this slot then taped them down.
Rough mock up of where the tray used to sit.
A few more shots I got of the strange white material that I found on the ground
Its the first time in maybe 25 years that I've seen this white stuff stuck to the ground.
First thing I did was look through the spare parts bag and I assumed there would be a plug to fill the bumper hitch hole after its removed.
I did not find one.
A few momemts later...
Available to download and print for free on Thingiverse
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3416351
Now that I have that important task was out of the way I was finaly ready to test drive it.
It felt pretty decent out of the box though it was a cold and damp night. I felt like the axles or something was grabbing the rocks even though my course is setup for small tire trucks right now. Steering was lacking both in its turning radius and power. The motor was too fast and sounded like crap, ESC is okay and the drag brake was good (it has 3 settings 100%, 50%, 0%) the paperwork called it a WP-1040.
The tires feel really good and soft to the touch and just from the feel I assumed I wouldn't need to swap tires but after a few more drives under my belt I needed to try new tires.
I found out that what I assumed earlier about the underbody or axles getting hung up was really the tires just sucking. They were getting stuck in tiny ruts and holes that no other rigs would get stuck in, finding even flat typically grippy areas difficult. After trying 2 different tires, Proline TSL's in Predator and G8 compounds and PitBull Mad Beasts, the Mad Beast being the lowest performing from past experience.
Well even the Mad beasts were a massive improvement over the stock tires (on Rock) so I'll be sticking with aftermarket tires for rock. I'll bring the stockers back for when I hit up the dirt, I'm sure they'll do better there.
Next thing on the chopping block was the motor. Stock is 17T with a 17T pinion and on 3S you're over the ESC turn limit (which is 30T max on 3S), its a bit to fast (on 3S) for my taste. I started off trying a 21T Titan 550 from a TRX4 and the motor and the shaft was too long to fit inside the cover.
A few moments later...
Now that I've swapped motors again I can see that the Traxxas Titan motor shaft is about 5-6mm longer than most motors and maybe 3mm longer than the stock 550 motor.
I'm now running a Holmes Hobbies Crawlmaster Pro 550 12T running a 14T pinion. I forgot that I had this motor because I had thrown it in my Bomber (which is just a loaner rig).
I ordered a new receiver, ESC and servo.
The new Spektrum receivers are not water proof so I tore it down and coated it with some conformal coating from Holmes Hobbies. I also coated the Castle Creations 10 amp BEC that I had on hand.
One thing worth noting about the this new Spekrtum receiver is that it uses a bind button instead of a plug/jumper and after coating the board and the button itself its almost impossible to push this button after the case is assembled. I had to pull it out of its case and push the bind button with my finger nail. Maybe an easier option is to bind it before coating it.
The ESC I went with is the Castle Creations Mamba X mini, I may be pushing the limits of the ESC a tiny bit with the weight of this truck but so far its only got a bit warm. I setup the Aux wire to be and adjustable drag brake on a 3 position switch (100%, 70% and 50%). I Dialed in a nice gentle throttle and brake curve (brake effects reverse) set the motor type to brushed reversing and reverse rotation, turned on crawler reverse, set brakes to 40%.
I also added a Castler Creations 10 amp BEC as they do recommend an external BEC with this ESC.
I used my favorite method for attaching electronics, Dual Lock. This stuff is much stronger than velcro and much easier to pull stuff loose for work or re-arranging than servo tape.
I'm trying a new brand of servo, a Ecopower WP120 (Amains brand) as it has decent specs for a waterproof servo not that I really need it to be waterproof, I'm mostly just feeling out a new brand.
Specs are pretty good
- Waterproof up to 1 meter
- 337 oz-in of torque and .11 transit speed @ 6.0V
- 400 oz-in of torque and .09 transit speed @ 7.4V
It feels decent on the truck but I'm making its work harder than it would usually be, more on that in a bit.
One hop up that I got as I was filling my Amian order was the metal drive shafts which are actually extremely nice.
they remind me of MIP's spline but with less slop than I remember from MIP's
theres a cup or CVD instead of a U-joint and a nice wire coil to cover the pin hole and the pin is held in place by a set screw.
One thing they did not fix on these shafts is lining up the ends so they can be in phase, you can get much closer than with the stock shafts but its still off 2-6 degrees from being inline or phased properly.
I took it upon myself to lighten these as they are a bit heavy... well twice as heavy as stock.
Metal shafts
Stock plastic shafts (they're partial metal ends)
A few momets later...
I printed a jig to help me bore out the male end of the drive shaft which seemed pretty heavy to me.
They dimple the end a bit but I want to bore it out
It worked out pretty good, I shaved off .2 oz off of one and .1 off the other.
You can see here why one ended up lighter that the other, I went too far on one and was a bit more conservative on the other.
I think this will hold up just fine but I did fill this hole with a chunk of plastic and gave it a coat of plastic slurry to keep crud out of here.
I spent one evening obsessing over the batter tray. Rather than design a new version I decide to just start widdling away at the stock one.
I cut off the rear portion to fit my shorty batteries and I used some of that material to build a rear lip to hold the battery in place, screwed and glued it in place (it did not work with acetone or i would have tried to fuse it).
On the bottom I carved out the spots where it mounts, less in the front and more in the back. I think the back has been lowered about 7-8mm. the front is likely 1-2mm or so. I also carved out areas to clear the transfer case. The mount in the middle that connects to the skid/upper link mount was cut down to the max that I could cut away and still run a screw through it, take off too much and your screw has nothing to hold.
If you look at this closely you can see the places I carved corresponding with the mount points
I cut down the mount point (to the left of the link) on the skid to gain even more drop also because you can only cut off so much on the tray side.
Clearance to the transfer case
I had nothing much to do so I went a bit nuts and sanded off the raised portions of the tray gaining 1mm or so. That was a lot of tedious sanding. I also cut off the lip on the front of the tray so that the battery will now be held in by the tranny itself.
The shaft from the tranny to transfer case clears by a hair.
I cut off the 4 tabs intended to hold the ESC wire in place so I could run 2 wires through this slot then taped them down.
Rough mock up of where the tray used to sit.
A few more shots I got of the strange white material that I found on the ground
Its the first time in maybe 25 years that I've seen this white stuff stuck to the ground.
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