The DHK Hobby Maximus is sold only by HobbyPeople in the US and similar hobby stores in other countries such as HobbyZone in Australia, HobbyStation in New Zealand, etc. Although DHK is not considered an "in store brand", it may as well be. I believe that the Maximus is also sold under the name Megatron 8E. It is an 8th scale monster truck with the running gear of a truggy (3 differentials). I purchased one of these about three months ago on a very cheap one-day sale just as an experiment. I like to write and I figured it would give me something to write about. I was not disappointed!
Do I recommend the DHK Hobby Maximus? No. Why? Two huge reasons: 1. The stock motor and ESC are of very poor quality. Mine quit working in the first two weeks, then four more times in two months until I finally gave up on them, and 2. A total lack of aftermarket support. The only way to get replacement parts is through the Hobby store that sells DHK. Not even chop shops want to handle this brand because there isn't enough demand for them to make any money from it. If any of the stock parts are not strong enough, the only way to make them stronger is to improvise.
I eventually plan to do an in-depth review of the DHK Maximus with supporting pictures and video. I am not ready to do that, yet. However, I am writing this post to follow up a previous thread I started in the Electronics section of this forum regarding the poor quality electronics and the hassles I went through with warranty support:
http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/elec...illed-my-brushless-motor-i-dont-think-so.html
As promised at the end of that thread, I want to post back regarding the aftermarket motor and ESC. I have not had a chance yet to get the Maximus up and running, but this evening I fit-checked the Leopard motor and Hobbywing ESC. This is my report on that:
As noted in the "Electronics" thread, the motor in the Maximus is held by a very non-standard mount that is a "clamping heat sink."
That bizarre method of holding the motor limits it to only 36mm diameter. Most 36mm dia motors are meant for 1/10 scale rigs, not 1/8 scale monster trucks. The motor that came stock on the DHK Maximus has a can size of 3660 and is 2260Kv. It moved the truck along very rapidly, then died just as rapidly. Luckily, there is plenty of length in the motor bay, so I purchased the longest 36mm dia motor I could find, a Leopard LBP3674-1900Kv. I temporarily set it into the motor bay and took pictures. Here is the stock DHK motor next to the new Leopard motor which is significantly longer:
As can be seen here, the longer motor fits just fine (the clamping heat sink is omitted for clarity):
The stock ESC that comes with the DHK Hobby Maximus in a paltry 80-amps considering that the truck is designed to use dual 2S batteries in series for 4S. That pushes the ESC to it's max all the time. In addition to that problem, it has a very tight fit between the fwd bulkhead and steering servo such that the routing of the wires wants to rub on the steering link:
I wanted to replace the 80a ESC with something more powerful, but had to be careful with its physical size. I finally settled on a Hobbywing WP-SC8 which is a waterproof 120a ESC designed for use with 4S power. It is meant mostly for 1/10 scale rigs, but should do OK in the Maximus. Considering the size limitations, I don't have much choice anyway. Here are a couple of pictures comparing the Hobbywing 120a ESC on the left to the DHK Hobby 80a ESC on the right:
Due to the way the wires of the stock ESC wanted to rub against the steering link, I tried to locate the new Hobbywing ESC into the chassis with the wires facing fore and aft. You can see in this picture that I could not place it that direction because it would not fit in the allotted space:
Since I had no choice but to mount the new Hobbywing ESC with the wires facing sideways, I had to determine which direction was the best fit. In the following picture, I have loosely laid the steering link in place to see what interference would exist. It makes for some pretty tight wiring:
In addition to checking on potential wire chaffing, I needed to make sure that the fan power plug was easy to get to because that port is also used for attaching the Hobbywing external programming box. In this picture, you can see that the plug will be under the steering link, but at least that is easy to remove for access:
I checked the fit with the ESC turned around the opposite direction. That caused the fan plug to be under the center brace. The only way to access the plug is to remove the brace. I decided I would rather remove the steering link than the brace:
Doing this test fit is as far as I got today. Work and family time permitting, tomorrow I hope to solder on the connectors, get the motor and ESC installed, then take the rig out for a test run. If I do, I'll take pictures and video then post a report back here on the results.
Do I recommend the DHK Hobby Maximus? No. Why? Two huge reasons: 1. The stock motor and ESC are of very poor quality. Mine quit working in the first two weeks, then four more times in two months until I finally gave up on them, and 2. A total lack of aftermarket support. The only way to get replacement parts is through the Hobby store that sells DHK. Not even chop shops want to handle this brand because there isn't enough demand for them to make any money from it. If any of the stock parts are not strong enough, the only way to make them stronger is to improvise.
I eventually plan to do an in-depth review of the DHK Maximus with supporting pictures and video. I am not ready to do that, yet. However, I am writing this post to follow up a previous thread I started in the Electronics section of this forum regarding the poor quality electronics and the hassles I went through with warranty support:
http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/elec...illed-my-brushless-motor-i-dont-think-so.html
As promised at the end of that thread, I want to post back regarding the aftermarket motor and ESC. I have not had a chance yet to get the Maximus up and running, but this evening I fit-checked the Leopard motor and Hobbywing ESC. This is my report on that:
As noted in the "Electronics" thread, the motor in the Maximus is held by a very non-standard mount that is a "clamping heat sink."
That bizarre method of holding the motor limits it to only 36mm diameter. Most 36mm dia motors are meant for 1/10 scale rigs, not 1/8 scale monster trucks. The motor that came stock on the DHK Maximus has a can size of 3660 and is 2260Kv. It moved the truck along very rapidly, then died just as rapidly. Luckily, there is plenty of length in the motor bay, so I purchased the longest 36mm dia motor I could find, a Leopard LBP3674-1900Kv. I temporarily set it into the motor bay and took pictures. Here is the stock DHK motor next to the new Leopard motor which is significantly longer:
As can be seen here, the longer motor fits just fine (the clamping heat sink is omitted for clarity):
The stock ESC that comes with the DHK Hobby Maximus in a paltry 80-amps considering that the truck is designed to use dual 2S batteries in series for 4S. That pushes the ESC to it's max all the time. In addition to that problem, it has a very tight fit between the fwd bulkhead and steering servo such that the routing of the wires wants to rub on the steering link:
I wanted to replace the 80a ESC with something more powerful, but had to be careful with its physical size. I finally settled on a Hobbywing WP-SC8 which is a waterproof 120a ESC designed for use with 4S power. It is meant mostly for 1/10 scale rigs, but should do OK in the Maximus. Considering the size limitations, I don't have much choice anyway. Here are a couple of pictures comparing the Hobbywing 120a ESC on the left to the DHK Hobby 80a ESC on the right:
Due to the way the wires of the stock ESC wanted to rub against the steering link, I tried to locate the new Hobbywing ESC into the chassis with the wires facing fore and aft. You can see in this picture that I could not place it that direction because it would not fit in the allotted space:
Since I had no choice but to mount the new Hobbywing ESC with the wires facing sideways, I had to determine which direction was the best fit. In the following picture, I have loosely laid the steering link in place to see what interference would exist. It makes for some pretty tight wiring:
In addition to checking on potential wire chaffing, I needed to make sure that the fan power plug was easy to get to because that port is also used for attaching the Hobbywing external programming box. In this picture, you can see that the plug will be under the steering link, but at least that is easy to remove for access:
I checked the fit with the ESC turned around the opposite direction. That caused the fan plug to be under the center brace. The only way to access the plug is to remove the brace. I decided I would rather remove the steering link than the brace:
Doing this test fit is as far as I got today. Work and family time permitting, tomorrow I hope to solder on the connectors, get the motor and ESC installed, then take the rig out for a test run. If I do, I'll take pictures and video then post a report back here on the results.