For you guys who like RC trucks... (56k no way)
Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 5:56 pm
My interest in RC actually spawned from a Parts Shed post for a used Stampede. I considered buying that one, but decided new was the way to go. So I bought a Traxxas Rustler XL-5... which soon went brushless. Eventually I found myself becoming more and more interested in the sheer power of brushless Revos... and set out to do a conversion myself. Here is my electric Revo conversion. The posts are from another forum, so I've just quoted them here.
Alright. So plans have changed. My tax refund was larger than expected, and so I finished ordering my parts. Problem is, I was already knee deep in the part-by-part build, so buying a roller would have been less cost effective than just getting the rest of my parts. The total came out to about $450 to build the roller....... which is more than I had hoped to spend, but in the end I'm VERY happy with the build. I love how the Revo is assembled.
With that in mind, I went with the stock Revo radio system rather than the Spektrum kit. The Spektrum kit will come some time in the summer when I'm actually making money.
I ordered a 4S2P 8000mAh pack from TrueRC, and just won an auction for a Quark 80B on ebay at $112, shipped. Hell of a deal, I think... because I spent less on this 80B/9XL combo than I did on the MambaMax 5700 combo, and now I can jump to 6s whenever I want (most likely before summer is over).Just received my 0606i charger/balancer and Feigao 9XL (which is freaking HUGE).
The truck is almost complete. I'm still waiting on a few parts, and unfortunately the earliest it could be finished is Wednesday of next week. Chances are it won't be running until Friday. I'll have photos up after track practice today... assuming I find my camera.
Thanks for all the help, by the way, but not just the stuff in this thread, also all the information in the other threads. I'm glad I registered here!Finally found my camera and tripod. That said, here are the promised photos!
My sketchy, but sturdy transmission mounting job. I need to drill out the other 4th hole in the chassis, but I'll wait and see if I have any problems without it first.
The shiny dust is aluminum shavings from when I was grinding/cutting. My can of canned air just decided to die on me, so I need to grab a new one.
Too excited to leave the hub carriers off... so I put them on without the dust boots, which are in the mail. I'll run it without the boots until it becomes a problem, then I'll put them on.
I was going to go with a purple only color scheme, but I liked the purple arms with blue accents elsewhere. So I bought the blue battery ties that'll tie down the purple TrueRC pack.
It looks like the item that will determine when this is running will be the 4mm bullet connectors I bought for the motor/esc... but I'm not sure 4mm will be large enough for the amount of electricity going through this... I might just hit up Radioshack (if they have them) for some larger diameter plugs.
Still trying to decide where I'll mount the Quark. I might mount it in front of the battery, since that would be the easiest place to put it... but I might also be underestimating the size. I don't want to wait for a set of standoffs to do a mount like Stumblin's, so I might just temporarily put the Quark on top of the receiver box.Here's the info:Thanks for the heads up. 4s will be sufficient for now... but I may get the speed bug by the end of summer. We'll see.
I've been spending some time with some smaller aspects of the build... like an ESC mount and putting together a CC BEC adapter. Here are some photos:
ESC mount. I used my Rustler's stock mount. Hopefully it's sitting high enough to clear the shocks, and hopefully it's large and sturdy enough to accommodate the 80B. I may order a purple RPM mount for the Rustler to keep with the color scheme.
I used some extras that came with my toe-links as pseudo-standoffs:
Here's the adapter for the CC BEC. I want to be able to use it with different ESCs or if I ever want to switch. I wrapped it in electrical tape to hide my shrink wrapping mistakes.
Lastly, here's the body I'll be using temporarily:
I have a Parma Ford Expedition waiting to be painted in a basic black to purple fade... and I'll be having team3six paint up a HotBodies F350 body with blue ghost flames overlain with purple ghost flames in the future... hopefully.
Built it piece by piece to save money, but it ended up costing more than a new Revo. Oh well.
Parts:
2.5 chassis
E-Maxx 3905 transmission
Feigao 9XL
TrueRC 4S2P 8000mAh lipo
Quark 80B
CC BEC
RPM arms, axle carriers, bumpers
Hexcrews AP conversion kit
Thanks for looking! I'll keep you all updated.
Thanks for looking, guys!
More photos! I got the HX5s and the TrueRC 4S2P 8000mAh while I was at track practice... HOLY COW they're both huge! I looked at the box the HX5s came in. It was bigger than the box my Expedition body was in... I thought "why would they ship tires in such a large box?"... Now I know why. I put them on (lacking the axle pins, they were shipped today) to get an idea of what it'll look like. Then I started playing with the stance, and I found what I wanted.
Unfortunately it was dark when I took these... so the lighting isn't natural.
The battery pack... HUGE!
The prospective stance. Hopefully these Progressive-2 rockers will allow it. I wouldn't mind if it were even a little lower.
With body:
Artsy fartsy:
Soooo with the exception of the shocks and axle pins, this baby is rollin'! Once the Quark gets here, I'll start soldering up the motor connections, and we'll see if I can't get her running! I'm very excited to see how this works out.
This truck is FAT. She's got to be bordering on 10lbs. I haven't had a chance to weigh the truck yet, and I'm going to wait until it's 100% complete to do the weigh in. It's hard to believe the motor's going to move this beast!
Had this baby up and running! But not even a pack through and I went and did this:
No photos of it in running form. Sorry.
Also busted one of the shock-side shock mounts. Sooooo... naturally I was a tad disappointed. I've got all the replacement parts ordered, which include 6 GTR shocks. Also took the fall and grabbed a TeknoRC sway bar kit to help with rollovers.
The good news is this gave me a reason to do a complete teardown and throw in my 3.3 chassis. So... with a good deal of alcohol in me... I deanodized it, and it looked rather sloppy, so I busted out my stainless steel detailing brush, and gave the sucker a nice brushed look:
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Got some parts in yesterday, and it was enough to get the Revo up and running on the 3.3 chassis. So today I took her out for a quick bash, and I swear it's running faster with the Quark than it was with the MM. Anyway, here are some shots after the fact:
Almost no cutting required to fit the E-Maxx 3905 transmission in. But you'll notice my motor is mounted in an uncommon way as a result. It really helps with balance, though, which you'll see in a later photo. The ONLY cutting I did was to make room for the spur gear. I had to do the usual grinding to make room for the driveshafts, and had to drill holes for the screws on the right side of the shot, but that's it.
Here's a shot of the balance. This is right after I dropped the truck onto the floor. The difference on each side is nearly negligible.
Here's one of the bodies I plan to rotate. It's a Ford Expedition from Parma. I'm not finished trimming it yet, and the paint is on it's way. It will sit MUCH lower when I'm finished trimming. Looking at a simple purple to black fade for this one, and team3six is taking care of the other body. Props, dude!
Still haven't run an entire pack through it yet. I'm having trouble with the clutch. I can't get it tight, so I've just been supergluing it locked. I have another slipper kit on the way. Does anyone know which spurs work best with the E-Maxx 3905 transmission?
Figured I'd unload a small update on you guys. I got a new body painted, and threw it on for a little bash after an afternoon drizzle.
Here's what it looks like on its best behavior... after some fun in the mud:
Lastly, but not least:
Still haven't run an entire pack through it all at once. This session ended when the pillow balls popped out of the knuckle.
I'm a tad disappointed with the Quark. It's rated at 6s, but I'm inclined to believe that it's reaching the thermal shutdown after about 10 minutes of running WITH a BEC on 4s. Either that or the 9XL is thermaling. No smoke, just a lack of throttle response. I'm tempted to take it out of the shell and run it like that, or even shrink wrapped to help with airflow, as the "heatsinked case" doesn't appear to be very efficient at all. Looks like there's a MMM in my near future.
It's running on two broken right arms. The initial cracks formed pretty easily, but they're holding up really well despite being broken. I did a LOT of cartwheeling on this last session, and the left side knuckle popped off before I fully broke the right arms. I'll get a photo up soon.
Also, I got the body in from Norm at team3six. It is GODLY. I'm really pretty impressed with it. I haven't mounted it yet, as I'm going to do a tear-down of the Revo beforehand, and get it cleaned up for a potential photo shoot.
By the way, here are the photos of the breaks. They're pretty hardcore, but the arms are holding up fine. No sense in changing them out until one breaks entirely.