Markswebpages Posted November 20, 2016 Share Posted November 20, 2016 (edited) Hi all, So despite telling my wife no more RC buggies I saw this for sale a few weeks ago and thought why not seeing as I've always wanted a go with a proper crawler. So that plan is to get it going (complete with Dig function) and see if I enjoy it. The seller (Oh How Original who was a pleasure to deal with I hasten to add) included a 27t motor and a hi torque servo for the steering. I also have a mini servo brought from another member of the forum. Fortunately I already have a 3 channel Rx for the spektrum so just an ESC and battery to go. Edited November 20, 2016 by Markswebpages Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markswebpages Posted November 20, 2016 Author Share Posted November 20, 2016 So this evening I thought seeing as my back is completely borked and I'm sick to death of watching TV I'd prop myself up at the desk and start tinkering with the crawler. The first problem was that bizarrely the mounts for the mini servo are both the same instead of being left and right hand sided. So after a bit of thought I realized that if I turned it upside down, supported it with a sleeve underneath and used a longer screw it would work (the part containing them is nearly £10 which is ridiculous for half a dozen bits). So I got it together and ran the Rx of off am old hump pack I had. This is where it gets even more frustrating. So centered it up as per instructions and carefully (small amounts at a time) adjust the servo travel again using the measurements given in the instructions. It became clear that with the amount of travel in the instructions it simply doesn't disengage, but it does need quite a bit of force as the drive is spring loaded (that's what keeps engaged if there's no servo). It's tricky even by hand to be honest so I even took it apart in the end because I wanted to see it myself and check nothing was obviously broken, but it isn't. So extending the travel makes it work but then it's also as if the the center of travel is wrong because it seems to require more travel in on direction and in the other it's limited by the gearbox case. The disengage point is right at the end of the travel so it's proving very difficult to end up with enough travel in both directions and not having the servo buzzing away because it's run out of travel. Anyone else ever bothered with the DIG feature? Is the servo not man enough Or am I just not adjusting it correctly? Is there something else I'm missing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz! Posted November 20, 2016 Share Posted November 20, 2016 You need to pm member igbandy on here, he knows nearly everything there is to know about crawlers and scalers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markswebpages Posted December 4, 2016 Author Share Posted December 4, 2016 On 20/11/2016 at 22:48, big gaz said: You need to pm member igbandy on here, he knows nearly everything there is to know about crawlers and scalers. Thank you, I might give it a try. I got this rig to a point where it should work, only for the motor (35t rc4wd) to burn up on it's first gentle indoor test run. This having read up a bit is because the worm drive is a killer for brushed Motors. An expensive sensored brushless setup is the best cure by all accounts and if I was going to make that kind of investment it would be in one of the trucks. The whole point of this was to try to find and inexpensive way to dip a toe in the water with a crawler. The more I read up on this crawler the more out of my depth I feel to be honest. It seemed like a good idea but this one seems like a very specialized pain in the ass (my own fault should have done some homework first) and I can't afford an scx10 right now. So I think I'll probably put in the for sale section and recoup what I can. Then maybe have another look at a proper scaler/crawler next year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johninderby Posted December 4, 2016 Share Posted December 4, 2016 (edited) It simply doesn't work with a brushed motor. Has to be brushless. Also I found it was so badly set-up it needed taking completely apart and rebuilding properly. Transforms it when put together properly. They made a big mistake in selling it as an assembled roller. Should have been a kit. John Edited December 4, 2016 by johninderby Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markswebpages Posted December 4, 2016 Author Share Posted December 4, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, johninderby said: It simply doesn't work with a brushed motor. Has to be brushless. Also I found it was so badly set-up it needed taking completely apart and rebuilding properly. Transforms it when put together properly. They made a big mistake in selling it as an assembled roller. Should have been a kit. John John I can understand why that should be the case, I took the center gearbox apart and wondered if it would have been better for an owner to understand it better from building it. Yeah the motor lasted literally about 5 minutes LOL. Soon as I Google'd I realized I'd made a mistake and gone in the wrong direction with this. Not anyone's fault apart from mine for not finding out first. I'm terrible for seeing something thinking it looks interesting and just jumping in. To be honest I think it's a bit of a white elephant and it's probably going to be tricky to sell, I'll try here first but I suspect an eBay auction will be my best bet. My plan now is to sell this and possibly my Yeti then buy an scx10 kit and just take it slowly. I'll enjoy it more and end up with something much more usable, it's also what I should have done in the first place. Edited December 4, 2016 by Markswebpages Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johninderby Posted December 4, 2016 Share Posted December 4, 2016 The problem with selling one is most peoples experience is of one run as is without being set-up right. It is horrible as it comes but if rebuilt and set-up properly it works really, really well. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markswebpages Posted December 4, 2016 Author Share Posted December 4, 2016 1 hour ago, johninderby said: The problem with selling one is most peoples experience is of one run as is without being set-up right. It is horrible as it comes but if rebuilt and set-up properly it works really, really well. John I might try finding out about setting it up better. It's just the thought of spending another £100+ on a ESC and motor combo doesn't really appeal. It does seem a shame that if you can set it up right it would be so much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markswebpages Posted December 4, 2016 Author Share Posted December 4, 2016 Just now, Markswebpages said: I might try finding out about setting it up better. It's just the thought of spending another £100+ on a ESC and motor combo doesn't really appeal. It does seem a shame that if you can set it up right it would be so much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johninderby Posted December 4, 2016 Share Posted December 4, 2016 It is the cost of the BL combo that pushes the price way up. Might be worth seeing what used combos might be available. When I rebuilt mine it seemed to be that everything was overtightned. Just needs to be disassembled and greaseed and make sure everytjing runs freely. The worm drive diffs do suck up a lot of power but things can be improved a lot by some adjustment. Other option is to pickup some SCX10 axles. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.