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Thread: First time builder project - SCX10 II

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Old 08-19-2016, 06:20 PM   #1
Quarry Creeper
 
Join Date: Aug 2016
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Default First time builder project - SCX10 II + first DIY mods

Edit: This is how the truck is sitting now. Read along below to see how I got there. I'll be updating this first picture periodically.




After watching loads of fun crawling/trailing content on YouTube, and lurking around different forums for a while, last week I made the decision to get into the hobby.

I've always liked tinkering around with mechanical stuff, so RC has been in the back of my mind for a while. A general distrust of anything electric has held me back until now, but hey, with some reading / watching it started to make sense, so I figured I might as well take the plunge. It had to be a kit. I love mechanical engineering, and I have a deep urge to understand everything that goes on in things and makes them tick (or not). This is also where my general distrust of electrical stuff comes from

I opted for the SCX10 II. Luckily a LHS had one in stock, so I drove over and bought everything to get me started.
As I've been lurking around this forum for a while, I know you guys have seen fully detailed build logs with pictures of every little bolt and washer. That's why I won't be posting all the pictures I made. I'll try to keep it a bit more compact, but for those of you who want to see it all, I've made an imgur album with all the pictures (let me know if it doesn't work, I'll fiddle around with the privacy settings a bit more).

Anyways, the build went fairly smooth. I must say props to Axial for a good manual. Only 1 or 2 mistakes in there I could find.
I didn't like the red on the diff covers, and since I decided orange would be one of the highlight colours for this build, I started with some painting.
EDIT: sorry not all my pictures were downsized to 640x480, should be fixed now.


The axles were a breeze.


and links went together without much hassle either


Shocks were a bit more fiddly (I expect I shouldn't be surprised for a first time builder)


Transmissions and transfer case were fairly straightforward, had to take it apart once to flip the large gear in the transmission.


The clutch (do you call this the clutch in an RC vehicle?) I did have some issues with. The spur-gear seemed a bit wobbly. After flipping around the plates I managed to get rid of most of it, but it's still there. Not sure if that might end up being a problem.


Driveshafts, no problems. The same with the skid plate. The battery tray gave me some issues (strong plastic, weak 2mm screws). I grabbed a nice powerful steering servo.


Rest of the frame was relatively painless as well (wait with tightening everything up until it's settled into place). Here's the chassis with the 27T Axial motor, which has already been replaced with a brushless system, because screw trying to find an affordable brushed ESC around here .


Adding the axles/links to the chassis was a bit fiddly, but I managed


And so we ended up with what I believe is called a (standard) roller


Ok, now I had to make it mine. Apart from the mechanical goodness, that's one of the reason I didn't opt for a RTR. So bring out the masking tape and paint!






I'm fairly sure I messed up using my Tamiya PS paints on these plastics (especially on the rims), but we'll see. We live and learn I hope







Another lesson learned: glue-on tires for ever and ever and ever and ever! Adding bead-locks to the (long) to do list!

Then it was time for the shell. Starting with a gun metal (with a slight fade from bright silver from the front)


Next some small trim lines while also backing the gun metal with black


Another valuable lesson here: If you made some errors masking your body, and rip the masking off again; SPEND MORE TIME CLEANING your lexan body before applying that first layer of metallic paint. This is the mistake in this project that I punch myself over the most. It's very visible in daylight.
On the other hand, good excuse to eventually get a replacement body I guess.

On to the orange:


... and some white striping


which leaves me with this (you can see the effect of my (lack of) prepwork here sadly . Also painted the fenders in bright silver.


Some decals (intentionally not overdoing it yet) and body-details later, here's the result:









After my first test runs I've had to rebuild 3 of the shocks (leaking / too much air). They seem to be in great condition now though.

Setting up the controller and ESC was complicated (for me), but I managed it (yay for ESC programming cards). Due to budget reasons I've had to settle for a 3000kV unsensored brushless system which isn't performing at low speed the way I want it to, but I'll see if I can do some fine-tuning along the way.
I've partially managed to get rid of my aversion to anything electronic. I think the best example of that is that I managed to solder together a set of loading wires/balance plug to charge my two LiPo's (a 5300 and a 5900 mAh 2S pack), which should keep me running for a while. It's happily loading right now, no fires or explosions yet


Must say. I'm happy with it for now. I'm going to take it out for a spin tomorrow (because running it around my neighborhood isn't really inspirational).

I do have loads of plans though
To do list:
- inner wheel-wells
- full roll cage and interior
- lights and light bar
- different front bumper
- the paint scheme was mildly Jeepspeed inspired, and from looking at other build-logs here, I'm very tempted to turn this into a Jeepspeed style vehicle

Eventually:
- bead locks (because again, screw glue-ons
- sensored brushless or good brushed system
- maybe a controller that can handle EXP on the throttle (I have a Futaba T3PRKA at the moment)
- more things that'll make my wallet cry

Hope you enjoyed reading, and any feedback is very welcome

Last edited by IVIaarten; 12-29-2016 at 11:57 AM.
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Old 08-20-2016, 05:07 AM   #2
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Default Re: First time builder project - SCX10 II

very nice build thread....clean and to the point...ur jeep looks nice and i cant wait for my order to come in...not sure about where u live but i love my new brushed motor from holmes hobbies...they are very smooth...i also have holmes brushless in my wraith but im gonna stay with brushed for my scx10 2...have fun with ur truck..
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Old 08-20-2016, 11:16 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FordFixer View Post
very nice build thread....clean and to the point...ur jeep looks nice and i cant wait for my order to come in...not sure about where u live but i love my new brushed motor from holmes hobbies...they are very smooth...i also have holmes brushless in my wraith but im gonna stay with brushed for my scx10 2...have fun with ur truck..
I live in the Netherlands, so I don't have easy access to US based small scale specific crawler motor builders like Holmes and Tekin.
Right now I'm running a 3000kV brushless system (Samurai from Yuki Model) on 2S, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised when I took it out on it's maiden trip today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali_Lightning View Post
Awesome build! love the body and wheel paint! you did a great job! Let us know how it does on the trail.
Don't have to wait long
As you might be aware, the Netherlands isn't exactly known to have any sort of hills/mountains, but I found a park with some mountain-bike trails pretty close to home which apparently makes for some pretty good RC trailing as well. No big rocks to crawl on, but I did manage to find some rather steep gravel paths. Here are some pictures:


















The rig also managed thick growth pretty well









and hey, it's got me some exercise as well!

Now I need to start learning about maintenance as well. I heard some squeeking from one of the axes/hubs after draining 11200 mAh worth of LiPo

Last edited by IVIaarten; 08-20-2016 at 03:53 PM.
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Old 08-21-2016, 12:42 PM   #4
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Default Re: First time builder project - SCX10 II

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Originally Posted by LiqrSicc View Post
My SCX10 ii was my first crawler build too. But not as clean as yours! Nice work
Thanks for the compliments. Must say it's a great kit for a first time builder.

Anyways, it was terrible weather today, so I went ahead and did my first actual DIY mod.
I read some tips on this forum about how to make inner fenders/wheel wells (whatever it's called). I just happened to have some salad packaging that looked like it would fit well.



It even had some great little details which would make attaching it to the frame a lot easier. So let's get to fitting and cutting.



It almost looks like this container was made for this...



a few coats of paint later



and they're ready to fit on the truck.



Details from the back





and from the front end.





I'm amazed at how easy of a mod this was. Just bolt them right onto the shock hoops with the shocks, and connect to the bumper mounts with some spacers that I still had from the kit. Just had to pick a slightly longer screw for the front since the original one that was attaching the front bumper mount was too short to fit the spacer.

Really helps the looks of the truck as well. Can recomment this mod to anyone.

Last edited by IVIaarten; 08-21-2016 at 12:47 PM. Reason: general formatting, spellchecking and moving of pictures.
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Old 08-23-2016, 03:12 PM   #5
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Default Re: First time builder project - SCX10 II

Quote:
Originally Posted by Say what? View Post
Wow nice work on your truck and i love the inner fenders/wheel wells.
And for your first build you did a great job.
Thanks

I love tinkering with this thing too much (especially as far as my wallet's concerned). Picked up a lighting kit from my LHS tonight, and went straight to work fitting it in.
It's a pretty nifty lighting kit, connects up to channel 1 and 2 of the receiver, so I have indicator lights and functional brake lights.

For the rearI wanted to avoid having more cables run to the shell, so I decided to try to make some light buckets that attach to the bumper. I've quickly prototyped something from dense foam, drilled some holes in it to hold the LED's and attached them to the bumper with a small screw from below. It doesn't look good yet, but I think with some time and effort I can form these into some pretty convincing buckets, paint them up and then remove the sticker.
Even in its current rough for it looks sort of OK with the stickers still on the shell.







Ow yeh, also instant scale gratification by adding some tow hooks, I got them really cheap from the LHS, just have to shorted the bolts some and thread-lock the nuts in place.

Here's the front:



Not sure yet if I'll keep the indicators, since I can imagine them getting annoying while trailing/crawling, but we'll see.

I also picked up a light bucket set, but am still contemplating where I want to put them (especially since I'm probably going to make this a JeepSpeed type vehicle). I've mocked up 3 positions:

first; on the bumper. I will want to replace the stock front bumper in the future anyways, but for right now the buckets seem to fill up that aircraft-carrier landing deck pretty well.





I could also fit them on the roof with just the provided stuff:



Or, lastly, I could cut up the whole set and try to attach them to the roofrack somehow (which might probably be best, but I don't really like the roofrack if I'm turning this into a JeepSpeed style.



What do you lot think looks best, I can't decide yet.
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Old 08-24-2016, 07:25 PM   #6
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Default Re: First time builder project - SCX10 II

Great idea on the rear tail light buckets mounted to the frame. They look just fine with the body on.
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Old 08-25-2016, 01:53 PM   #7
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Ok, since I had decided to mount the lights on the bumper, next I had to figure out how to mount the thing. As can be seen from the mock-ups, the included mounting hardware was a bit too large to fit neatly, so I decided to quickly cut up an old part tree to make some custom mounts. I basically cut of the extra tubes really close to the center, left two of them about 3 mm longer, and then drilled some holes, so I could screw in the lightkit from the inside, and from the bottom of the bumper. There's no screws/bolts in sight anywhere. I really like the way this turned out.

some details:




and an overview of the finished lights.



I will probably add some connecting bars to the hood in the future, but that will wait until I've made a cage so it has something to connect to.

Now I had a massive wire spaghetti mess under the shell, so time to clean that up as well. I've added a temporary box for the light kit and excess wires, which will be replace by something properly waterproof in the future, but it will do for now.





And of course the end result of the little lightkit sideproject:


Last edited by IVIaarten; 08-25-2016 at 01:57 PM.
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Old 08-27-2016, 08:53 AM   #8
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Default Re: First time builder project - SCX10 II

Was amazing weather again today, so decided to take the truck out again. We don't have mountains/rocks in the Netherlands, but what we do have... is DUNES!

Let's go!



I like that the towing hitches are acting as a verticality indicator



Happy to find some tricky obstacles, along with just really fine sand... everywhere.







Loads of great trailing to be had as well along narrow paths, occasionally with quite some side-hill.







Gave the whole suspension a good workout as well, no problems at all charging down this one....



and then back up again.





All in all, I was out for about 2,5 hours, spend a bit more than 1 lipo-pack worth of juice. Amazed at how long it keeps going. Was a good trip. The truck got its second dose of battle scars at least

Last edited by IVIaarten; 08-27-2016 at 09:14 AM.
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Old 08-27-2016, 09:56 AM   #9
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Default Re: First time builder project - SCX10 II + first DIY mods

Good deal man! We don't have many rocks or hilly terrain in my neck of the woods either. I've found some of the most challenging places to be large sand dunes that are somewhat packed down. The rain created washouts in them that are perfect for crawling, and the surface will crumble making it a fight for traction. Also dirt mining pits, and areas around creeks are all good spots.

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Old 08-28-2016, 01:27 PM   #10
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Default Re: First time builder project - SCX10 II + first DIY mods

Quote:
Originally Posted by Waitwhatsthat? View Post
Good deal man! We don't have many rocks or hilly terrain in my neck of the woods either. I've found some of the most challenging places to be large sand dunes that are somewhat packed down. The rain created washouts in them that are perfect for crawling, and the surface will crumble making it a fight for traction. Also dirt mining pits, and areas around creeks are all good spots.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
We have to play the hand we're dealt. Or move to a different country I guess

Anyways, managed to edit up a short clip from yesterday. Basically just a test messing with editing software with footage from my phone (using Davinci Resolve). I halved the framerate to add some more scale to it. Driving and filming at the same time is difficult . Also, this was the only clip that ended up being useful.
Ah well, thought I'd share:


Last edited by IVIaarten; 08-28-2016 at 01:46 PM.
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Old 08-29-2016, 01:53 PM   #11
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Default Re: First time builder project - SCX10 II

Was pondering over the included decals a bit, and I figured out that you cut up the decals intended for the rear windows in strips, they add up to exactly what I need to cover the entire white stripe I painted in my body (also covers up the not 100% crisp lines a bit), so I went ahead and did that.







Fun fact; since the rear window decals are mirrored, I get the same look on both sides .

Also, after last weekend's run, I noticed the shocks leaking again. It's most likely just me being new to all this. I disassembled them again, topped up the shock oil, and added some teflon tape before I remounted the shock caps. Hope this helps. I'm going to get some o-ring grease as well, that should seal up both ends nicely.

Last edited by IVIaarten; 08-29-2016 at 04:07 PM.
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Old 08-31-2016, 01:11 PM   #12
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I've been working a bit more on my rear lights.

I had those bits of hard foam on the bumper, but they didn't look much like real units though. So bring out the dremel.

This was the starting point.



a good while of dremeling later...



also made the shape of the reflectors for the reverse lights, might add those in the future, so might as well have them.
A couple of coats of white as a backing, and a coat of bright silver to help the light reflect.



Here they are on the truck after a little cleanup.



After scoring and scuffing the lexan a bit on the inside, here's what I've got for now.



It really needs a coat of clear paint on the inside still, and some detailing, but I don't have that paint yet. Will likely pick some up this weekend to finish the job, or at least see how they look. Might end up roughing up and scoring the lexan some more to get closer to the real thing. I'm liking where it's going though.

Also, the signaling lights were annoying me out on the trail last weekend, so I've attached the lights on the right to the left channel as well, and removed the steering connection. Instead I added it to a free channel on my controller, so I now have working hazard lights for when I flip over or crash

Last edited by IVIaarten; 08-31-2016 at 01:15 PM.
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Old 09-03-2016, 01:41 AM   #13
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Default Re: First time builder project - SCX10 II + first DIY mods

After some paint:

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Old 09-03-2016, 12:37 PM   #14
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Very nice!
Quote:
Originally Posted by IVIaarten View Post
After some paint:

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Old 09-03-2016, 01:24 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by Irishchamp View Post
Very nice!
Thanks. Still pondering over ways to improve them. Would like a bit more of a reflector look on the rear lights, and I don't think I can achieve that by scoring/scuffing the lexan more. Might make a separate reflector like thingy and mount that between the shell and the lightbuckets.
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Old 09-04-2016, 01:25 PM   #16
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Went out trailing again this weekend. Still out looking for spots to run around in. This one wasn't that great, but hey, guess we'll deal with the obstacles we find (or lack thereof).

Anyways, some more pictures.









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Old 09-11-2016, 10:56 AM   #17
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Default Re: First time builder project - SCX10 II + first DIY mods

Hey Maarten, great Jeep and a good crawler, seen it with my own eyes today.
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Old 09-11-2016, 03:59 PM   #18
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Was good fun.

Still have to work on the way I mount the rear light buckets. Apparently not strong enough to handle some tumbling downhill ;)

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Old 09-13-2016, 02:27 PM   #19
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A few more changes on the front of the car. I really wanted to shorten the front bumper a bit. I also noticed that the front grille of the car was flatter than it was supposed to be. It also wouldn't stay nicely popped in to its spot in the lexan. Tackled both today.

Front bumper just needed some chopping. Shortened the posts, drilled new holes, removed a few parts of the plastic, and presto, as short as it will go.




Next up was the front grille. I wanted to force a slight bend on it, so I took a long zip-tie, cut off both ends of it, and made a hole so that it could be screwed into the clamps holding the led's in place. Bent the grille into the curve I wanted, and marked down where the second hole should go to make sure the grilled stayed bent a bit. The zip-tie now has just enough tension to keep the grille nicely bent and in place.



Looks a lot better like this, nicely fitting into the lexan.



This of course means that I can't fit my lights on the bumper anymore, so I fitted the roof rack as well. Still figuring out a way to mount the 5 light buckets nicely to the roofrack.

Last edited by IVIaarten; 09-13-2016 at 02:29 PM.
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Old 09-21-2016, 06:22 AM   #20
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Default First time builder project - SCX10 II

I ended up adding the roofrack. I managed to mount the lightbuckets on it by just cutting them loose from the frame they came on, and drilling some holes in the bottom of the buckets and in the roofrack.

Mounted up pretty well, now I just need to add the led's back in and route the wiring (I really hate wiring spaghetti).....



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