Technical Trail... Honcho

[zane!]

Hey everyone! What a year we've had, and it's not over yet...

I poked around with the crawler over the summer but mostly it sat, and I snuck away to ride mountain bikes whenever I could. Avoiding groups of people meant that the good local crawling spots (in busier parks) weren't the best option.

With the change to our wet fall weather I'm digging back into the truck to make some upgrades and play with it a bit more.

First order of business, get the LEDs back up and running. After some awesome conversations with Al @heyok I ordered a dimmable LED controller and a bunch of 5mm 12v LEDs from him to run off my 3s Lipo. Those should be here soon.

Now I needed another channel to run the dimmer. I figured the ubiquitous Flysky option would work, so I ordered and received a GT3C. Honestly... This radio is a POS. Maybe it's just the one I received, but the steering sensitivity was terrible and had a very jumpy/notchy throw to the servo. Then the radio itself just felt plain cheap, even compared to basic RTR units. So it's getting returned.

Then I did what I should have done from the beginning, and picked up a DX5 Rugged from the local shop. Happy birthday to me.

I also grabbed a can of paint to give the body an update. I'll spray it on the outside of the body and let the rocks chew it up. I eventually want a new body but I can't decide what to go with yet.

Pics to come later, once I have everything together and something to show.

[zane!]

The light mounts are done and ready to rock!

The front bumper light and front rock lights are on stainless steel brackets that I cut/bent/filed into shape. Axial LED pods are used here.








The rear rock lights are a spare Axial rear crossmember, just cut in half and trimmed into shape. Then taillights go back into the rear bumper/crossmember as well.




I also have the LED harness soldered up, and I'll add the LEDs and resistors tonight. My soldering skills and tools are much better suited to larger automotive jobs but I'm making it work.

[zane!]

That worked out.





Al @HeyOK wrote great instructions on wiring LEDs, so I followed them to build a harness. Amateur wiring tip: heat shrink over liquid electrical tape makes everything look good.

How to wire LEDs



Got everything routed and zip tied down. You can see the small zip tie points I cut from a parts tree, and glued down. You can also see the LED dimming module zip tied to the battery connector - it's a great little piece of tech and works perfectly with a momentary switch 3rd channel.

[zane!]

Next on the agenda: I have a set of foams on the way from @Nova's Ark so I'll get those in soon.

Then, the body will get an update with a new exterior color and maybe a couple other tweaks.

Other than that... Drive it!

[smog]

Most excellent job on the lighting sir. Are all of the lights on a single switch?

Nice Honcho build, looks like fun. Never had one but if Axial slams one on the iii I might yet

[zane!]

Originally Posted by smog

Most excellent job on the lighting sir. Are all of the lights on a single switch?

Nice Honcho build, looks like fun. Never had one but if Axial slams one on the iii I might yet

Thanks! Yes, it's a single switch with High-Medium-Low-Off settings that are cycled by a signal from a momentary switched channel. So the low and medium settings look cool, while the high really throws out enough light to drive in the dark. It's still a challenge with shadows to contend with but it's quite fun.

And honestly... For technical crawling, I like the ii chassis over the iii. I feel that the iii is too tall and more complicated than I want to deal with for a hardcore rig. It was definitely built to compete with the TRX-4 and the scale factor was prioritized pretty highly. It's a cool rig for sure though.

[heyok]

I like what you have done! Your LED connections look great. I could take some pointers from that!

Well done - the whole rig!

Al

[zane!]

Originally Posted by heyok

I like what you have done! Your LED connections look great. I could take some pointers from that!

Well done - the whole rig!

Al

Thank you! I read your how-to and just applied what I knew from automotive work. Thanks for the tip about liquid electrical tape too, I had never used that before and it's such a cool product.

[zane!]

It's been a while, so... Updates!

Chopped out the driveline lump and shaved out the inside of the spur gear cover so now it fits over the 60t steel spur. Lightly greased the gears and now with the cover it's so much quieter.



Cut/bent/silver soldered a new stainless steel bumper. Proceeded to break it on my last trip out. I also tried bending up some stainless steel sliders but they didn't turn out well, so I just painted the old aluminum sliders.



Installed some Lil Nova soft/medium comp cut foams. Holy stability! Still has killer traction but the tires don't moosh all the way to the rim on sharp rocks or fold over sideways.

[Phildirt]

Looks great. If you aren’t mud bogging can probably just skip the spur cover altogether. Makes it easier to check/change the pinion gear and clean things. Just keep wires away from it


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[borlo]

Nice build and pics. I have a honcho body waiting for assembly and paint that I am planning on finagling onto my TRX4 chassis.

[zane!]

Originally Posted by Phildirt

Looks great. If you aren’t mud bogging can probably just skip the spur cover altogether. Makes it easier to check/change the pinion gear and clean things. Just keep wires away from it


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Yeah, I went without a spur cover for a long time but I also drive this in rain and snow. So I wanted to finagle the cover back on once I found out it was possible.

Originally Posted by borlo

Nice build and pics. I have a honcho body waiting for assembly and paint that I am planning on finagling onto my TRX4 chassis.

Thanks! I'm a sucker for Toyotas which makes the Honcho a special one for me.

[zane!]

I broke the front bumper (again) last time out, so this time it got the JB Weld treatment. Maybe it'll hold up? 😂




And then I tried trimming down and paint stripping the Honcho body. The trimming was great, but not so much with the brake fluid paint stripping. It's somewhat messed up now... So I'll deal with that soon. New body is in the works.

[Kemora]

Originally Posted by zane!

I got the crawler back on the rocks!

I'm really happy with this powertrain setup. There is more power than I know what to do with and the low-speed control is better than I've ever driven, including a very strong drag brake. There is also a bit more wheelspeed than stock (35t 3slot, 2S, 56/13 gears) which was my goal too. The ESC has a 7.4V 3A BEC which makes the steering servo even snappier.

Crawlmaster Sport 550 12T
Hobbywing 1080 ESC
Turnigy 2200mah 3S 60C batteries
60t Axial metal spur gear
9t hardened Robinson pinion gear

I broke in the motor DRY (for the love of all things RC, never break in a motor with water) on my charger in power supply mode. Turns out 4mm Castle bullet connectors plug right into female banana plugs.



I had to trim the battery tray, trim the lump off the receiver box, and relocate the upper front suspension link to the right side of the chassis to make room for the longer 550 motor.



One of our new neighborhood parks was designed well enough that it has a rc crawler rock sculpture! But really, every time we've brought the kiddo here I wished for an opportunity to bring the crawler at a time when it's not swarming with children. Schedules aligned and I made it happen!









There's also a nice slab on the backside, but I couldn't make it up more than this... my new goal is to climb this thing.

Looks like you're in the PNW somwhere. Can I ask where this park is?

[zane!]

Originally Posted by Kemora

Looks like you're in the PNW somwhere. Can I ask where this park is?

PM sent.

[zane!]

I ended up ditching the modified spur gear cover, with the hole in the bottom it just caught junk inside that had no way to fall out. Back to bare steel gears.

I also re-bent the steel sliders, changed around the LED lights, and changed around body posts, to work with...

The new body!

A new body was always a plan, but I didn't know what I wanted until I saw the Proline Cliffhanger. It was perfect. I had to wait until they came back in stock and I recently snagged one. The green doesn't photograph well, it's Tamiya Park Green and is much greener in person. Then Gun Metal Grey for the bed and backing all the green as well.