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Old 03-22-2012, 10:50 AM   #1
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Default My Wraith build

So my collection of boxes grew greatly yesterday when UPS dropped off 11 pounds of Wraith to go with the Mamba Max Pro, Hitec 7955TG, Futaba R614FF, Vanquish titanium steering setup, Axial beadlocks, and a few other bits and pieces. Dove straight into the kit yesterday and had the bottom half built by the time I went to bed last night. Today the Lara Croft figure I had planning on putting in the passenger seat showed up, but she just won't work. She's certainly hot enough, but very little articulation. The driver, Sam Fisher, will be here Monday and everyone and their dog has him at the wheel. Another box showed up at the same time, this one with a set of digital urban camo Freqeskinz. There's more to that, but I'm not sure I can talk about/show it yet. Have to ask Neal. For now I'll just say that it's amazing and wait to hear from him. Ok, I'll also say that no one will have a Wraith like this one.

On the way is a Reedy 13.T brushless to go with the MMP, and I have a few 4ah and 5ah 2 cell packs waiting to go in. I'm researching shocks now, but haven't made a decision. Proline Slash shocks are in the lead so far. I had a set on my Slash and loved the things, plus I can fire up the lathe and make a set of delrin upper mounts.

More later, have to run and fetch stuff so I can finish cleaning out the garage so the wife doesn't castrate me for spending a bunch of cash on yet another Axial product. It's a worthy trip, though. I'll be picking up some stuff to make it easier for my broken self to move the 1:1 Jeep doors around the garage. It's warm/dry enough to go with no top or doors again, and I somehow managed to fit her into the garage. Those of you that have seen the infamous garage know what a monumental undertaking that was
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Old 03-23-2012, 07:13 PM   #2
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Progress. Assembly is done. Had to pull off the servo arm and replace it. The first one had so much slop the steering wouldn't stay centered. Still not done with the bodywork, have to finish trimming and wrapping the sides and figure out if I want to go with the stock roof, find something that looks like the Spiderweb Shade on my TJ, or go without it so it's easier to see the interior. Sam Fisher got here today and, as I knew, the steering wheel was too far forward. So I cut the column, turned a new one out of some scrap 6061 aluminum, and put it all together. Looks good to me, at least. The new motor should be here tomorrow, so I went out in search of some 32 pitch gears. Found a 14 tooth pinion and a Robinson idler gear. I'll try the other local shop tomorrow, but I ordered the output gear and a spur just in case.

After putting this one together I have to say it's not a good choice for a first kit. This isn't my first by any stretch (first kit I built was a JRX-2 in about 1992), but there were some challenges. Mainly in cleanly installing the ESC. I pulled the interior out and soldered connectors with wires hanging out the side of the cage. If you aren't good with an iron, and have a good iron (love my Hakko), you'll want some help there.

On the way are the motor and gears I mentioned before, and a CKRC front battery mount. I have some Traxxas Bandit battery strap studs around here somewhere to hold the hood down, just need to find some cable clamps to fit the bar across the top of the dash to use as hinges.

Now I'm going to go play with the very little light that's left. Pics tonight if I remember.
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Old 03-23-2012, 07:37 PM   #3
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Old 03-23-2012, 10:49 PM   #4
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Old 03-24-2012, 12:59 AM   #5
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Old 03-25-2012, 12:31 AM   #6
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I have a couple of pics in the camera, need to fetch the card and upload them. Spent forever putting the MMP and Reedy 13.5t motor in today. Lots of soldering, a ton of screws to pull out, a bunch of frustration, but it's done and working. Things I learned today:

A Slash 4x4 slipper looks to be a drop in upgrade. Unfortunately I fetched the wrong slipper rebuild kit (Traxxas has both kits listed, and the one I picked up has the wrong disk). However, the Slash 4x4 spur bolts directly onto the Axial slipper and runs perfectly true even without spending all day turning an improbably accurate bushing to center the thing. Went with a 54t spur and 14t pinion. I'm going to fetch the right slipper rebuild kit before the last part of the transmission gets here and do all of that at once.

The stock slipper sucks. I can spin it at will. Yeah, I know, there's a heck of a lot more power in there than Axial intended, but still...

Sensored motors rock. ZERO cogging at barely moving speeds. The only time I get any cogging is when I'm basically stalling the motor and the only thing letting go is the slipper. The ammeter said something like 2.8a in that situation, so I'm betting there will extremely long runtimes. Probably not what I get out of my SCX10 with a Sidewinder and 45t lathe motor, but enough to keep me entertained.

Slash rear shocks are close enough to exactly the same extended length and have slightly more travel. I hate Axial shocks, every set I've built (4 now) has leaked. I'm picking up some Prolines next week. Should have gotten them today, but I hadn't actually compared the Axial and Traxxas parts so I didn't want to drop $140 on an experiment.

Brownouts suck. I chased what I thought was a bad MMP for an hour then, as a last resort before yanking it out and boxing it up for a trip to Kansas, plugged in a dual cap glitchbuster I keep around just in case. Instantly solved the problem, which was the receiver shutting down randomly. I suspect there is something wrong with the MMP since it doesn't take anything to make it flip out without the extra caps. Next time I have it apart I'll put in the gizmo that lets you program Castle ESCs in place so I don't have to spend half an hour disassembling the front end to get the radio box open.

I'm not a fan of the radio box. Yeah, it might do a decent job of keeping the R603FS dry and functional, but geez, it takes forever to get into it and the o-ring refuses to sit in it's groove. The box is going away when my stuff gets here from CKRC next Wednesday.

So, to make it short, I need to get the right slipper disk, an external BEC so I can lose the caps, work on the lights, and finish the body panels. And pics. Tomorrow, I promise.

Last edited by SFT2; 04-03-2023 at 11:35 AM.
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Old 03-25-2012, 12:50 AM   #7
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Ok, ok, here's a pic...



And another, totally unrelated pic from last week that I found on the card:

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Old 03-25-2012, 11:36 AM   #8
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Ufo!!!!
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Old 03-25-2012, 12:00 PM   #9
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Nah, just Venus and Jupiter, taken with a... let's call it a "budget" 200mm lens with a 2x teleconverter. I really need a 500mm F4, but there are a lot of things I could spend $12k on first.

Got the boy checked out on the lawnmower, lawn is mowed (which he will be doing for a while to pay off iPod repair bills), and I'm headed to the shop to fetch some parts.
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Old 03-25-2012, 01:38 PM   #10
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CC BEC and Quick Connect, more Deans pairs, y-harness to hack up, and the right slipper rebuild kit fetched. I'm not feeling the motivation to tear the Wraith apart again right now, but I might later tonight. I need to figure out exactly how to charge my drill motor batteries with the car battery chargers first. The charger for the drill motor went tango uniform, and I'd really rather let it turn the dozen screws required to get everything apart. Actually, now that I think about it, I'll have to tear into it Wednesday to rebuild the tranny and put in the front electronics plate anyway, so I think I'll just wait until then. I can get the soldering done now since that doesn't require disassembling anything, then put it all in Wednesday.

Plan for the BEC is, for now, a pair of Deans soldered back to back with the BEC input leads, then heat shrinked, then the BEC output and ESC signal, through the Quick Connect, both go into a y-harness, with the red cut on the ESC side, which then goes into the receiver. Then all that wiring mess gets bundled, zip tied, and stuffed in there somewhere. Castle, what we need is the setup like the Mamba Max, a programming port on the side of the ESC so we don't have to disassemble everything to unplug the ESC signal cable or put an extra mile of wiring in there. A software setting to disable the internal BEC would be nice, too, so we don't have to mess with the y-harness, which adds another 6" of wire.

I think I might go fire up the lathe and turn a little delrin spool to wind the Quick Connect's programming cable around to keep it from getting wrapped around the axle. That'll give me something to do for a little while at least.
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Old 03-26-2012, 05:02 PM   #11
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Pics, finally! Had time to get the side panels mounted and wrapped, then grabbed the camera and headed out the back door.

The camo isn't purple, it's just a goof with the white balance and flash:



Aluminum steering column and Sam aiming at the BBQ pit:



Vanquish titanium steering stuff and Hitec 7955TG:



Gratuitous flex shot (with more room to go):

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Old 03-26-2012, 08:13 PM   #12
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Mighty fine looking interior! The camo looks good. Enjoy
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Old 03-26-2012, 08:30 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by drywallguy View Post
Mighty fine looking interior! The camo looks good. Enjoy
I can take absolutely no credit for the interior beyond my pathetic stickering skills and ability to zip tie action figures into seats... ok, and the lathe work, but that was the easy part.

I'm kinda thinking I need more motor now. Maybe a 9.5 turn, then I can put the 13.5 in my SCX10, swap it's SV2 with the Goat 3S in the Creeper, and have a fairly fast Rubicon and REALLY fast Wraith.

Oh yeah, I crammed my phone behind the seats earlier and got a couple of videos. If I can make them into a usable format I'll post them.
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Old 03-26-2012, 08:36 PM   #14
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Digging that camo
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Old 03-26-2012, 08:59 PM   #15
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Default Re: My Wraith build

For sure that digital urban camo is sweeeet. Once my aluminum panels start getting all beat up I might do something like that.
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Old 03-26-2012, 09:16 PM   #16
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Originally Posted by alexchen86 View Post
For sure that digital urban camo is sweeeet. Once my aluminum panels start getting all beat up I might do something like that.
I'm a sucker for digital camo. I build a TCS Edge last year and printed some digital woodland on vinyl bumper sticker material, but when I saw the urban digital Freqeskinz I had to go for it. Actually ordered it before the Wraith.

And where's a good spot, preferably on the north side of Houston, to go play? The only place I know of around here (near the Woodlands) is where Riley Fuzzel crosses Spring Creek, and I haven't made it down there yet.

Let's see if this works...

My Wraith | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Yeah, there's a huge watermark since I'm cheap. If I find a better camera than my POS phone I might buy the software since it was pretty easy to figure out. I really like the way Sam bounced around.
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Old 03-27-2012, 06:04 PM   #17
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This video stuff is fun. Here's Sam's adventure through the jungle.

Axial Wraith onboard video - YouTube

Yeah, I know, I need to get out there and pull weeds around the pool... ok, I need to make the kids go pull weeds around the pool. Boy 1.0 has $200 worth of broken iPods to pay off and Boy 2.0 wants a Venom Creeper, so that'll take a bit off their bills.

I've had it with the stock shocks. This is the 4th set I've built and ALL of them have leaked like crazy. I stood in the garage looking at the pile of various metal and had a brief thought to grab some 3/4" 6061 round and make new bodies, but then I came to my senses and decided that my time is worth way more than what it would cost to go buy the things. Now I have to decide between Prolines and Big Bores. I know the Prolines are good stuff, I had a set on my Slash, but even the lightest springs are too heavy. I could hunt down some better springs, but it would take a while. The Traxxas shocks are good enough, but I wanted threaded bodies. Then I realized that the spacers are much easier to set the same and, if I remember right, the OD of the Big Bores is the same as the stock Slash shocks. That means the stock Wraith springs will fit with some minor mods to the seats. I'll probably chuck up some delrin round I have in the pile and make new ones just to give me something to do. I'm going to take a look at some TLR 22 upper shock mount bushings and see if they'll fit. I have a feeling they'll be a $4 solution to mounting Traxxas shocks on a Wraith.
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Old 03-29-2012, 08:22 PM   #18
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More stuff done. All the transmission gears are now some kind of metal (and loud as hell). The output gear fought being installed, but I won. There was nothing to center the gear and output shafts, so I turned a piece that presses into the rear output shaft and gear, centering them while it's all screwed together. Close enough to perfect now. Got the front LEDs soldered and installed with a switch on channel 3. I'm going to start the tail lights this weekend. I have the LEDs sitting here, but the switch won't be here until next week. BEC is now running the servo, ESC's BEC is running the receiver and LEDs. I think I've crammed 15 feet of wire in there over the last 2 days. The canvas top should be here Saturday, the brake light switch next week, and I'm hoping to have a chance to fetch some shocks tomorrow.
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Old 04-02-2012, 05:12 PM   #19
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More stuff done...

Crawler Innovations soft top (and a Wraith on a TJ):


I like the top, but it's a bit too heavy duty. A single layer of canvas, or, better yet, 2.8 oz ripstop, would have probably worked a bit better, but that would have taken more work. This will do for now.

Axial aluminum c-hubs and knuckles:


Traxxas xx-long Big Bore shocks with stock Wraith springs and 30wt oil:


The Big Bores bolt directly in with absolutely no mods whatsoever. The only hard part is getting the rubber bushings from the upper mount of the stock shocks into the smaller eyes on the Traxxas shocks. Just put a drop of shock oil on the bushing, smear it around, and cram it in there. The Losi parts I tried were too big, but look like they'll work nicely on Axial parts. Unlike stock Slash shocks, the Axial springs fit the Big Bores' perches perfectly, which meant I didn't have to spend hours turning new seats out of delrin. The lower eyes are exactly the right thing for the plastic shock mounts on the axle, but might be a bit narrow and need a shim for aluminum mounts as the balls are slightly narrower. The Big Bores aren't as easy to fill as Prolines or even Axials as the pistons are above the top of the bodies at full stuff, but it wasn't tough.

Last edited by SFT2; 04-03-2012 at 05:27 PM. Reason: Fixing borked pics... in theory
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Old 04-03-2012, 04:55 PM   #20
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Found a navigator. Blonde, big t... err, sidearm, and the right size (in theory). Works for me. Sam's been bugging me about hooking him up with a hot chicky snack. Got bored today and rewired the chunk of wiring from the Deans to the bullets on my packs with modular wiring. I was sick of the loops of 12 ga cable sticking up, so I cut out the extra. This would have been a nightmare with my old iron, but the Hakko made it a piece of cake. Love that iron. Next project is a small vacuum table so I can make a few things, mainly for the 37" twin motor cat I'm (slowly) building, but it'll also work to make a "tarp" for the back end that covers the battery and wiring. I wanted to make it out of some ripstop I have laying around waiting to magically turn into a digital camo tarp for my hammock, but that would make it a bit difficult to get to the battery. New plan is to make a mold with scrap wood and paper towels soaked in epoxy and draped over the wood, then vacuum form it out of lexan, stick magnets in the corners, and attach it with more magnets on the chassis. Quick, simple, and easily replicated if I need another one. For example, one with a bullet cam mount.

Oh yeah, did a little static tuning of the shocks. The chassis was listing to port pretty bad, so I started with a .315" clip on the left rear and a .158" and .076" on the left front. The others both got .158". So far so good, but if the chassis rolls under power too much I'll drain the right rear and go with 40 weight oil. I think I'm going to see about making a rear swaybar, too. I have a few Revo links stashed away somewhere so I should be able to figure something out.
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