Jato's SMT10

[chino]

Originally Posted by Jay-Em

3900kv will work fine. Pretty fast for a MT.

Keep an eye on the idler-gear, though. It's the first thing that always goes on my SCX-10 gearbox based rigs. I usually replace it with the HotRacing steel gear set (if I can get it overhere in Europe, which is rather problematic. Ordering in The States hits us só hard with tariffs, that the relatively expensive Axial steel gearset @ €49.- becomes "cheap" )

I never ran my SMT10 before putting in the brushless system on 3S. My idler gear went with literally the second pull of the throttle.

[JatoTheRipper]

The SMT10 should have come brushless ready. I hate to harp on this issue, but Traxxas offers their vehicles as brushless ready and they can take the power. It's obvious that Axial is going after Traxxas and other RTR manufacturers with the SMT10, but they kind of dropped the ball. After getting my Bomber RR10 kit last night I feel even stronger about this. The Bomber kit is stacked with upgrades (HD gears in the axles and trans, CVDs, all metal links, metal reinforcement plates for the trailing arms, etc).

[chino]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

The SMT10 should have come brushless ready. I hate to harp on this issue, but Traxxas offers their vehicles as brushless ready and they can take the power. It's obvious that Axial is going after Traxxas and other RTR manufacturers with the SMT10, but they kind of dropped the ball. After getting my Bomber RR10 kit last night I feel even stronger about this. The Bomber kit is stacked with upgrades (HD gears in the axles and trans, CVDs, all metal links, metal reinforcement plates for the trailing arms, etc).

If the inevitable kit comes with a plastic drivetrain, that'll be completely unforgivable. Swallowing the $400 price tag was difficult enough knowing that a good chunk of that was for licensing for a body I was never going to use. I'd really like to know what one of these would have cost with a generic pickup body rather than something from Monster Jam.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by chino

If the inevitable kit comes with a plastic drivetrain, that'll be completely unforgivable. Swallowing the $400 price tag was difficult enough knowing that a good chunk of that was for licensing for a body I was never going to use. I'd really like to know what one of these would have cost with a generic pickup body rather than something from Monster Jam.

I love the body. I probably wouldn't have bought it had it not been a Grave Digger themed truck. But they could have still give them RTR metal gears.

Do you want to sell your Grave Digger body?

[chino]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

I love the body. I probably wouldn't have bought it had it not been a Grave Digger themed truck. But they could have still give them RTR metal gears.

Do you want to sell your Grave Digger body?

I'm going to hold onto the body. It's away in a box with other miscellaneous RC stuff. There are so many RC items I've sold over the years that five years later I wish I still had. I've started hoarding

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by chino

I'm going to hold onto the body. It's away in a box with other miscellaneous RC stuff. There are so many RC items I've sold over the years that five years later I wish I still had. I've started hoarding

Haha! That sounds like me. I get attached to my RCs and it's hard selling them. And when I do sell them I often end up regretting it.

[chino]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

Haha! That sounds like me. I get attached to my RCs and it's hard selling them. And when I do sell them I often end up regretting it.

My biggest problem right now is the collection of discontinued RCs I have. They are all in working order, but I don't want to drive them as there are no parts available anymore. They aren't classics that hold any value, just a bunch of stuff from over the last decade. I don't know what to do with them.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by chino

My biggest problem right now is the collection of discontinued RCs I have. They are all in working order, but I don't want to drive them as there are no parts available anymore. They are classics that hold any value, just a bunch of stuff from over the last decade. I don't know what to do with them.

I was kind of doing that, but then I realized it was such a waste to me. I didn't drive them nor did I have them on display so it was a waste. RC's aren't really an investment and unless they're extremely rare they don't fetch much money. So I sold off some stuff.

[Jay-Em]

Originally Posted by chino

I never ran my SMT10 before putting in the brushless system on 3S. My idler gear went with literally the second pull of the throttle.

I ran the stock 27t for about two throttle pulls. Sloooooow... Then tried the Titan 12t . Pathetic! After that it got a LRP Stockspec 10.5. Too slow still. Then I put in a 4-pole 3000kv with the 16tooth pinion. Still too slow for me.

Finally I decided on the K4 8.5t 4300kv with a 15tooth pinion, and only after thàt, did the idler finally gave-in. That was after about an hour, maybe 1,5h of running with several motor/pinion combi's in high grass, severely rutted terrain, lotsa wheelies etc.

I guess some people are just unlucky. But after a few seconds grenading the idler? I would almost think there already was a fault in your idler, or a bearing missing? (Yes, that happens) Though, I have to admit. I am a mild basher. I don't chuck cars from roofs. I don't attempt any crawling with a non-crawler, or any really high jumping, ànd I adjusted the slipper for a bit.

I guess I baby it compared with what many bashers do to their cars.

At the moment my GD's innards are all steel. I guess the plastic drive-shafts are the next thing to go, if my Yeti is any indication. Sadly my Jun-Fac drive-shafts do not fit on the gearbox' outgoing shafts. They are júuuust a tad longer than the Wraith's. So the grub screw pin won't go through the cups. Bummer. I do not want to machine the outgoing shafts, if possible, and just grub-screws are a recepy for frustration.

Bottomline: Axial's somewhat faster offerings all have their niggles. Showing that Axial is still pretty new to the mad punishing that speed-craving bashers put their cars through. Keeping the old, rather stripping-prone scx10 stuff in the gearboxes of the SMT10 is..well.."somewhat ill-advised" I'd say.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by Jay-Em

Bottomline: Axial's somewhat faster offerings all have their niggles. Showing that Axial is still pretty new to the mad punishing that speed-craving bashers put their cars through. Keeping the old, rather stripping-prone scx10 stuff in the gearboxes of the SMT10 is..well.."somewhat ill-advised" I'd say.

Most of the parts on the SMT10 are from the Axial parts bin including everything in the driveline. There are no surprises here. We know the weak spots and Axial knows the weak spots. Why hasn't Axial addressed them after all these years? As you said, it was ill advised for them to keep the same, unreliable parts in this truck.

This truck is so slow on both 2S and 3S that it should be able to withstand anything we throw at it with the stock powerplant. That lots of people are having failures on the stock setup indicates this truck isn't up to snuff out of the box.

[chino]

Originally Posted by Jay-Em

I ran the stock 27t for about two throttle pulls. Sloooooow... Then tried the Titan 12t . Pathetic! After that it got a LRP Stockspec 10.5. Too slow still. Then I put in a 4-pole 3000kv with the 16tooth pinion. Still too slow for me.

Finally I decided on the K4 8.5t 4300kv with a 15tooth pinion, and only after thàt, did the idler finally gave-in. That was after about an hour, maybe 1,5h of running with several motor/pinion combi's in high grass, severely rutted terrain, lotsa wheelies etc.

I guess some people are just unlucky. But after a few seconds grenading the idler? I would almost think there already was a fault in your idler, or a bearing missing? (Yes, that happens) Though, I have to admit. I am a mild basher. I don't chuck cars from roofs. I don't attempt any crawling with a non-crawler, or any really high jumping, ànd I adjusted the slipper for a bit.

I guess I baby it compared with what many bashers do to their cars.

At the moment my GD's innards are all steel. I guess the plastic drive-shafts are the next thing to go, if my Yeti is any indication. Sadly my Jun-Fac drive-shafts do not fit on the gearbox' outgoing shafts. They are júuuust a tad longer than the Wraith's. So the grub screw pin won't go through the cups. Bummer. I do not want to machine the outgoing shafts, if possible, and just grub-screws are a recepy for frustration.

Bottomline: Axial's somewhat faster offerings all have their niggles. Showing that Axial is still pretty new to the mad punishing that speed-craving bashers put their cars through. Keeping the old, rather stripping-prone scx10 stuff in the gearboxes of the SMT10 is..well.."somewhat ill-advised" I'd say.

I hadn't even jumped it yet. I grabbed a finger full of throttle at about half speed and the idler gear went as soon as the front tires came a few inches off the ground. I don't remember if it was in my thread here or in a post I made on Facebook, but I remember noting in one of my posts that there was a slight bit of resistance in my tranny. When I had it out of the truck, the resistance could be felt by turning the spur gear with your fingers. I broke it down and checked everything. I didn't see anything glaring, but when it was reassembled, the resistance was still there. That might have contributed to the issue. I don't know. I've put hardened steel gears in with some marine grease and they're holding up just fine.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by chino

I hadn't even jumped it yet. I grabbed a finger full of throttle at about half speed and the idler gear went as soon as the front tires came a few inches off the ground. I don't remember if it was in my thread here or in a post I made on Facebook, but I remember noting in one of my posts that there was a slight bit of resistance in my tranny. When I had it out of the truck, the resistance could be felt by turning the spur gear with your fingers. I broke it down and checked everything. I didn't see anything glaring, but when it was reassembled, the resistance was still there. That might have contributed to the issue. I don't know. I've put hardened steel gears in with some marine grease and they're holding up just fine.

I think we can all agree that this truck is underbuilt out of the box even in the brushed, RTR state. Adding brushless is just going to tear it apart quickly. But I'm still going to do it!

[JatoTheRipper]

A little update on my SMT10 converting itself to RWD on the first battery pack. When I opened up the transmission I found the three screws sandwiching the bottom transmission gear between the outdrives had backed out. Apparently they don't use threadlock in China. I know I'm not the only person that has experience this issue. This caused a stripped bottom gear and the transmission case was also nicely gouged by something. So I replaced those parts from my stash. I immediately emailed Axial. It took them over a week to respond. Unacceptable. They stated they are backlogged right now. That's probably because they released this truck with lots of issues. They took an SCX10 transmission, which blows gears under the stress of 1.9 tires and they threw it in a monster truck with oversized 2.2 tires. Stupid move. Is it a shocker that it failed? Nope. All for the high price of $400. I told Axial I'd rather get a discount on upgrade parts instead of receiving the stock parts I already replaced. They said no. I've really never dealt with customer service this frustrating in all of RC. Even HobbyKing has given me better customer service. If this were a Horizon product they would have made it right immediately and even worked something out with me instead of insisting on sending the same, unreliable, plastic parts. I'm disgusted with Axial right now.

[Killerbyrd14]

Be better off buying a wraith kit and getting izilla chassis for around the same price with less headaches


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[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by Killerbyrd14

Be better off buying a wraith kit and getting izilla chassis for around the same price with less headaches


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I love this truck. It's by far my favorite Axial RC. It has flaws that it shouldn't have at the price point. And when customer service is slow to respond and then unwilling to work with you it's unforgivable to me.

Am I really asking too much here?

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[Killerbyrd14]

Lol. Do you think by buying the chassis at 100 it would be possible to build a bombproof at around same price as rtr?


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[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by Killerbyrd14

Lol. Do you think by buying the chassis at 100 it would be possible to build a bombproof at around same price as rtr?


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Obviously not. Nobody is asking for bombproof. But we all want to get more than a couple of battery packs on the stock truck before having issues. Look around the web, issues abound with this truck. Don't tell me that it can't be done. The Bomber RTR is the same price as the SMT10 and that thing has all metal gears.

[chino]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

Obviously not. Nobody is asking for bombproof. But we all want to get more than a couple of battery packs on the stock truck before having issues. Look around the web, issues abound with this truck. Don't tell me that it can't be done. The Bomber RTR is the same price as the SMT10 and that thing has all metal gears.

I'd really like to know how much of that $400 gets allocated to the cost of BKT and Monster Jam licensing. The price point of the bomber makes me think at least $50 is going to the licensing. Sorry to hear about your lousy customer service experience. What method are you using to contact them? I've reached out through Facebook messenger and have had excellent success and gotten free upgraded stuff to boot.

I also had the same problem with my transmission in regards to those three screws backing out.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by chino

I'd really like to know how much of that $400 gets allocated to the cost of BKT and Monster Jam licensing. The price point of the bomber makes me think at least $50 is going to the licensing. Sorry to hear about your lousy customer service experience. What method are you using to contact them? I've reached out through Facebook messenger and have had excellent success and gotten free upgraded stuff to boot.

I also had the same problem with my transmission in regards to those three screws backing out.

That's a good question. I would think there's also some sort of licensing fee with the RTR Bomber since it's a copy of Randy Slawson's truck and has the Bomber Fabrication logo all over it as well as the support sponsor stickers.

Thanks. Were you the one that made the YouTube video of it by chance? I contacted Axial via email and somebody named Collin responded to me.

[chino]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

That's a good question. I would think there's also some sort of licensing fee with the RTR Bomber since it's a copy of Randy Slawson's truck and has the Bomber Fabrication logo all over it as well as the support sponsor stickers.

Thanks. Were you the one that made the YouTube video of it by chance? I contacted Axial via email and somebody named Collin responded to me.

I've only put one video up on youtube and it was of my truck running and breaking the steering linkage (which Axial replaced for free with the aluminum upgrade).

I didn't even know the bomber was licensed until now, but either way, I'm going to guess that Monster Jam charged way more for the rights to their vehicles than whoever owns the 1:1 bomber design. The Grave Digger monster truck is arguably the most iconic vehicle in the history of all motor sports. The only one that might come close is Earnhardt's #3 car, and that's mostly due to Dale's fate.